This is a rare talent and while it's not perfect, largely due to those dreary Tedder tunes, much of All I Ever Wanted does justice to Clarkson's considerable skills.

Midnight at the Movies plays more like a subtle step forward for Justin Townes Earle than a quantum leap, but if the "The Good Life" suggested he was a talent to watch, this record confirms that he's a new writer to be reckoned with who doesn't need to trade on his family name.

It's just a solid album, and just another example of Boeckner and Perry's tingling creative chemistry.

Taken as a whole, Not Without a Fight is a pleasant listen, mature in its outlook, and happily adolescent in its vigor.

Where experimentation with layered instruments enhanced the grandness of "Happy Hollow," here it's taken one step overboard with additional flute, clarinets, and violin arrangements added on top of the supplementary horn section, to the point of making this their lightest, earthiest release to date.

Oldham's brand of folk music is certainly old enough and weird enough, but there are noticeably fewer moments of beauty and fewer lyrical revelations than on his best material.

Repeated listens help to sort things out, though, and the subtle shadings of Grrr... do become more apparent the more you listen--in fact, the album is a perfect example of the old rock crit cliche "The Grower."

Best summed up as a deranged Mardi Gras (the cover art is perfect), it's a strange little album, and surprising that something so alienating and overwhelming could also be so utterly listenable.

Adult Nights is an engaging debut from a band that wears its sunny California influences as well as if they were born and bred there.

If you are patient, there is more than enough here to hold your attention and take you on journeys through love, lust, tragedy, and longing and bring you home again.

They're in a slump with their songwriting, and subject-wise, every song here has a companion piece on some earlier album, but that doesn't mean the party is spoiled.

Royksopp remain among the best at middlebrow dance-pop, crafting music that can and will rule the supermarket aisles while still having a shelf-life longer than the canned ham you'll find there.

Two Suns is nearly as graceful and poetic as Bat for Lashes' best work; it's just that the album's massive concepts and sounds require a little more time and patience to unravel to get to the songs' hearts.

It's a weird blend of power-driven grunge and melancholy: a fever dream that sweats out weary sadcore as it primitively pounds out acid rock drudge.

Fortunately, even the album's least obvious moments are well worth deciphering, and the emotional connection Sholi make on almost every track raises the band from merely impressive to very promising.

This is a solid, consistent date all the way through that is evidence of McBride's long chart success.

Listeners who have managed to remain immune to the trio's idiosyncratic brand of "thespian rock" will no doubt find much of Enemy Mine unlistenable. That said, fans of manic melodies, bohemian pageantry, and synapse melting lyricism have no greater modern champions than Bejar, Krug, and Mercer.

So the Obits might just have the stuff to save rock & roll, or at least keep it off life support for a while, but as good as I Blame You may be, they're going to have to get their songwriting chops in order before they can really finish the job.

There's a lot to admire in Here We Go Magic's dreamy, hazy melodies, and it's easy to get lost in the repetitive, minimalist guitar strumming that centers half of the tracks.

While the instrumentals give cause for heads to silently nod in appreciation, only a few tracks break away to make this something other than music suited for the background.

On this return to simpler times and the childish wide-eyed beauty of youth, Marsalis has struck a chord with those awkward, precious times in a way that adults can appreciate.

There may be a bit too much classic good taste on Quiet Nights--there is no reinterpretation, only homage--but that's not quite a problem because Krall knows enough to lay back, to never push, only to glide upon the gossamer surface.

The pleasure of the popcraft outweighs much of the caution in the construction, especially when the insistent hooks are delivered with such puppy-dog earnestness by Taylor Hanson.

Having released enough singles and compilation tracks to warrant a collection of them, Owen Ashworth pulls them together on the enjoyable Advance Base Battery Life, pure catnip for committed fans but not without interest to those unfamiliar with Casiotone for the Painfully Alone's way around understated, enveloping electronic pop.

Most of Lily Perdida is charming--it's like these songs were always within Mitchell's reach, but were buried underneath processing and slower tempos in his earlier work, and they're bursting out here.

I Can Wonder What You Did with Your Day is a solid addition to the catalog of one of the best underrated singer/songwriters around.

Fork in the Road is charmingly clunky, a side effect of its quick creation and Young's hard-headedness. Neil might be writing records as quickly as a blogger these days but musically he's stuck in the past, never letting go of his chunky Les Paul and candied folk harmonies.

