On this clamorous, relentless album, a violent death lurks in every bar (“Rider Pt. 2”), licentious catcalls have replaced slinky come-ons (“I Like the Way She Do It”) and guns seem to fire of their own accord (every other song here). In doses, it’s rousing. Over the course of a whole album, it’s exhausting.

Its penitent but hopeful mood still suggests a Catholic equivalent of corporate Christian rock

This album is luxuriously, fantastically gay, a nod to the origins of disco, when the music was known for its queer fan base as much as anything else. [July 2008, p.73]

Their Fire Songs can seem a little thin-boned--the twins’ intertwined voices are lovely but ethereal, the steel guitars melting into the horizon like a mirage.

Creatively cast, bonkers as ever--it’s a bright spot in the Bobby Digital series.

At his best, Berman used to refract sage-with-guitar tropes into dryly perverse insights; but this time he's just smothering them in weird phrases. [July 2008, p.76]

Viva La Vida still manages to seem downsized compared to the band's gradiose early work. [July 2008, p.69]

Arcade Fire never babbled about “horse-shaped fire/Draggin’ stereo wire.” These guys make it seem like an Olympic sport.

Perry’s creative-writing-class punch lines don’t always justify her self-congratulatory drag-queen tone. But she hiccups quirkily enough, and myriad big-name producers (from Dr. Luke to Glen Ballard) keep the new-wave synth hooks hopping

Pacific Ocean Blue [is] a moody, groovy and deeply congenial solo album. The earthier Banbu. regularly rises to the Malibu heights of the first album. [July 2008, p.79]

They go for punk rock at the most physical level, until their rhythms feel almost like a rave, as in the seven-minute 'Celebrate the Body Electric (It Came From an Angel).'

She still goes into circles sometimes, but you might too if you could roll a phrase around your tongue the way Wainwright can. [July 2008, p.77]

The resulting monster is alternately charming and schizo. [July 2008, p.71]

Producer Guy Sigsworth (Seal, Björk, Madonna) adds a touch of Eurodisco to her infatuation-junkie rambles.

There's an exhilarating, disorienting sense of freedom tot he album, the ruse of rules being ignored. [Aug 2008, p.79]

They’ve buried those strengths deep to make way for a humorless new approach that borrows the turgid bleariness of Oasis (“Living’s much too easy and dying will be some kind of bore”) but misses the Gallaghers’ pomp and glory.

Treading his father’s path, he’s never sounded so comfortably himself.

Williams' rapping is thankfully peripheral and the music is a fantastic, distracting mess. [Aug 2008, p.90]

A party band to the core, the Ting Tings can't leave the dance floor without stumbling. [July 2008, p.76]

On this produced-in-Paris gem, they beef up chilly synth-pop tunes with elegantly distorted guitar, German-industrial drum loops and plenty of goth gloom.

Weezer dwells on his well-documented obsessions with bad girlfriends and geek nostalgia, but without the usual giddy, mathematically precise songcraft.

With its stories of faithless lovers, broken relationships and speed-dealing suburban doctors, @#%&*! Smilers almost seems to feed off the stagnation. [Aug 2008, p.88]

Rossdale still has that sexy catch in his throat, but his new songs are ass, evoking a mealy-mouthed, cliché-ridden, bombastic Chris Cornell solo joint more than Bush, and whoever Auto-Tuned the vocals has some explaining to do.

The melodies are often limp, the rhythm section disappointingly friction-free, and Cumming’s main lyrical M.O. is to name-drop coke constantly, like the doofus at a party who mistakes a key bump for a badge of cool.

None of the album rocks, or gets particularly rootsy. [July 2008, p.72]

[Meiburg] applies this Audubon-ish enthusiasm to his songs, too, crafting a rich, occasionally macabre, fantasy world populated by starlings, gulls and solitary falconers.

Prog was rarely as songful as the brutal beauty here.

The result is music that is excitingly in and out of time. [Aug 2008, p.88]

Usher has called Here I Stand his “grown and sexy” album, and he’s half right. Apart from a couple of A­up-tempo tracks by Danjahandz (“Appetite”) and Scandinavians-of-the-moment Stargate (“What’s a Man to Do”), the production is cocktail-lounge crunk, full of splashy cymbals, jazzy electric guitar and tinkly pianos.

Beyond Green’s wriggly, giggly, purring-to-screaming magnificence (as well as two smoking support vocals by young acolyte Anthony Hamilton), this is an album of intricate groove.

A&E is generally more subdued, but, like Pierce’s earlier work, it’s best at its most theatrical.

Lauper hasn’t sounded this relevant since her 1983 debut, when she celebrated female masturbation.

