This is Bianchi’s tour de force, emotive but clever enough to avoid seeming self-centered or pathetic, and satisfying in its candid complexity.

Immediately more accessible than their last effort.

An interesting, if flawed work.

Ima Robot mines the dark recesses of metal, glam, new wave and electro, meshing its findings without a stitch to produce memorable choruses that stick in your head long after they're gone.

Coomes' blatant, almost hilarious, display of his guitar mastery is fun to hear. His solos and fills ride front-and-center, perfect and expansive and insane.

The mish-mash of moods and modes leaves little from which to gather a theme.

Maintains the urgency of their debut, developing ideas that were only in their infancy on their debut.

The band sounds filthy and scorching.

Has more to do with the Shangri Las' "Leader of the Pack", '60s sock hop and the Jesus Mary Chain than it does with Television, downtown Manhattan and pre-treated denim.

Fans of dream pop and chamber pop alike will find a lot to enjoy on this one.

It's an outstanding piece of work -- literate, catchy, and emotional.

Their best album since 1996's brilliant Under the Bushes, Under the Stars.

The band shows an incredible level of bravado on their album of fun summer hymns, but has a hard time breaking through the barrier the lackluster vocals create.

While all of the sounds that made their debut so compelling are in place here, Broadcast has also branched out, employing a looser approach to strong structure.

It has an appealing gentle earnestness that most pop music lost somewhere in the past few decades.

It is every bit the equal of recent pop classics like the Flaming Lips' The Soft Bulletin, Neutral Milk Hotel's In The Aeroplane Over The Sea, or The Shins' Oh, Inverted World.

Unfortunately, Pole contains no revelations beyond what was revealed in the prior EPs. With this release, Betke calls his own bluff and loses.

The group's cohesion is the cornerstone of the album; no one instrument stands out, while each contributes equally to the whole. And it's the trio's loose arrangements and subtle interplay that leave center stage to the thoughtful and provocative lyrics.

De-Loused in the Comatorium is a musical gem that captures the soul of Mars Volta in a way that soundly delivers on the hype.

More a sketchbook than a fully-formed statement of purpose, Jay Farrar's second solo release is nonetheless an excellent addition to his oeuvre.

And though the album is full of promising leads and sharp-witted initiative, it's hard to shake the feeling that this album is a collection of unfinished ideas, presented with no pretensions to the contrary.

Happy Songs is epic and subtle, technically savvy and emotionally charged and visceral all at once -- in short, it's a summary of everything that is great about Mogwai's music.

Twice is a summery, psychedelic treat.

A lucid and diverse record.

Soft Spot is a winningly cohesive album -- both thematically and musically -- and shows Barzelay's songwriting talent growing exponentially.

For those who prefer less academic wave crushing and more pop elements in their electronic music, Player, Player pleasantly delivers the goods.

Adherence to stock chord progressions, interminably chugging guitars and a dearth of new ideas since 2000's The Sophtware Slump gives the impression that Sumday is Grandaddy-by-rote.

At times, Rice definitely over-emotes, leaving behind any sense of subtlety in his delivery. But at his best, on songs like "Volcano" and "The Blower's Daughter", he hits upon a perfect blend of warmth and expansiveness.

L'Avventura is a pleasant side-trip, a chance for Luna fans to see Dean let his hair down for 40 minutes.

So New York. So everything. So new. But yet, so much like the hippies saying, "Man, if we could only get Nixon to smoke pot, then we'd have world peace, man."

Albini captures a recording full of heart, a sound quiet and full, rough and clear.

There is a shortage of pathos, and relatively little ventured musically and lyrically from a songwriting team responsible for some of the most tortured, searching music of recent years.

The main funk base of E's sound remains consistent but is augmented with harder rock and blues elements, showing he is able to hold onto his signature sound while simultaneously twisting a piece of rose-colored glass into it.

You really don't know what you're dealing with until you sit down and take in the freewheeling beauty of one of the year's best.

A solid collection of the most talked-about bands in the New York underground.

More often than not it's stylish, adventurous and damn fun.

People tend to like Joan of Arc when they play songs, but get all worked up and annoyed when the band stretches out with the experimental stuff. This record is a bunch of the stuff that would have pissed off that latter group of people had the music been bunched in with So Much Staying Alive...

The 10 tracks are hands down the most irresistible pop music you'll hear this year.

Harcourt would do himself well by spending a bit more time on his lyrics; a lot of the time it sounds as though he's just filling in the space between choruses.

The abject despair of The Mess We Made can become tedious, and, more than most artists, Elliott depends on a listener who is willing forgive him his lack of subtlety.

The results are far more interesting than one might imagine, revealing an album that is imminently accessible yet refreshingly unpredictable.

It's not always pretty, but even the mistakes have a remarkable charm.

30 minutes of bluesy punk-rock raunch.

An album that's both effortlessly confident of its sound and monumentally fearless of introducing cohesive surprises.

Broder puts art before music -- as if he's recording an audio version of a painting.

It's every bit as good, if not better, than their first.

There's nothing Herren can't and won't do on this record.

Delightfully pushes boundaries.

Part of the reason this record succeeds is that they haven't tried to replace Coxon, but rather rely on their remaining strengths like inventiveness and songcraft.

This record is a high-quality package of music that will keep most DM fans happy, but is not exactly earth-shaking in any way.