Not every moment on Slow Dance is this transporting, but it still has its share of fascinating moments.

Grand Duchy have enough fun on the album that more often than not, it's contagious.

Songs whir and whoosh under the production of Michael Patterson (Beck, Ladytron), as thumping kicks, snares, and fuzz basslines keep the dream pop in time.

At her best, like on the slow-burn opener 'I Hate the Way,' the lovelorn Xanax and sambuca anthem 'Other Too Endless,' and the rousing single 'Nitrogen Pink,' she successfully bridges the gap between teen pop and adult alternative rock, but when she gets stuck in the confessional too long, the results are more indulgent than powerful.

Bun E's very presence suggests that Tinted Windows might have a bit of Cheap Trick's feverish rock & roll, but the group errs on the side of caution, the product of a bunch of longtime veterans getting back to basics and playing their first love. While the former cancels out the latter ever so slightly--there's not much abandon here, only precision--the pleasure of the popcraft outweighs much of the caution in the construction, especially when the insistent hooks are delivered with such puppy-dog earnestness by Taylor Hanson.

Potato Hole isn't a slab of greasy Stax soul, either. It is what it is, a new Booker T. Jones album, and hopefully it won't take another 20 years to get to the next one.

Spinning through 29 tracks in just under 50 minutes, Scott Herren's sixth proper LP as Prefuse 73 offers more of the same musical madness for fans of his no-attention-span cut-ups--and that's a good thing.

Such tunes may not have suited the bittersweet beauty of Stairs, but they're quite good in their own right, making The Open Door EP something more than a fans-only release.

Even though Cryptacize remain difficult to pin down, the chances they take on Mythomania bring them a little bit closer to reach.

Remind Me Where the Light Is ultimately concludes as the luminous successor to "Trading Twilight for Daylight"--bright where that album was nocturnal, open-armed where "Twilight" was introspective, and altogether illustrative of Great Northern's growth as songwriters and performers.

As bold and listenable as it is, Primary Colours is occasionally scattered, giving the impression that the band is trying on different sounds for size--although the fact that most of it works so well is actually more surprising than how different it is than their earlier work.

Roadsinger is an utterly solid catalog entry under either his adopted spiritual name or his former one. Longtime fans will not be disappointed, and the rest of us should take note, too, because this kind of songcraft is seldom come by anymore.

Chrisette, naturally, sounds outstanding throughout, as a supernaturally talented vocalist whose songs are nonetheless easily relatable to anyone going through a breakup--or, to a significantly lesser extent here, newfound love--but the album could have really used more rhythmic punch than a token throwback strutter.

This is a back to basics effort with no superstar Lil Wayne guest shot, and plenty of mixtape flavored production mostly from the hands of Skitzo or araabMUZIK.

Sewn Together suggests that the Meat Puppets are following their bliss again, and if it's not quite up to the standards of their classic material, there's no question that it reconnects with the qualities that made them so special.

High on Jackson Hill doesn't quite trump "Fables" the way that album outclassed its precursor, but it's hardly accurate to call this a disappointment.

Cryptomnesia is a tough, rugged, and wildly ambitious set of far-reaching--sometimes overly so--compositions reflecting the rapid growth of one of the new century's most genuinely talented and visionary musicians.

For fans of Andrew Kenny's past work, Magnolia is a sobering counterpart to American Analog's gentle buzz, a soundtrack for those moments in which dreams give way to the slow ascent of morning.

Compilations can be tricky to assemble, but Around the Well is both comprehensive and conveniently presented, with each disc representing the two amorphous halves of Iron & Wine's career.

Yours Truly is more cohesive than many of those past albums, a comforting hybrid of west coast beauty and stark, isolationist expanse that bodes well for his solo career.

Following on from a much earlier collaborative single, the first full-length effort pulling together Modeselektor and Apparat--despite a name that suggests a Depeche-loving rodent--has plenty to offer without entirely being a full-on slam dunk.

Everything about Amanda Leigh is just a shade too precise--the production too transparent, the singing too on the nose, the mood too subdued--to achieve the homespun quality Moore so cherishes, but a large part of Mandy's appeal is her good taste and her clean way with a song, something that is readily apparent and often winning on Amanda Leigh.

On Eating Us, Black Moth Super Rainbow prove that they can grow up a little without growing boring, and still deliver exactly the same amount of unhealthy sweetness as before.

