As it is, it's an encouraging (re)start.

[Jemina Pearl's] shrieking self-reliance rings powerful as ever on the Nashville garage-punk quartet's sophomore album.

PJ Harvey fans disappointed by last year's meditative "White Chalk" should find Midnight Boom a sick little delight.

Other than the album's highlight, the resonant break-up song "Still Missin'," Mail on Sunday rarely delivers.

Odd Couple is every bit as musically inventive as "Elsewhere."

Although Ego Trippin' is far from that elusive fourth "G"--the great record that has eluded Snoop since "Doggy- style"--it's still a fun go-round.

Ayers' revealing account--his first album in 15 years--stands with his best '70s works of besotted, droll sophistication.

It's an unusually rich, solidly traditional country record with 17 songs, all written by Jackson, a first in his 18-year recording career.

Though White's thin, flexible voice is sometimes too wispy to hold the center, his directness keeps you with him as he makes his way toward something safe and solid.

Fans of Beth Orton and the French group Air will find much to swoon to throughout Seventh Tree.

Discipline tries to service both Tyler Perry-loving moms and their gone-wild progeny, sacrificing Jackson's own vision in the process.

The result is a collection of demanding, disquieting and beautiful urban hymns that reveal their rewards on repeated listenings.

The ratio of less-memorable tracks is higher than on those recent bluegrass outings, but there's enough of the Parton who is one of the greatest country writers and singers of the last half-decade to make it worth hearing.

Overall, the album's humor level is a little lower than usual for Davies, but the reflective songs are among his most intimate and touching.

On its third album, the Londoners struggle a bit to escape the cold climate of the digital domain, but the band does manage to get the molecules agitated.

Crow's progressive lyrics hit like rubber-band pings fired by some joker in the back row at school. No one is likely to sing her verses at a march on Washington. But by addressing serious issues in the language of pop, they remind us that political speech and casual breeze-shooting can and do often intersect.

The twining vocals of Adele Bethel and Scott Paterson may even remind you of X at times, but with Bethel's seductive urgings out front most of the time, This Gift hints at the spunkiest of American female-fronted popsters.

There's no "Babies" here, which is really too bad--as awkward as the song is, it fleshes out Bedingfield's vision better than Jerkins' Mary J. Bligean "Angel" or Rotem's Fergilicious "Piece of Your Heart." ("Tricky Angel," the most adventurous club track on "N.B.," is also absent.) Of the new material, the self-empowerment anthems "Freckles" and "Happy" show Bedingfield's best side.

Sexy and eclectic, it's world music for the cool kids.

Subtle touches of jazz, blues, rock and country add to the dreamy, soulful elegance and make Jukebox feel like a private love letter to treasured tunes.

The result is a sprawling, 75-minute immersion in the dynamic between Patterson Hood's Neil Young/Tom Petty-influenced folk and rock and Steve Cooley's mix of Rolling Stones, stone country and Band-flavored folk-rock.

Though there's much to admire about Fiasco's idealism and poetic skill, he can also be annoying the way an excessively, politically correct person in your social circle can be annoying.

The sounds are largely tepid arrangements that fail to generate much excitement.

The Solution, the follow-up to 2005's acclaimed "The B. Coming," feels unnecessarily bifurcated, with most of its first half devoted to grandiose tough-talk and limp club bangers devoted to passing the Patron.

On his seventh solo album, the strong The Big Doe Rehab, Ghostface brings the energy and excitement to his songs unfortunately missing from much of the Wu-Tang's latest release.

His singing on "Audio Day Dream" is fine; it gets the job done. Yet what arrests your ear are Lewis' ideas.

Its well-trodden themes might not break much new ground, but Made succeeds thanks to Scarface's keen storytelling ability, unimpeachable authority and subtle lyrical complexity.

Freeway's penchant for ham-handed hooks and emotionally flat attempts at introspection ('I Cry') and romance ('Take It to the Top') reveal, over the course of these 14 songs, an ultimate two-dimensionality.