Few bands can both rock and pine as well as Duritz and company.

The Tight Connection's unfussiness would be the perfect playground soundtrack.

Sonically, this is the most diverse and intriguing work of their careers.... A welcome surprise.

One of the band's most colorful listens.

Heathen Chemistry finds the quintet back in cracking mid-'90s form.

Largely spare and reflective throughout, Gallo's experimental compositions are intriguing, though the somber beauty of more straightforward pieces such as Buffalo '66's finale, "A Cold and Grey Summer Day," are far more satisfying.

It's an impressive debut, and one that justifies the hype she's gotten.

Nellyville is quite calculated, right down the tired skits about bootlegging -- it sort of has to be, given what's at stake, though one would wish otherwise.

Fans might finally have a proper companion to the arena-in-my-closet-rock of '95's Alien Lanes.

Unemotional throughout, Long Walk Home is without obvious peaks of joy or valleys of sorrow, offering instead a steadfast, unerring journey.

Spouts off on multiple tangents and never returns.

Another solid effort.

One of the crispest and coziest (and, at 21 tracks, one of the most generous) live recordings in recent memory.

It's great for kids and parents, because TMBG, like former Del Fuego Dan Zanes, are among the only children's musicians who recognize that real rock and roll has always been goofy and childlike.

It's sort of beautiful in its ugliness, a metal record lovingly buffeted by details and white noise.

While the soul-searching is utterly sincere, the music is only intermittently successful.

Call it urban ethereal, grounded in gritty raps and coiled funk rhythms, bolstered by jazz keyboards, soaring vocals, and synthesizers.

Unlike any of the pop princesses that have gone before her, however, Lavigne offers a sound far more guitar-heavy, and lyrics packed with unshakable attitude.

One of the most stunning and gorgeous records of this young decade.

The sounds are simply too dark and sweaty for most fans' home listening.

The Eminem Show lacks the overwhelming, single-minded force that The Marshall Mathers LP had.

Title TK sounds as if nothing happened since Last Splash.

What South demonstrates most effectively is that Nova, who had been awkwardly marketed as an edgy alt-rock chick, is now a performer perfectly poised for adulthood, and the mature listening audience that comes with it.

Dispensing with the synthesizers and glossy production that marred previous efforts, the group instead delivers no-frills, arena-ready rockers with a dense, almost punkishly raw sound.

There's some rehash of the flimsy fun of the Green Album, and the choruses here aren't as memorable as much of the group's '90s material. That said, there's a darkness to Maladroit that will likely satisfy long-suffering Pinkerton fans.

GVSB returns with the hallmark components of its early '90s Touch & Go days: piercing guitar riffs, frequent attacks of twin basses, surging percussion, and a heavy dose of vocal sass from Scott McCloud.

Zevon, so frequently great, should know better.

It's only on "Close to Modern," a slinky, soul-infused number, that the French Kicks truly distance themselves from their downtown N.Y.C. contemporaries.