Where "Avenue B" was a pretentious mess, Preliminaires is flawed but significantly more successful.

Despite the occasional stuffiness, there's a lot of good material here and it's all executed well, but it's hard not to shake the feeling that this is a collection of leftovers masquerading as a main course.

This large, cavernous sound camouflages the lingering emo elements which largely surface in the angst-mining lyrics, as well as the occasional bellow, and even if this lack of stridency may alienate some longtime followers, this gleaming pop-punk makeover is the band at its most immediate and easy to enjoy.

Wolf has often stated that he has no allegiance to styles when it comes to recording, but The Bachelor feels most alive when it's wallowing in its own dusky ruin.

It's a fair guess that he has a workshop full of chorus, flange, and delay pedals from that era at his disposal, considering that every instrument and vocal line is run through one effect or another, making most of the album unintelligible or indecipherable, but it's just that limitless, everything-including-the-kitchen-sink way of working that makes Blank Dogs so special and interesting.

Rancid's been doing this a long time and while they'll never recapture the exact same power and glory they exuded in the '90s', on Let the Dominos Fall they show they've got more than enough of each to get by in grand style.

It's an ambitious album that finds Miller really stretching himself as a songwriter, but it's hard not to wish there were more songs like the nervy 'If It's Not Love' on board to help the medicine go down.

It's unrelentingly grim, relieved only by Snider's dark humor.

Roadhouse Sun sounds like he's still making his "Greetings from Asbury Park"--the kind of record whose clunkers are obvious enough to put a chink into the album's very real virtues.

There's no lack of artists making similar sounding music--MGMT, Pop Levi, White Williams, and even Animal Collective come to mind--but Miike Snow is ambitious and fun enough that they're worth checking out.

Even if People or the Gun does nothing to break new barriers musically, fans of their early work will be pleased to hear a return to form.

While Fake Surfers might not have the immediate impact of Finberg's earlier albums, but it takes his music in some bold directions without losing its smart-alecky, catchy-despite-itself essence.

One hears a variety of influences on this 2009 release, including no wave, psychedelic rock, art rock, 1980s post-punk, Brit-pop, and even folk at times; all of those influences serve Clues well, and all of them add to the intrigue on their promising debut album.

Harmonium gets tiresome toward the end. However, fans of light, clean, crisp and non-threatening psychedelia--as in '60s children's TV music, library music, groovy instrumentals with a flute lead, etc.--will be delighted, and rightfully so.

Despite the delay, Dark Night of the Soul shows what a talent and what a generous collaborator we lost in Mark Linkous.

Spinnerette also feels a bit overcooked at times, possibly because of the long time it took to make. At its best, however, Spinnerette shows what Dalle can do outside of the Distillers' context, and suggests that maturity and life after punk rock can actually be fun.

Anyone expecting a courageous game changer will be disappointed by all the swaggering, sexual bragging, and irresponsible pimping the duo frontload onto the effort, but coming to terms with the overall weekend attitude is quick and easy, thanks to rock-solid hooks and Quik's production.

By sacrificing grit, some of the charm that made the debut a success is lost along the way, but the sleeker production is only a minor setback and some of the songs onboard are Deer Tick's best thus far.

Pentatonic Wars and Love Songs ends up being an urgent, stubborn, and sometimes overly dark view of love in all of its unavoidable permutations. In other words, it's exactly the kind of album of love songs you'd expect from Taylor, one that is direct and as baffling as it is challenging.

Moby's most unified and understated album, and all the better for it, Wait for Me is a morose set of elegantly bleary material, quite a shift from the hedonistic club tracks of "Last Night."

It captures him as a working musician, pushing his first album hard, trying to get his name and music known, not caring about anything outside of the moment--all things that offer a potent, stirring reminder of Buckley's power and grace.

This dogged sense of purpose does result in a tighter, better record than Something to Be and even it's not a lot of fun, it's not meant to be: it's big music about big issues, even inflating personal issues to the universal.

As far as debut albums go, Until the Earth Begins to Part may not be as important as it thinks it is, but it certainly delivers the promise of greatness.

The Blackout thunder and squall through a batch of songs that deal with the usual topics of heartbreak, betrayal, isolation, and frustration with romance and society and have a familiar sound (sweetly sung vs. rabidly screamed vocals, heavy riffing, cavernous drums, and great walls of processed guitars), but generally have a fresh and vigorous feel that keeps things hopping throughout.

