For an album that apparently grew out of the band trying to get away from melody, there's a lot of it here. They can't help themselves. They try to do a song with a robotic dance beat, load it up with bleak phrases like "laughing till my head comes off" and "take the money and run" and "this is really happening," call it "Idioteque" for chrissake, and what stands out are not the beat and not the phrases or the apparent concept of dance music being silly when horrible things are happening in the world, but the seven or eight different heartwrenching vocal lines and the amazing way they intertwine.

It's everything we say we want in music: gutsy, introspective, innovative, bold, real in a way that few other albums even try to be...

Akin to a perfectly plotted soundtrack to an unplanned psychedelic journey - multi-dimensional and anything you want it to be.

The Electric Circus turns out to be a place that exists in Hip-hopolis and Rawk City and Bacharachville and DixieLand and Heaven, all at the same time. Holy crap, people, Com did it: he broke on through to the other side.

Neither modern rock nor dance, Death in Vegas straddle the middle ground -- and prove that it's an extremely good place to be.

Perhaps the secret they're trying to keep here is that Built To Spill quite frankly write some of the most original, interesting and catchy pop songs you'll ever hear.

The aged authenticity of these songs comes so easily that you'd be forgiven for thinking that they discovered the formula.

If Blur was a tentative step away from the pop past, 13 is a suicidal leap - the little girls are not coming back after they hear this.

Beaucoup Fish is a steady step above second LP Second Toughest in the Infants, and while it never scales the more spectacular heights of Underworld's debut, this album sounds like a grower.

Every song contains four or five things that will just whip your head around in disbelief.

Whilst Daft Punk's elaborate practical joke of an album, Discovery, reeked of childish trying-too-hard elitism, Felix's party is both exclusive and enjoyable, sharing a sense of humour and musical ethos with Scouse synthesiser aficionados Ladytron.

Standards is disarmingly stunning and instantaneously consuming. Tortoise are unquestionably skilled artisans, electrocuting the framework for the typical rock song and reconstructing the fragments into a wonderfully surrealist space mission soundtrack.

These songs are sonically interesting and pretty as Mom on Easter, but they don't really ring true...

A completely out-of-control garage-folk-psych-pop record that is always in control and is neither garagey nor folky nor psychedelic nor pop.

This record is just a party from beginning to end.

I've smiled and whistled right through every listen. But I haven't felt overwhelmed even once.

Ridiculously catchy melodies, driving synths, sharp, snapping drums, and super lo-fi bass and guitars churn out straight up dirty rock'n'roll, some twisted pop, and the occasional ethereal mid-tempo composition.

There are echoes of every good movement in rap history on Quality Control, from old-school to Def Jam to Native Tongues all the way to Wu-Tang...

There are elements missing and sometimes out of place on the disc.... Godin and Dunckel, however, succeed in interpreting the film's dreamy '70s vibe and creating sonics with appropriate drama and cinematic flair.

If, 18 minutes into this album, you are not ready to proclaim these two London-via-Leeds hedonists the most exciting thing in dance music, you need your feet examined.

[Oberst] infuses his figurative laments with a melancholy earnestness, communicating a more gut-wrenching breed of angst than the Limp Bizkits and Eminems of the world could ever hope to.

One Part Lullaby's songs are the ones a man writes when he realizes he doesn't have to be bummed out forever, the music a person makes when he can afford to trade in his four track for a home studio complete with Pro-Tools and some swanky electronics. Most of all, this is the kind of record a guy makes when he spends a lot of time tooling down the freeway with Beck on the stereo and the sun in his eyes.

It's not quite as immediate as, say, the Champion Versions EP, but 10 plays bear out the truth: this is the best Beta Band record yet, which means you should waste no time getting your hands on it.

The reason to get excited about this release, the reason to wake the kids and call the neighbors, is the second disc, Mono.

Universal Truths and Cycles has got something for everyone who's ever liked Guided By Voices even a little.

"The Wheel and the Maypole" might be the greatest song the band has ever recorded...

A richer, more confident manifestation of their languid dysfunction than their previous work.

Wonderland is a modern pop classic that combines all the best things about this band, spikes the mix with ace tunes, and keeps the concoction coming.