For the first time, Milk Man finds such a sound seeming not like the product of a collective caprice, but a formula that they're following, with the few songs where they get lost in total tonal abstraction seeming like didactic decisions to ditch the rock instruments and remind everyone they were once filed under difficult listening.

While Desperate Youth, Blood Thirsty Babes is far from a perfect offering, this album provides a plethora of outstanding moments reminiscent of the musical exploration the band's heroes The Pixies exhibited on their debut longplayer, Surfer Rosa.

Whilst Bejar's songs are blessed with mucho rhythm and melody, you should still be made aware that there's no real beat, no real bass, and little that sounds organic. Yet there's still something quite regal and symphonic about it all, the synthesized strings and horns and piano stirring up a romanticism that goes with Bejar's fancy-pants lyricism.

Superior to its predecessor in just about every respect.

For those who had grown used to Boredoms' percussion-orgy period -- from Super Ar through to Vision Creation Newsun, with OOIOO's Feather Float in the middle -- such intermittence will give the album a broken feel, making it feel like its indulgences in improvisation and its ad-hoc demeanor are acts lacking discipline.

Overall, the album lacks the cohesion that would make it a keeper.

Hypnotic Underworld is, paradoxically, actually the least hypnotic and least underground album Ghost have made thus far.

An odd, fascinating journey through the mind of a man who channels messages from horror movies, occult events, and other bewilderments, and turns them into songs.

Even with a couple of missteps, this is a solid album that will likely stay in heavy rotation on your stereo for months to come.

Me First is a Sunday record, a rainy-day record, a home-alone record, a lying-on-the-floor, staring-at-the-ceiling record.

Each of the 12 tracks on the Grey Album is finely tuned -- the precision cut-and-paste sampling DM exhibits is often mind-blowing.

On a musical level these new songs are clearly identifiable as the Poster Children's work, but the band covers a broad array of lyrical turf on No More Songs About Sleep and Fire.

Apropa't has a tendency at first to gently wash over you, striking no particular chord. But as you pay closer attention to the music, the melodic wash of it all becomes one of its addictive qualities.

Margerine Eclipse is a decided improvement upon their last three albums, discarding the dense and difficult song structures that plagued those albums.

The songs aren't always as good as one might hope, especially in comparison to The Mekons' peak period.

[He's] invented a loud and severely impassioned polished rock sound.

The music is mysterious and moody, with an unusual blend of instruments and lyrics full of strange imagery, but no real narrative.

Pyramid Electric Co. is a vast step forward for Molina. It provides ample evidence of his spiritual growth and shows him once again evolving as an artist.

Boy in da Corner defies genre in a defiant manner, refusing to be defined, refusing, even, to be dismissed.

Maryland Mansions wants to be a great record, but it's simply a good one.

The Black Album is a spectacular farewell if that's what it turns out to be.

Ghosts of the Great Highway is one of those albums that you want to have around for when life gets you down.

The Strokes don't make the most original sounding music you've ever heard, but they make something that is only The Strokes.

Fans of the movie who are attached to the film renditions have no cause for concern; none of the songs here are dramatic reworkings of the originals. But almost all of them pop with the same buoyancy and joy, demonstrating that the artists covering the songs are Hed-heads too.

Come Feel Me Tremble is a bit of a mess, like they stuck the disc on a wall and threw the songs at it.... But you could say the same thing for Hootenanny, and to me this captures a bit of the same magic.

Seems to be the culmination and synthesis of a solid musical progression from good, yet uncertain and unchallenging, pop music to better, more confident, but still unchallenging, pop music.

This record finds a band scaling the heights of their precise craft in a way that gives upward mobility a good name.

It seems distinct from the discography that came before it (in both a good and a bad way), with intermittent moments definitely treading foreign waters, for both the band and its devoted followers.