It’s as if the quartet decided to pay tribute to one of O’Malley’s chief inspirations: Earth. That sounds dull, but there’s something hypnotic about these songs.

As incisive a crime story as ever committed to a groove, Juarez is striking and surreal, a torrid and twisted pastiche stirred from decadence and desire.

At over an hour, Instrumentals may try the patience of anyone not already acclimated to Pearce’s mood-driven vision. But fans who can’t get enough of his distinctive approach to composition and performance may find this record to be the purest expression of FSAness yet.

COIN COIN is not an album made for casual listening (that's probably the idea) nor is it entirely successful, but it has an absorbing quality that warrants further listens.

Melodic, dark and captivating.

Though solid throughout, without hooks like the best ones on Goes Missing, Untouchable suggests the more random approach suits Kelly and his fans better.

In short, if you liked what you heard on MCI and MCII, MCIII is more of the same, only slathered in lush arrangements with a little less of the raw outbursts of his earlier garage-y grunge sound.

Though it may not be perfect from start to finish, there is plenty to like about It’s All Just Pretend and serves as a great argument that the band is much more than just another neo folk also-ran.

The best of these songs, by a long ways, is "Counting." [...] Yet elsewhere, Ashin sounds like he's treading water, emoting floridly but to no real purpose over shiny, surface-y arrangements.

Allegedly a bubblegum record, in reality this is Collins’ take on psychedelic pop, with twinkling keyboards, polite guitars and a heretofore unimagined Collins croon that could charm the panties off a lesbian punk rocker.

It’s an odd little record, a kind of confessional chronicle that gradually gets under your skin. In this era of fractured self-identification, Ten Hymns From My American Gothic nicely serves as a soundtrack for all the searchers and seekers out there.

The music will put a smile on your face and make you want to dance - which is what good, timeless pop is supposed to do, in the final estimation.

Yes, this type of record has been done before, and arguably better, but there are still some powerful tracks on The Things.

The lack of a pulse gets wearying--some of these tracks could be tantalizing space rock if given some propulsion on a motorik beat. But other tracks become genuinely soothing, even mesmerizing, as they unfold.

SB makes hermetic/occult music by design, made to appeal to cults and that’s what makes them so proudly unique. Nevertheless, here’s hoping that next time, their ambitions include stretching out their songs and their ideas stuffed inside each tune.

Given that parts of the album seem intentionally radio-ready, there’s reason to suspect the Rosebuds may have shed their thornier side to win greater acceptance. Happily though, they’re able to dispute that notion with entries that remain unerringly intriguing.

Though not as great as their last few albums of all original songs, Play The Hits is still a fun holdover until the band comes back with another record.

The lack of anything that’s decidedly uptempo may be a detriment to some, but the blend of strings and acoustic instrumentation more than compensates for the subdued stance.

Over accessible grooves derived from the same source used by groups like Tinariwen and Terakaft, Brahim sings with an easy tone that coils her passion into a tight spring, rather than shoot it out of a cannon.

While this isn't going to make you toss your copy of George Best, it shows the guy still has some gas left in his tank and is far from embarrassing himself.

Sure, Kool Keith lets some profoundly dumb lyrics loose on Love and Danger, but they all seem in service of some improvisational rope-a-dope that ultimately finds him landing a knockout punch.

Wright relies mostly on covers — she’s only credited with co-writing the final track “All the Way Here”--but her choice of classic material--Dylan’s “Every Grain of Sand,” Allen Toussaint’s Southern Nights,” the timeless standard “Stars Fell on Alabama, as well as newer, but equally impressive choices by k.d. lang, Rose Cousins and Ray Charles--testify to her ability to make the material her own.

That McCombs is seeking a specialized niche seems all too obvious, even though his sound flirts with being elusive.

I was kind of hoping for more hooks, but sometimes forget that every record can't be Singles Going Steady. When the White Wires release a greatest hit collection that might be just what I'm looking for, but in the meantime, WWIII will do.

Too often, it seems like the singer is leading us into blind alleys, stringing words together willy-nilly on bead chains, then scattering them like sparkling baubles in a heap.

Quever’s songs are meant to provide sweet succor, not catharsis, and in that Life Among the Savages proves to be pretty good company.

Certainly, there’s a fine line in-between a record bearing cohesion and every song being a clone of the tune before it, but Naomi suffers, even if slightly so, from multiple personalities.

While the lyrics here do tend to come off as pretentious at times, the sentiment is still admirable and actually pays off on songs like “March in September.”