Not all connect, but a bonus disc, the soon-vanished 2002 full-length Nothing to Fear, compensates. Buy this before it vanishes, too.

Sonically, it's a tour de force.... But the success of this record depends on Johansson and she's not up yo the task. [June 2008, p.73]

His second solo album (which he dedicates to Pimp C, his partner in the pioneering Houston rap duo UGK who died of a codeine overdose last December) features blunts, ho's and Caddy-shaking beats galore--but also elegantly constructed takedowns of corrupt politicians, covetous ministers and crooked police.

Fervent and fierce, with a half-earned world-weariness that can recall Johnny Rotten himself, the Dresden Dolls mean to make goth theatrically smart. Quite often, they do. [July 2008, p.71]

On their self-titled fourth album, one colon-blowing mid-tempo after another shows the strain.

It's sweet. And dull. And, OK, excruciting. [July 2008, p.74]

There's a complancency about this record. [June 2008, p.73]

This LP, which matches "Transatlanticism" as Death Cab's best. [June 2008, p.71]

Rhett Miller’s lovelorn lyrics remain respectably literary, while his pretty singing and his pals’ pretty playing turn increasingly wan and half-cooked.

Pondering his parents divorce or describing intricate and delicate sex acts, Mraz's tasty tenor remains a modestly classy pleasure. But he's lost crucial cool. [June 2008, p.75]

The concept is basic and brilliant: a song for every bitter month of a year of off-again/on-again romance, from splitting the record collection in January to “A token e-mail/ A drunken text/A sorry go-round of cell-phone sex” in October.

Feuled by a ninth-grader's nausea they refuse to grow out of, they take their skateboards and chase down the horizon. [Mar 2009, p.64]

The moody disco on Couples is both sleeker and spookier than the sexed-up indie rock of th Blondes' promising 2006 debut, "Someone to Drive You Home."

The duo fight back with song after song full of cutting takedowns and brotherly wisdom--they get petty, they get mean, but aided by Arcade Fire orchestrator Owen Pallett, they turn their bitchfests into grandiose melodrama.

Since avant-punk often has more “limits” than its creators recognize, respect and then some to No Age for keeping theirs interesting.

There’s a happy messiness throughout: At heart more jazz improviser than control freak, Hebden sounds happiest when things are just about to slip through his fingers.

It's groove-deprived and difficult, and not in a particularly inventive way. [May 2008, p.78]

Here, he seems more comfortable in his pasty skin. [May 2008, p.76]

The hooks come off-kilter and all killer.

It's fun to hear here negotiate the contours of Top 40 pop for the first time since "Like A Prayer," without any European house music hose-head gumming up the pleasure and catharsis with mediative schmaltz. [May 2008, p.73]

Santogold bursts with the arrogance of a world-beating hip-hop debut while thriving on vulnerability.

Rising Down is tightly focused and appealingly modest in its ambitions.

Conjuring doubts and tenderness, Forster's writing has never been surer. [May 2008, p.76]

Though there’s slick, occasionally dynamite production from the likes of the Runners and Scott Storch, the lyrics rarely rise above defensive boasting (“One Hit Wonder”), frigid sex raps (“What It Is [Strike a Pose]”) and rote autobiography (“College”).

Making good on the promise of two nervously explosive EPs, Tokyo Police Club indulge in plenty of echoey atmospherics but also add Foo Fighters-esque blasts of guitar, as if leaping into action and kicking over their chairs. [May 2008, p.79]

In the quest to make overly bronzed twentysomethings sweat, this endearing pseudo–rebel loses much of the little–sister angst that made her so appealing in the first place.

Fans of the TV show will have heard versions of almost all these songs before. The problem is, they've also seen these songs before.

E=MC2 is Carey's most-fun album, and her best.

Filled with ambitious production and winsome nostalgia, Saturdays is an otherworldly chronicle of adolescence only a starry-eyed 20-something could make.

The guitar rock here is loud, taut, buoyant--but stands little chance of getting inside your head.

It’s obvious, obnoxious and effective.

Muscularly arranged with bongolated beats, psychedelic swamp guitars, boogie-woogie pine top and snowballing chorus hooks, Just Us Kids approximates a certain literate strain of early-'80s album rock.

Exactly zero songs on Spirit come close to matching 'Bleeding Love.' On the album, she fares best when not allowed to overindulge in her sterling voice as on the haunting electro kiss-off 'Take a Bow' and the svelte power ballad 'I Will Be,' co-written by Avril Lavigne.

