On every tune, Mercer packs more hooks and melodic invention than most bands do on one album. As a whole, it's an even better record than Inverted World.

With Extraordinary Machine, she shatters already sky-high expectations.

Turns out those hypothetical comparisons to Sgt. Pepper's weren't so far off the mark.

The disc is truly beautiful on the ears, filled with gorgeous dynamics, crisp, discordant playing and impressive production to boot.

Zep faithful will welcome the belated release as evidence for enduring loyalty, but younger fans may find its diversity and dynamics even more enlightening.

Out of Nothing is a truly exceptional album.

Carpenter reestablishes herself not only as a world-class poet, but as an artist of the first order.

Out of Season creates a dreamily sinister otherworld that's both vintage and timeless. [Amazon UK review]

Coyne is a shrewd observer of human nature, and an even shrewder songwriter and this album stands as his greatest and most varied work yet.

His richest and most consistently satisfying release since the late '80s.

Don't expect a derivative mash of smudgy, nostalgia-filching sounds, though, because despite its retro leanings, what's in store somehow crackles with currency.

Shock Value is a far-reaching and ambitious disc; a masterpiece, even, in its own way.

Say what you will about influences on sleeves, this is pop music at its best: nostalgic and angst-ridden, but ultimately life-affirming. Shout Out Louds have found a winning formula.

Lush, impossibly mature.

His unsentimental, voluptuously masculine, spirit-guided magic is captured at its best, for all time, in this magnificent farewell.

Westerberg's not making sensitive statements or trying to write a pop song as good as "Alex Chilton" here. As such, it's the best music he's made in years.

There's not a weak moment on this dark-horse gem of a disc.

Brilliantly melds the aural imagery of Andrew Hill's '60s Blue Note classic Judgment! with contemporary electronica effects.

One of 2003's best releases.

Frayed, fuzzy and undeniably excellent.

Van Lear Rose exceeds all expectations, a bold collaboration in which artists from two different musical universes forge a memorable work that neither could have created alone.

Truly remarkable... Fans of Fela and the Ethiopiques discs will dig this, as will fans of the Notwist, Prefuse 73 and Aphex Twin.

A stylish tour de force.

West magically sledgehammers home his opinions on taboo topics over beats that are equally daring.

Whether you’re a newcomer to Chasny’s sublime psychedelic folk or were a fan from the get-go and own all the limited editon vinyl, no one could possibly be disappointed with this album.

This is music you listen to when drugs don't work anymore.

Late Registration can't replicate the novelty of last year's College Dropout, but otherwise, this is an impressively more mature and labored-over album.

It takes a few listens to sink in, but Everything is transcendent, shimmering, layered, and smartass emo-pop fully ready for stadium saturation.

You're presently reading about what may be the best album of 2007, hands down, by the most under-accorded American musical genius.

A fabulous collection of delirious, dizzy alt-pop.

She is still in the forefront of genre-transcending artistry.

An album that is as fiercely imaginative as any the Sacramento-based group has released before.

Her uncanny, often eccentric lyrics have always been delivered with an inherent passion behind the impulse, but rarely have they approached the boldness of these dozen.

Dust is an atmospheric tour de force that doesn't just come from left field, it breaks through the outfield wall.

No one can breath breezy, sun-splashed melodies into three-minute fits of aggravation and despair quite like songwriting maestro Joe Pernice.

Almost wholly brilliant.

A knockout punch.

What we have here is easily Mr. Young's finest work in years, one that erases the memory of his well-intentioned but anemic 2006 protest album, "Living with War."

This set stands alongside Waits's finest work.

The Flaming Lips' particular and peculiar genius comes to full fruition on the stupendous The Soft Bulletin.

As with all great country music, exquisite execution, splendid sound, and depth of feeling combine to create a cathartic, redemptive result.

Not since the days of The Tom Tom Club, Bananarama, and "Lucky Star"-era Madonna, has dance-pop been this fun, this bouncy, this unabashedly optimistic.

This destined-to-be-classic release will please a wide variety of his fans.

Everything about this album moves the duo up a level.

Some of the dreamiest pop to emerge on the U.S. side of the pond in recent years.

It's difficult to think of a more compelling sophomore record by a young singer-songwriter, Norah included.

The singer's whiskey-stained voice infuses those words with a fierce mix of pride, hurt, resignation, sadness, strength, and humility--traits that make her one of the finest R&B singers of her generation. There are other riveting moments rivaling that from this deeply moving set.

Amidst all the fun is a dynamic record that holds your attention.

A masterly exercise in restraint, subtle sophistication, and melodic playfulness.

Rootsy and undeniable, The Intercontinentals is yet another Frisellian work of genius.

Happiness in Magazines is riddled with glorious pop songs, and in a sane world would yield several hit singles. [Amazon UK]

Wildflower moves Sheryl Crow one step closer to Hall of Fame status.

Positively radiant.

The sharpest, most assured, and best record of her solo career.

Emancipation works the kind of pure-pop magic that sets us all free.

Fabulous.

Intelligent, interesting, honest, diverse and ever so slightly screwed up--what more could you want from a rock 'n' roll record? [Amazon UK review]

In drawing on the theatrical, macro-orchestrations reminiscent of Scott Walker and expanding on the slapdash, quirky, musical humor of the Red Krayola's Mayo Thompson, this album reaches another peak for Bejar and is one of Destroyer's best works yet.

