Never thought I'd say this, but RZA isn't missed--the budget production enhances a master lyricist's specialty by subtraction.

The singer isn't up to tenderness and the accordion gets annoying. But the first two tracks are standards in the making, the last two tracks are prophetic and mean, and the blues in between are as pointed as the pop songs are long-winded.

"Come on children, you're acting like children/Every generation thinks it's the end of the world," begins the candidly catchy centerpiece of these lost-and-found tradsters' best album.

Muffling their excellent knowledge of English in jangle and reverb, four theoretical nerds demonstrate why a band is better than grad school.

"Perpetual Motion Machine" is about fish who wish they could walk so they could find out how it feels to fall down, and "Whale Song" bemoans Brock's metaphorical uselessness as it demonstrates his capacity for beauty.

Talented lad, Turner. Not on this evidence incapable of ever writing quick, clever, cynical little songs again.

In the wake of three questionable albums, shtick is a relief, not just because it's really great shtick but because after all these years we're happy to be clear about whether she's performing or expressing herself.

As vision, still somewhere between narrow and ignant. Yet not a boho archetype for nothing.

Once a punky brat, Jemima Pearl now sounds like a punk broad -- like she might join the Donnas if that was a better job. But listen through the bigger voice and louder mix and you'll hear someone who's thinking all the time.

Only a talent as major as Lewis could half bring it off.

Altogether as slow, sad-ass and self-involved as reported, this is a breakup album there's no reason to like except that it's brilliant.

Listen to your body tonight. They made themselves up, and they're strictly for real.

How many great songs about rock and roll can one man write before he gets tiresome? We may find out.

They sure are spry, and Nelson is so delighted to be singing them that the band's expertise lights up.

White's drums duke it out with Dean Fertita's guitar, mostly below the belt. Alison Mosshart doffs her s&m drag to suffer and yelp. Jack Lawrence plays bass. Fierce.

These guys sure can rap and rhyme, and they do.

After what K'naan has been through, bless him for trying--the ebullience he extracts from a life much tougher than North Americans can know is worthy of soukous, mbaqanga, the highlife of Ghana's most punishing inflationary spiral.

The musical construction is so jaunty that they can't be serious even if they're cutting their alienated fans out of the joke. [Feb/Mar 2007]

One wonders whether 4AD has thrown his critical followers off with its line about how this one abandons autobiography for "mythical creatures" etc.

Still a band that improves everyone in it, and more forthcoming this time, though they really ought to risk despoiling their precious graphics with lyrics.

They're brainy about their alienation, they're funny about their alienation, and when they bitch about their relationships their post- or pre-alt normality is exceptionally refreshing.

If you can't get with this expediently excessive piece of rich-get-richer, commercial rap albums are beyond your ken.

Though smarty-pants Lemony Snicket fans may get references I miss, in between there are times when Stephin Merritt's monotonous low baritone seems merely inexpressive.

They're too good to be true and plain as the nose on your face.

Polysyllabic and self-aware, this is the best political punk in years.

None of it means a damn thing beyond what it is. Which is just what they were trying so hard to achieve.

The tunes are consistently fetching, and a few standouts have clever lyrics.

The fourth Dolls album and second of their second life is the first one that's less than epochal. Not all the tunes are surefire.