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

Sport[s] a trace more big league sparkle, but with the frayed cleverness and rock-solid musicianship that their fans know best.

The songs have a measured, elegiac intensity, the sound of musicians choosing their notes carefully and making just the right choices.

All of it works, and works wondrously.

Occasionally evokes the feeling of a '70s Bill Withers classic, while bringing inflections of Zero 7 and Alicia Keys to her grooves as well.

Get past the more pedestrian fare like "Yes/No" and "Return of the Berserker," and the full scope of the Futureheads' ambition reveals itself, particularly in the poppiest track, "Skip To The End."

For all of the music's surface catchiness, the writing is some of Moorer's deepest to date.

It's a consistently intelligent and daring record, yet remains enormously listenable.

What could have been a curiosity is instead a hallmark in the catalog of each artist.

Free to Stay is loaded with complex harmonies and awesome distorted keyboard sounds (hey, this is what Quasi were supposed to sound like!).

The result is an energetic paean to the Cars' power-pop heritage, capturing the band's classic feel-good vibe with all cynical subtexts intact.

Hollywood producers and directors could learn a lot from this deceptively modest score.

On first listen, Taking the Long Way seems too somber--in need of a bit of levity and more than a couple of uptempo songs (like the sexy, '60s-flavored "I Like It") to resonate for the long haul. It also seems to lack the writing quality that Darrell Scott, Patty Griffin, and Bruce Robison brought to Home. But on repeated plays, those concerns dissipate.

Solid songs all, delivered with a muscular vocal conviction that does considerably more than merely sell them.

Like so many all-star bands before them, The Raconteurs could be one and done. But don't place the blame on this fertile and genuine debut.

On The True False Identity, Burnett substantiates his role as a composer and performer steeped in traditional American music.

There's a resonant bearing to the set as a whole.

The darkest, most mysterious album of his career.

It's as if they peeled away a layer or two in order to reveal more of the pop band beneath the off-kilter country-rock trappings.

What's changed is that maturity has granted Jewel, now in her early 30s, greater perspective.

The band socks away the adventurous experimentation that dogged some of its most recent records to investigate a post-September 11, war-ravaged world overflowing with urgency and significance.

Each [song] is epic (and not in the bad Creed "arms-spread-on-the-mountaintop" way): packing in more drama, billowing guitar solos and stealth pop hooks than the Strokes' entire back catalog.

All in all, this is a calmer Truckers set, less ragged and more polished.

Garcia and company wear their '80s influences proudly throughout, yet bring enough fresh ideas to the mix to avoid being mere slaves to precious retro-fashion.

By and large this is a delightful power-pop excursion.

Positively radiant.

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

More skilled than the debut, Lunatico is no sophomore slump, though hardcore house music fans may want to wait for remixes.