Perhaps the most tangible set of songs he has produced yet.

Not intended for the faint of heart, Is That You in the Blue? chides, challenges and relentlessly rocks.

Conspired in their Windy City origins at Andy's grandmother's house, Gauntlet Hair the LP is otherwise a fantastical recording, a complete artistic metamorphosis from the pair's raw-dog early 7-inches for Forest Family and Mexican Summer that finds Andy and Craig refining their edge to reveal the silver lining behind their inherit sonic clutter.

A welcomed, warm and quality return for Helio Sequence, Negotiations yet again unveils the superlative sonic possibilities of these talented gents and how their creativity perfectly complements each other.

It's about evenly balanced between original material and covers that show Willner's and Faithfull's deep-catalog knowledge of pop music.

Stephens' voice is, as ever, quite compelling, as capable of guts and blues as of delicate trilling flourishes. She sounds stronger and surer than ever here.

["Arkestra" is] a mess and a resolution all at once, a miasma shot through with clarity. The rest of the album is good, but if you need one reason to play it again, this is it.

Fortunately, the band that helped establish the early indie ethos remains as odd and unrepentant as ever.

There are a few missteps here and there, most notably on the plodding "Witches Dream," and drum-heavy "Well of Love," neither of which fit well on this otherwise strong release.

It looks like Bruce Springsteen finally has some help defending Jersey's street cred.

Throughout this very odd but engaging album, she manages to slip and slide over the exposed guts of the blues without contradicting her clean, punctual, precise arrangements.

Eno appreciators who maintain a sense of trust in everything he does will definitely want to add this to their collection.

Musically Stew and Rodewald hit a new peak, deftly mixing the psychedelic pop that's TNP's usual stock-in-trade with the musical sophistication acquired from writing for Broadway.

Hamilton writes very nice folk rock songs, the way a 1,000 song writers do, but he, unlike most of his completion, he also wires them with dynamite and blows them sky high.

All this adds to a gentle atmosphere of regret, of unhurried contemplation of things and people who are no longer around us.

Perhaps for the first time ever on a Chili Peppers record, it is Flea who takes the reigns as the lead instrument here, going Jaco all over this mofo so to speak, which ultimately proves to be this album's saving grace.

If Laswell hasn't made his masterpiece--and it's easy to argue that he has--clearly he's come close.

It’s neither time capsule nor curio, but rather a valid projection into the collector-archival ether that should hold up for future generations.

Beaus$Eros is an interesting experiment. Busdriver is capable, obviously, in multiple genres, and has the restless, omnivorous kind of creativity that sees links between disparate styles.

Throughout the tunes, you can hear that McCartney loves the language of the old songs. He enjoys the phraseology, tickles and teases each lyrical phrase. You can hear that he's waited forever to do as much such as this.

Born to Die has more hits than misses and more solidly strange fabulously femme fatale interludes than naff ones.

Ersatz G.B. is a lesser Fall album, not as good as Your Future Our Clutter or The Real New Fall LP, and certainly not on a par with earlier landmarks like Slates and Hex Induction Hour.... Even so... there's enough fire and venom here to excuse occasional soft spots.

Swimming in catchy melodies and tantalizing music (along with Wilson's vocal abilities), it may be difficult to select a favorite track within Glowing Mouth--but it's quite easy to enjoy.

Mr. Impossible [is] a record that shows a band evolving, as it embraces full-on melodicism with a cheeky goofball spirit.

Signs of Light fulfils the aim the band’s handle appears to indicate. This is after all, music that connects with the head and the heart, and imparts a dual sense of resilience and delight in its wake.

Few albums dare to even come close to this stunning degree of grandeur, but with Here the Magnetic Zeros not only raise the bar, but easily scale it as well.

Do Things has a few missteps, but May just keeps smiling and charging forward.

An entertaining album that follows no musical rules, a record interconnected by one common denominator--that there happily isn't one.

A band that started with Can's hypnotic propulsion has ended up floating in Tangerine Dream's weightless free formity, but it's gorgeous stuff.

Meteorites is a clarion call to all of their followers, from the Flaming Lips to Interpol, that Echo & The Bunnymen have finally come back to reclaim their rightful place back in front of the spotlight.

Shows him clearly confident on his own.

Count Yer Lucky Stars is sure to be high on the critics' picks again and finally garnering the band the limelight they so richly deserve.

The record is a stellar collection of power pop rock songs.

Her Space Holiday brings together all the key elements of Bianchi's decade-and-a-half of coloring outside the lines of the pop infrastructure to deliver a swan song appropriately fitting for his underrated one-man-act.

This is fun music, gut music, music you can freak out to or just nod your head, depending on your mood.

Jackson's love for Ellington but unwillingness to play it safe puts The Duke much closer in spirit to its inspiration than rote copies of originals would ever have done.

Excellent.

Andre Williams, ladies and gentlemen: one of the last living links to the heyday of dirty R&B, super-soul and first generation booty funk. And certainly one of the few left who still brings it like he means it, every time.

No One Knows is a subtle album, one that requires time and patience to allow its hooks to sink in.

If you dig big choruses, the sound of a heart breaking and just the right amount of sweat on your brow, then Like a Fire That Consumes All Before It is for you.

This album is a wellspring of the bandmates' combined creativity and an ode to free-spirited artistic expression. Bravo.

What sets the Fray apart is that they use their music to tell other people's stories in literate, compelling ways.

As Yes is now in its sixth decade, the prog rock band shows on Fly From Here that it can still make music that is fresh and lively.

The fuzz of "Fighting the Smoke" and blend of twang and sincerity on "Red Rubber Army" prove that he's not going to run out of great ideas any time soon.