But other selections feel more like skeletal sketches than finished songs, composed of interesting components but short on fully developed ideas and momentum. Great stuff for background noise at a party, or in a TV commercia, but not necessarily compelling headphone fare.

The band members unleash meditative, self-consciously poetic jams, solidifying their status as the hipster's Phish.

White Pepper may make listeners put off by Ween's crudeness give them another chance.

At nearly an hour and a quarter, the album does feel a little long, especially when it falls prey to the ponderousness that made Adore drag...

Some of Hatfield's best work ever... [v]irtually every track here is memorable, and often heart-rending, revolving around Hatfield's strengths as an artist: her baby-girl voice; her frank, naive lyrics; and her acoustic melodies.

Bright, punchy, and well crafted, it slathers an extra layer of grinding guitars on top of the Vol. One sound while maintaining the group's melodic trademarks.

Though his voice and attitude crosses Pet Shop Boy Neil Tennant's nasally histrionics with Gary Numan's clinical whelp, [Brian] Molko generally keeps his guitar playing tight and tough with Gothic overtones.

Jones' fans may be disappointed at the lack of original material and the shortness of the set -- just over 37 minutes -- but as a showcase for the singer's interpretive talents, it's dynamite.

An energetic and ambitious collection-

It gets tiresome, sure, but should this Dogg be put to sleep? Not yet. He's still coming up with funky beats and rhymes (like every single day).

Lyrically, they've got a ways to go.... That said, Alien Ant Farm shows some real potential.

The record succeeds on the strength of Williams' tremendously appealing musical personality and her winning songs.

It's just, well, it's just another Depeche Mode album -- a solid near-hour's worth of moody, darkly insidious tunes about such time-honored topics as love, death, and pain... and love and death.

Though clever in origin, once these sounds have been identified, the songs themselves are rarely compelling enough to prompt return visits.

One of the group's most adventurous outings...

And while there's a temptation to write this -- and Martin -- off as just another pop-tart confection reprising a proven sonic formula, the fact remains that the singer and his cohorts craft music that's undeniably engaging, tuneful, and, quite often, lots of fun.

Halfway Between the Gutter and the Stars won't prompt the inauguration of a Nobel Prize category for dance music, but like Armand Van Helden's Killing Puritans and the Chemical Brothers' 1999 gem Surrender, its another great example of a maturing dance artist learning to harness the ecstatic abandon of late night dance floor epiphanies to sentiments -- musical and emotional -- inventive and universal enough to flourish in the light of day.

Pretty self-indulgent and insular, sounding at times like it was made for its creators' pleasure and little else.

Rock affirms that he is no overnight sensation...

Well-constructed but largely uninspiring... Its lyrics offer little that's dynamic or artful, so what are listeners really left with? Decent melodies, to be sure, and nicely produced tracks... But deep down, the music and lyrics rarely match up, and few songs establish a mood for long enough to hang your heart on.

Enter Faith and Courage, an album that reclaims O'Connor's status and stature as it presents us with a kinder, gentler, and matured artist who still sings like a wily archangel and writes with passionate, purposeful clarity.

Destiny's Child vamps, stamps, and oozes its way through a set of sparely arranged showcases for its layered vocal weave...

Like so many of Master P's own productions, the music here stems almost completely from synthesizers, a fact that diminishes the potency of the grooves on My World, My Way. With so many of the right elements in place on tracks like "Beef" and "Uh Ha," it's a shame to hear cheesy synth lines where a shattering bass should have been.

When Mullins hits his mark (as he often does on Beneath the Velvet Sun), the results constitute Southern-flavored pop at its finest. Just don't expect your world to be rocked by lyrical insights or musical innovation.

A deeply contemplative album...

Working from a crate stuffed with quality cuts that blur the lines between trance, techno, and tribal house, Oakenfold deliberately showcases selections that err on the melancholy or contemplative side... Contrasted against the sometimes formulaic feel of Oakenfold's other comps, this is a stellar reminder of why he's remained a superstar for so long in a genre that's notorious for its short attention span.

It seems that the usual brilliant, blunted band has been replaced by an upbeat upstart that's only recently discovered this thing called funk, while also becoming increasingly enamored by rap -- all at the expense of its sultry, seductive star vocalist, Skye Edwards...

Van Helden's compositional modus operandi doesn't vary much between the 11 tracks, but it's a combination that rarely fails to deliver a knockout punch. He introduces one element -- a vocal snippet or a jazzy drum break -- and milks it for a spell, before introducing a contrasting timbre. The two begin to climb in and around each other, as Van Helden tweaks and twists various effects, bringing the music and momentum to a dizzy, unsettling pitch.