While at times the album becomes so lightheaded it threatens to evaporate into nothingness, it is yet another dazzling achievement for the band.

More than any rock album in recent memory... this is a producer's creation.

A strong batch of Dylanesque songs.

This may be a more mature effort, but in places that sound is ordinary and unadventurous.

The songs are catchy and listenable, but Samson's lyrics lack the depth of songs like 'Benediction' or 'A New Name for Everything' on its predecessor.

A record which adheres closely to the formula but fails to generate any sort of spark from it.

While the depression accompanying a relationship breakup comes through, several tracks lose their quirkiness in the studio setting.

The performances are all good, but E’s voice is alarmingly scratchy.

If this collection weren't intended as a nearly comprehensive catch-all, it could have benefited from being pared down to two discs. Nevertheless, it offers a convincing alternative overview of Cave's work, covering all the stylistic points and diversions on his epic journey.

The songs on In Exile Deo are her strongest yet.

The songs are not as strong overall as on her previous albums, and the tempo neither flags nor picks up over the course of the album.

The slower numbers (“Ha Ha High Babe,” “Shade of Blue”) rely less on showy atmosphere and more on loose guitar accents, which makes the whole affair earthier, rawer, more real.

The song selection is choice, and his band handles the solo material well enough (especially on “I Have Forgiven Jesus” and a showstopping “You Know I Couldn’t Last”), but a smattering of Smiths oldies doesn't help.

To their vast credit, even if the songs resemble a greatest hits package of indie rock, each guitar break, each bridge comes alive with experimental toughness.

The three- guitarist approach brings back the spark and rush of their 1988-'94 peak.

A prototypical Damien Jurado album, this is a quietly excellent, straightforward collection of songs performed without much muss or fuss but with great empathy and feeling.

The imperfections in Farrar's singing can be distracting at times, but the implacable force of his delivery trumps wobbly pitch every time.

Like all great garage rock, it all sounds the same, but that doesn’t matter.

Introduces a delectable bit of shoegazery energy and distortion to sharpen up the lulling Ivy groove.

The French Kicks have changed dramatically and not always for the better.

This is The Coral at its best: tight and stimulating, earthy and radiant.

An album’s worth of excellent songs performed with gusto.

Unfortunately, his lyrics don't measure up; he writes songs that repeat a phrase or two in lieu of any sort of finished thought.

Every song is compelling.

Architecture in Helsinki's penchant for simple, driven melodies and gentle, nurturing jam sessions underscore one essential truth about this type of glossy, polyrhythmic music: the thin, bittersweet textures are always anchored to a syncopated bass line.

If Hayes had let her disparate styles duke it out a little more, some of the material that tends to run together might have been thrown into sharper relief and become more memorable for it.

Some of the bridges still get hazy, and a few songs sound like each other, but for the most part, the guitars revel in their unleashed electricity and the rhythms are layered, propulsive and paradoxically so anchored they seem free.

MGMT's first long-player may have included catchier singles, but Congratulations is the better album, trading Oracular's deceptive superficiality for psychedelic grandeur. Of course, like all psychedelic things, that grandeur is pretty deceptive, too.