The frequently acoustic guitars and the frontman's mumbled ramblings on death, politics and love make this a fairly quiet, and deep, Riot.

Often funeral-march slow, but there are also flashes of passionate energy.

His lyrics remain slightly twisted, the music is uniformly dark and the singer's still a little freaky.

By mimicking the sound of every Hot Topic band crashing into one--with songs that pilfer from the Killers, My Chemical Romance and Fall Out Boy--we have to wonder if they haven't just orchestrated their own extinction.

Some Cities brims with confidence, as the band delivers a mix of Motown rhythms and windswept melodies with unblinking force.

For a bunch of jokesters, these guys deliver some seriously good music.

The best tracks--"Crystal" and "Turn My Way"--sound like they were recorded in 1987.

Perfect pop fun for short attention spans.

The album is so "been there, done that" that Twain often sounds like she's ripping herself off.

Critics called it lazy, self-indulgent and amateurish--as if its predecessors somehow resembled Dark Side of the Moon. The truth is, this sounds exactly like Skinner's last two Brit Award-winning and Mercury Prize-nominated discs.

More scattered than his past works, Wainwright's skills bubble to the surface here only after repeated listens.

It's an easy listen, enjoyable on the surface with deeper meanings you're willing to dig.

Not for the weak (or for Foo fans, really), this is some heavy hard-core stuff that's supernaturally superb.

At 23 songs... his second solo full length is as bloated as a rummy's liver. Still, it's good.

They're not exactly shaking up their own heavy-duty formula, but with the hell-and-handbasket thing going strong, what difference does it make to them?

Recalls other feisty femmes like Alanis Morissette and Cyndi Lauper, and it all comes out lookin' rosy.

Frontman James Walsh channels Jeff Buckley's soaring vocals so perfectly over those lovely acoustic guitars and pianos that you won't be surprised when you hear the band's named after a Tim Buckley album.

Of course, it sounds ragged as all hell, but that was half of his old band's charm.

Essential? Not really. Fun as hell? Definitely.

Confirming everything that is great about Tom Rowlands and Ed Simons, Come with Us is equal measures driving rhythms and euphoric, widescreen melodies.

Amazingly solid.

The First Lady should be the last album on anyone's shopping list.

Is she blazing new trails? Naw. But this sounds exactly right.

The Los Angeles band wants to be Radiohead so bad it hurts, but too bad--they're just too good at pop.

Sure, the lyrics are a bit weak at times, but when a band's having this much fun, you can't help but want to join in.

The Texas trio sounds like a new group.

With Musicology, the doctor of sexual funk puts the self-indulgence on hold and digs back into the enticing grooves and towering melodies of his glory years.

Some may call it repetitious, but with songs so beautifully crafted, everyone should agree that X&Y equals A.