At the end of the day, the best single word for describing Static Tensions is "unpredictable," and although this characteristic may demand a few more listens before the album's many amazing qualities can sink in properly, the ultimate payoff is very much worth the effort.

Given the fact that the Dead Weather formed on a whim and recorded these songs in a matter of weeks, Horehound is a compelling album, and one that shows that the band's members bring out the best in each other, albeit in unexpected ways.

Those who weren't so sure about the Bowerbirds before might change their tune with this release--Upper Air is a luminous, wild-eyed affair, and a solid second album to boot.

While some fans of his early work may be left behind, most people who enjoy witty songs with tender emotion behind them will be satisfied with Catacombs and happy with the direction he's headed.

Maybe by the time the next album rolls along it might be time to stretch a bit and get away from the sound they've cobbled together, but for now I Was a King sounds just about right to anyone who is a fan of the history of noisy guitar pop of the last 20 years.

((Un)) is a very impressive first record that shows tons of promise. If Black can keep the right amount of wonky in his pop, he could do something truly wonderful.

"Electronica that falls somewhere between rock and dance" is probably the best way to sum up Freeland's Cope.

Not quite as much fun, but still fun.

The stories are told over attractive folk/country/rock arrangements, which to some extent ameliorate the gloom.

Not everything works--Tisdale isn't convincing when she tries to deal in either pain or carnality, but when she sticks to the surface, she makes sure that Guilty Pleasure lives up to its title.

Though her voice has yet to fully develop and lacks the uniqueness running through her bloodline, it's clear she landed a major-label contract on the basis of her talent.

Jeremih's charmingly sly voice, somewhere between One Twelve's Slim and a young Raphael Saadiq, is hard to not like, especially when he tempers his cockiness with a little sensitivity.

Where 2006's "As Daylight Dies" hinted at an accelerated focus on the more melodic aspects of extreme metal, Killswitch Engage cements the notion.

Sound may have a slight edge over the originally released version of this material, if only because it's truer to the band's initial intentions, and Dandy diehards will certainly find it worth checking out, but more casual fans who already own Monkey House can probably skip it unless they're looking for an intriguing lesson in the nuances of mixing.

Even if it's a little less lively, it's still pretty typical Clutch: always heavy, always solid, and ideal background music for driving a semi-truck through a swamp.

this hodgepodge approach should certainly bring Alexisonfire some U.S. rock radio airplay, especially such standout tracks as the leadoff single, 'Young Cardinals,' as well as the album-opening 'Old Crows,' 'The Northern,' and the surprisingly tranquil and sweetly sung album closer, 'Burial.'

The Ruminant Band is generally a happy affair, though, and cameo appearances by Califone's Tim Rutili and Jim Becker help chart the Fruit Bats' migration from bedroom side project to full-fledged band.

Because the album is so continuously lush and candy-coated with a shoegaze gleam, no particular song really sticks out. Instead, hooks surface slowly from the electro-wash, rewarding repeated listens.

Sugar Ray can sometimes try too hard to seem younger than their years, pushing the dance beats a little bit too hard, and Mark McGrath relies on some unseemly Auto-Tune, but even with this too-evident aural botox, the group remains a guilty pleasure that's a bit hard to resist.

Creaturesque's subtler pleasures may require more time to sink in than the impulsive skinny-dip plunge of its predecessor, but fans of classic-styled melodic indie rock will find it every bit as summery and inviting as the backyard swimming pool on the cover, and well worth the wade.

It is also one of the strongest senses of true ambient music as originally proposed, where volume is secondary to overall impact.

That eagerness to sell out can be grating, especially when her 2009 debut slides into glassy ballads, but fortunately she's also picked up (perhaps unwittingly) on the underlying oddness of Aguilera and Perry, turning out purportedly mainstream pop that puts together familiar ingredients in weird ways.

Even if he doesn't quite have the vocal presence to fully inhabit this stage, his taste and melodic skills are suited for this bigger scale so My Old, Familiar Friend winds up as an effective showcase for his craftsmanship even if it never quite grabs ahold the way "Lapalco" did.

Most of the album stays true to a light flavor, and Welcome Joy is a nice, comfortable listen, right up there with "Invitation Songs."