He's simply not an authoritative enough singer to give many of his songs the treatment they deserve. Nevertheless, Lanois is an expert craftsman, and Shine is a rewarding, extremely enjoyable album.

Betke's more minimal application of sound has opened up acres of sonic real estate between the beats.

Monday at the Hug & Pint is Arab Strap's best record, and should land on every critic's 2003 top 10 list.

Sometimes evocative of Joy Division on PCP, sometimes of Arab on Radar on codeine, Ian MacKaye's production maintains the right balance of tin-can sounds with bullfrog disco stylings.

Unfortunately the band sometimes overdoes the sweetness and ends up being too precious.

Though it is at times a forbidding and daunting listen, piercing through the dense thicket of sounds reveals a wealth of melody and funk underlining Autechre's irregular electro rhythms.

It's hard to think of any reason to buy this album, and if you do, it's hard to imagine any reason for listening to it more than once (unless you hate your neighbors or your cat).

That's not to say that Love & Distortion is a bad album, just that it's thoroughly average.

A stunning bit of psychedelic folk-rock.

An uneven mish-mash of musical ideas that is only occasionally thrilling.

Summer Sun doesn't have the collective impact of its predecessors, a problem typically attributable to song selection, sequencing and mixing.

This is the kind of album that grabs you on the first listen and doesn´t let go until you drive yourself crazy from playing it over and over again.

So the news is good. They didn't sell out, they didn't run out of ideas, and they were able to find still more places to yell "Whooo!" Go buy this now.

Often dreamy, sometimes rockin', but rarely more than pedestrian.

Malkmus' songwriting is back from blandland, the backing Jicks rock, and the production got it all on tape without screwing it up.

Grand Mal takes a connoisseur's approach to classic rock, and when it works, the best of Bad Timing can stand tall next to its forefathers.

This is an absolutely satisfying listen and a feat of songwriting that few acts could match.

Quicksand/Cradlesnake establishes Califone as an ambitious band with the songwriting chops to back up its penchant for studio strangeness.

This is an ambitious album that aims high but falls short.

There’s a consistency in quality throughout the record, but nothing stunning enough to send you running to your stereo to hit the repeat button.

The New Wave sensibilities and unorthodox flows become predictable, and the absence of APC's Priest and Saayid is felt by the end of Tomorrow.

The Grotto isn't the type of record that will win Hersh many new admirers, but it will send longtime fans into fits of ecstasy.

Throwing Muses is an exhilarating ride that manages to marry the helter-skelter rhythmic pulse of the band's first few records with the poppier sensibilities of their nineties releases.

While the sound here is undeniably on the lo-fi side of the spectrum, the arrangements and production on the album seem more carefully crafted. The result is Sprout's best album in years.

It is not groundbreaking, or particularly clever.

Greater accessibility does not necessarily mean higher quality.

Halfway through the album, it's clear that this is a glimpse into the future of pop music.

The one thing that holds the whole record together stylistically, though, is that Shipping News play Very Serious Rock Music.

May very well be Dirty Three's greatest accomplishment to date.

While the record isn't necessarily an instant classic, the unabashed embrace of simple pop sensibilities, both old and new, make it a record that is hard to stop listening to.

Bright Yellow Bright Orange is a much better album than Friends of Rachel Worth primarily because it largely abandons the formers' modern rock ambitions for a reflective and more natural folk-rock sound.

Sure, with so much to hear and such a range of styles, the album can take a couple of listens before it starts to bloom. That said, after these requisite spins, one can't help but admire how smoothly Feast of Wire glides from track to track, style to style.

The album's last third slows to the glacial pace of 2001's Covers Record with underdeveloped song fragments rendered in a numbing, spare style. But the album's first half more than makes up for it with Marshall's inimitably concise songwriting painting roses on demons and frowning children alike.

Cave proves himself to be a continually fascinating and vital songwriter.

There have been releases that have excited me so far, but none that have completely recharged my faith in intelligent rock music. This is the first essential album of the year.

Whether you find Kinsella's brand of experimental pop insufferably pretentious or delightfully challenging (I find it a bit of both), you have to give the man credit for his vision.

This is the natural and logical epiphany of three musicians who have been getting to know one another for some time. It's also a damn good album.

The outcome is alternately brilliant and awful, adventurous and boring, incisive and pretentious, over-wrought and subtle.

A good album that finds Oldham retreating from the layered solemnity of his most recent releases in favor of a mood that is as intimate and delicate as it is bittersweet and biting.

As you're listening, the songs begin to sound more and more like play-acting, as if Malin's trying to sound like his heroes more than he's trying to create anything that's all his own.

While the structured nature of [Looks At The Bird] is likely to hold your attention longer than the static and hum of Brokeback's last release, Morse Code in the Modern Age, the lack of challenge often detracts from the fulfillment that comes with a difficult listen.

While there are programmed beats, ambient synths and samples aplenty to be found here, the overall vibe of this recording is one of a classic swinging session.

Fans will eat up this new record, as the songwriting rivals, and often exceeds, the best of Crooked Fingers' prior curious work.

The subtle mix of acoustic instruments with warm electric washes gives Holopaw's songs a surprising amount of depth.

In a time when consistency is rare, and integrity even rarer, the Sea and Cake have made an album that highlights where they've been.

A disappointing concept album with large patches of trivial explorations and experimental noodling.

On a purely musical level, Twoism is more essential to me than 1998's well-known Music Has The Right to Children.

Last Night is as moody as funk can get, and the results range from soulful to pretentious.