Birthdays is so fragile and broken that listening to it without signing some kind of non-disclosure agreement feels borderline voyeuristic.

Happy to You is an album that aims for commercial appeal, so there is a noticeable push and pull between prescribed pop and the eclectic electro that the team is known for, but the songs that land in the dead center have a nice even balance.

Edward Sharpe & the Magnetic Zeros have crafted a love letter to Laurel Canyon and all of its quasi-mystic juju that is as infuriatingly contrived and retro as it is forward-thinking and majestic.

What saves it from being nothing but thirtysomething wish fulfillment is that this move toward goth-glam requires 30 Seconds to emphasize hooks and gives them aural variety, which doesn’t make them seem any more serious but does make them considerably more palatable.

Droll humor is not Bazan's bailiwick, and in spite of some of Blanco's near-misses, it's nice to hear him put down the guitar and insert himself into less familiar environs.

This is what Pavement would have sounded like if they became the equivalent of Sebadoh, cranking out a version of Slanted & Enchanted each year, turning out records that satisfy listeners that want Pavement without unpredictability, humor, diversity and, yes, mess - without SM Jenkins, that is.

Straying far from home, Tomahawk Technique isn't an awful Sean Paul album, but it is an odd one.

Although this is hardly Underworld at their finest, the duo's songwriting fits the mainstream productions and results in a solid dance album for the 2010s--music for aging-raver activities like driving cars, pushing swings, or jogging on treadmills.

While Heloise & the Savoir Faire don't come close to the effortless flair that Blondie had with mixing these styles, Trash, Rats and Microphones still has enough, well, savoir faire to make it worth adding to the mix.

Despite solid songwriting, glimmering production, and a broad palette of emotions, Breathe shows the Leaves' potential more than anything else.

The Pretenders' eighth studio album, Loose Screw, is their first on an independent label after 20 years with Warner, but the switch hasn't made any difference in the group's style.

The material is arranged chronologically, but beyond that, one set of tunes stumbles into another without making sense of their different sonic and musical characteristics as Iggy's backing bands (none of whom are credited) and musical approaches shift from concert to concert throughout this set, leaving Roadkill Rising in dire need of some sense of focus.

When he isn't heating up the dance floor with unlikely guests, Bracegirdle constructs spacy ambient tracks that cool things down.

Pure Heroine seems to hint at the truth... but the truth is, Lorde is a pop invention as much as LDR and is not nearly as honest about her intentions.

Amid the many features and incredible dynamism that mark every UNKLE full-length, there are no songs to grab onto and little of real essence.

Wretched & Divine is a solid album of neo-hard rock that might just be the thing your inner Crüe fan has been looking for..

While Butler may have the chops to captain his own ship, he'll need to put some more water behind him before he can successfully steer the beast into port.

The Machine Stops sounds like Hawkwind--a diluted version of what they sounded like at their peak, to be sure, but still Hawkwind, as eccentric and individual as ever.

While some of Constellations lulls a bit, seven-minute suite "Steerage and the Lamp," a snow flurry of Lowe's rolling piano arpeggios accentuated by subtle strings, captures the classical wonderment of Balmorhea at its finest.

Player Piano offers enough of Hawk's characteristically inventive sonic tinkering -- including, the title notwithstanding, an intriguing emphasis on organ sounds -- to merit repeated listens, even if these productions do sound worrisomely flat at times.

It is a more stripped-down affair compared to Broken Social Scene's more ambitious material.

It's not quite focused enough to place among the best of his other work.

Calamity is slightly inconsistent and could be described as a hit-or-miss affair, but the hits outnumber the misses.

Best of the lot is "Isn't That Enough," built on a loping riddim in the mold of Sly & Robbie's work on Grace Jones' cover of "Nightclubbing," though Khan is uninhibited and impassioned, as always. Even when a surplus of synthesizers, organs, and flame-throwing guitars threaten to overtake her elsewhere, she cuts straight through with full-tilt, life-affirming power.

Recalling names like Tomberlin and especially Julien Baker, Ellis' melodies are much less memorable than her plaintive sentiments, likely limiting Born Again's appeal to the heavyhearted.

This is a middle-of-the-road pop album pure and simple, arriving perhaps two years too late but it nevertheless proves that Archuleta has the chops to fill the space between commercials on the airwaves.

Rkives rounds up existing rarities--several B-sides and demos--and six unheard songs, plus a remix featuring Too $hort. That is the most radical shift in sound on Rkives but there are hints of the glitzy bombast of Blacklight scattered throughout the collection.

Alternating between fingerpicked acoustic and electric, the remaining tracks are hardly deficient of introverted charm, but with the exception of the semi-propulsive 'Rebecca,' the pace is sluggish at best, resulting in a collection of songs best listened to in threes, or all at once with one's forehead pressed against the window waiting for the rain to pass.