The album could easily have come from Boards of Canada or any number of downcast groups--if it were shorter. [May 2008, p.78]

The result is slight but often gorgeous. [Apr 2008, p.77]

T’nT use gnarled-up keyboard sounds and mix tricks the way third-tier punk bands use screaming and feedback--to disguise the lack of something to say.

On their fifth album, they crack the window, slow the motor (except on 'Shopping Bag,' a jazz-punk binge and purge) and take side trips into primeval glades where runic rites are conducted on acoustic guitars.

The tunes are basically chants and the drumming is more straight-ahead than "tribal" and when the vibraphone trips in after 40 seconds of 'The Ballad of Butter Bean,' you may not bust a gut laughing, but you'll probably grin. [June 2008, p.75]

The search for the perfect stand-alone song leaves a ragbag of unrelated ideas. [May 2008, p.77]

Thanks to a sneaky sense of emo self-awareness and shambling, expansive instrumentation, they avoid cute overload. [Apr 2008, p.80]

He lacks [Daft Punk and Justice's] wit or personality, and the album turns into a sucession of flashy vocal cameos and samples. [Apr 2008, p.81]

Odd touches, from the choir that materializes halfway through 'I Got Mine' to the sonar ping keeping time in 'Oceans & Streams,' add texture yo these impressionistic tales of ramblin' and being done wrong, without ever sacrificing the Keys' raw power. [Apr 2008, p.76]

Their 14th studio album is a fierce nostalgia­fest full of cascading jangle, candied power chords, lonesome harmonies, Southern-gothic protest poetry and roundhouse drum bash.

Their weaponry is wrought from comedy gold.

Best enjoyed in the privacy of home. [Apr 2008, p.76]

Panic's cherry-picking yields several good songs, and a few brush up against greatness. [Apr 2008, p.76]

On the harder-rocking half, Duritz is nearly emo-esque in his self-loathing.... The disk's Sunday Morning half, is more acoustic, quieter, reflective. But after the epic bender that precedes it, it's also just kind of a drag. [Apr 2008, p.78]

The introductory kiddie voice and opening guitar scrape establish this second album as White's show; mariachi-style brass fanfare, Appalachian-hoedown fiddling and plenty of Roman-candle solos soon follow. [June 2008, p.76]

The quintet’s debut LP often plays like a low-budget male companion piece to Amy Winehouse’s throwback hit 'Back to Black.'

Most of their songs gallop by in a minute or two, erupting with new beats the moment they start to itch. [Apr 2008, p.83]

The world's second-best co-ed lo-fi blues-rock duo are as sunny and merry as they've ever going to be, and that's not very sunny or merry. [Apr 2008, p.79]

Dan Bejar is in "If it ain't broke, don't fix it" mode: He's made an album that sounds nearly identical to the one before it. [Apr 2008, p.78]

Lively and ingenious combinations of glockenspiel, theremin, tuba, accordion, strings and mariachi horns promise more emotional depth than Nick Urata's world-weary tenor warble delivers. [May 2008, p.75]

He has nimble delivery and a pleasing Nelly-esque hiccup to his voice. [May 2008, p.78]

It's one big, horny wink--halfway between charming and totally sleazy. [Apr 2008, p.78]

If this is soul, it's soul for 21st-century sociopaths. [Apr 2008, p.77]

The quartet throws itself into these vintage gestures with so much verve and dumb-fun exuberance that the songs, even with their simplistic, catchphrase lyrics, are hard to resist.

The West Coast stalwart's ninth album doesn't entirely make good on 'Seduction''s wacky promise. [Apr 2008, p.82]

On album two, his focus switches from coke to cash as he booms about his fleet of Maybachs (on the soaring T-Pain synthfest 'The Boss') and prepaying his baby daughter’s college tuition.

His calm articulation and clean beats never waver--where once he copped to vices and joked about dirty asses, now his “naked funk” is all about a craft that won’t quit. That’s impressive. But it’s also limited.

The stiff, weirdly disengaged, single-note guitar solos and Kidman’s monochromatic death screams don’t make you want to keep dragging yourself through the record.

A handful of tracks--the shuffling 'Fill Me In,' the swinging 'What It Is'--work an assured swagger, but Wood never quite nails his role model’s tomcat growl or sly nonchalance.

Many bands sound like this, but few do it so well, or with such dorky haircuts. [June 2008, p.77]

It’s a very rare, wondrous thing: prog-rock for firesides and fuzzy-slipper Sundays.

Not surprisingly, their debut tends toward brooding, bluesy rock—a worthy soundtrack for those dark, whiskey-soaked nights of the soul and the regret-filled mornings after.

The title song is killer, but built of such familiar musical materials that when it comes around the third time, it’s plumb tuckered out. The track is one of three standouts that run over five minutes, and all three are too long.