The singer's gentle vocals and Spanish-meets-classical guitar style make a quietly compelling match, especially so on his sophomore CD In Our Nature, easily the best work--either as a solo or contributing vocalist--that he has released to date.

West may well be her best album. It is easily her most musically adventurous, and often her most lyrically inspired.

It's what Sigur Ros might sound like if they came from Arizona, and it's truly excellent.

It's a stunning, confident piece of work that suggests the band is merely getting started.

The Beekeeper returns the quirky singer to the same whimsical terrain of 1992's Little Earthquakes, but with much stronger storylines, and a much more assured and nuanced voice.

Persson, the finest pop lyricist working today, is on peak form while the band's back-to-roots grand piano and grander acoustic guitars provide an appropriately magnificent backing.

A record that is wholly satisfying: not too overwrought and never self-assuredly slick.

Keyshia Cole proves for a second time--for sure and way beyond the shadow of a doubt--that she's headed for Mary J. Blige-style hugeness.

His talents and the heart he puts into his writing, singing, and picking remain at their peak. This stellar collection proves it--four times over.

Their songs are infectious, silly and often weirdly beautiful.

The album serves as both an ambitious travelogue and as a graceful rejoinder to the bitterness and frustration that inspired it, with Amos wading through swells of sadness ("I Can't See New York"), anger ("Don't Make Me Come to Vegas"), and insecurity ("Your Cloud") with velvety grace.

Sweaty, head-spinningly good dance music.

Get Behind Me Satan is the strangest and least focused effort by these unlikely garage rock superstars to date. It's also their finest, an Exile on Main Street-ish mish-mash where the sum is greater than the parts.

Chase This Light is packed with huge pop moments, galloping off with the exhilarating 'Big Casino' and swiftly following it with the towering 'Carry You,' songs seemingly custom made for action-packed pick-up truck commercials.

District Line, Mould's seventh solo album, is a swell follow-up to his bracing 2005 return-to-rockishness record "Body of Song."

Finn's knack for a melodic ballad remains firmly in place as Time on Earth coasts on his dreamy voice and introspective, hook-laden pop choruses.

The results range wider musically than Heavy Trash have previously, without compromising the sonic squawl and psychobilly vocals that have long provided the duo's signature sound.

Songs cascade along in loping forward motion, as prone to lushly orchestrated decomposition ("Apnea Obstructiva," "Te Amo...Por Que Me Odias") and succulent adagio ("Faltamos Palabras," "Olhas") as they are to the simple, charismatic sense of melody that propelled S&S.

An impressive, mature effort that expands a predictable Brit-pop sound into something with varied textures, shades and nuance.

Gil Norton's production has taken the band to new heights, allowing the music to have as much grit, substance, and dynamics as the lyrics.

For all its cathartic lyrics, I-Empire is actually packed with dazzling, fast-moving songs, like 'Everything's Magic' and 'Sirens,' that bring together U2's widescreen guitar flights with tuneful, straightforward punk melodies.

Dark, dusty, and ever bittersweet, Burnett's musical archaeology here is something considerably more than merely "O Brother Redux."

It doesn't even matter much that he's a B minus rhyme spitter, or that he spends way too much studio time name dropping.

Her third album continues her clear-minded, open-hearted lyricism, though with a ripeness that comes from years on the road and years more to reflect.

Perhaps only the fantasy duo of King Kong and Bambi could be a more bizarre pairing than Robert Plant and Alison Krauss. Yet on Raising Sand, their haunting and brilliant collaboration, the Led Zeppelin screamer and Nashville's most hypnotic song whisperer seem made for each other

The album is a showcase for Cash's trenchant, soul-baring songs about love and mortality.

Easily their best album since 2000's Red Line.

His first recording of his own material in four years reminds that he has few peers among contemporary singer-songwriters.

Working Man's Cafe feels like exactly the album a 60-something rocker would craft--assured and direct yet searching and restless, a glimpse into the head of a man who's comfortable in his skin but still wonders how he fits into a world that seems to be turning faster and stranger as the years pass by.

[It] has more powerful and propulsive arrangements than is often the case with the artist.

All of it works, and works wondrously.

Amorino sounds like a lost soundtrack to some cool French film from the 1960s.

There's something here for everyone, to be sure--but closer to Ween's antic hearts, something to annoy everyone as well.

A return to form in every way.

If you like the Strokes, you should be spending this week’s CD allowance on Elefant’s first full-length recording.

Overall, Corgan's captivating effort to mine both the spirit of these turbulent times and the soul of his defining band is a smashing success.

There's an emerging depth and pensiveness to their songwriting, a growing sense of spirituality and drama.

Merritt's lyrics remain as sharp and funny ("We belong together/Like sex and violence," he croons on "Heather Heather"), but it's the ever-inventive arrangements--like the offbeat blend of ukulele and harmonium on "One April Day"--that make these gems especially memorable.

As unlikely as the collaboration [with Tim Armstrong] looked on paper, it works perfectly because the Pennsylvania native has always brandished a punk sneer beneath the corsets, gaudy hair color, and naughty girl demeanor.

On their third album, a major-label debut with one of rock's great titles, the trio wears a newly polished sound proudly, while not coming close to straddling the sell-out ledge.