A very fine solo album indeed.

Yes, the overall sound is more uniform. Uniformity, however, is not necessarily a bad thing.

A monumental rock-'n'-roll album.

The difference this time is that the Hold Steady consistently kick ass, nailing both Paul Westerberg's Teenage Yearning/Angst and Bruce's Common Man to a cross of Pure American Rock, unafraid of cliché, undaunted by the task of making the familiar exciting again.

The Crane Wife is an impressively realized song cycle.

For Human Animal, Wolf Eyes have stepped back from pure violence, bringing in some of the old cinematic features while retaining pieces of the vicious nature that has served them well.

Whichever way you look at it, as avant-pop or cubist soul, Return to Cookie Mountain remains an intoxicating, intriguing but accessible album.

The icy qualities of Last Exit's synths are retained, but the old minimalism is certainly gone, and enough real warmth buoys these productions that songcraft actually develops.

Every line is razor sharp and yet brilliantly descriptive.

There's more body here, more barroom spill and rollick. There's also a feeling Ward is pushing at the fabric of his music, trying to expand and progress. But the same cinematic mist hovers, the same old, old intimacy fans know well.

Her rock-oriented approach here will please some, but such a genre-hopping exercise is only occasionally provocative.

No, this album is not superfluous -- far from it. The Avalanche brings Stevens' exacting vision on Illinois into sharper focus.

I'm not clear on everything Cex, but I've heard enough to know you want to hear this.

Rather Ripped is what you'd expect from a Sonic Youth that's getting back to the cool rock 'n' roll sound they trademarked years ago, completed by a tagline of frenzied feedback and chiming guitars.

If naysayers can't get past the sheen of spiced-up production, it's their loss.

While their sound may be familiar, Camera Obscura are anything but run-of-the-mill.

Although Loveless and Psychocandy are obvious reference points, this album actually succeeds most on its charming, candy-colored pop songs.

Really, there are few surprises here, but there is a crucial one, which is that Continental gradually reveals itself to be a solidly constructed and rather strong collection.

At the close, the guitars surge forward in waves of noise, a precursor of what's to come. And come it does, with the hammering, staccato fuzz of the album's title track and the speed riffs of "Woman on the Screen."

An album full of vitality that is smart and intelligent without being boring. More importantly, however, it is simply incredible.

Bitter Tea offers immediacy, but little reward for return visits; offers vastness -- at a dawdling 73 minutes -- but nothing in the way of big ideas.

Listening to Introduction is like viewing the world through someone else's glasses, skewed, disturbing and perhaps causing a bit of vertigo.

It is, at one time or another, twee reggae, hipster rock-ism, synth-pop balladry, post-Interpol gothickry. It's an inconsistency that's both noble and annoying.

Somewhere in the mess of feedback and sonic sluggishness is something that strikes a nerve, makes you want to hear it again.

There's an indefinable freshness and purity here.

What makes At War With the Mystics different is spontaneity -- and not spontaneity in a jazz sense. Listening to this album you get the feeling that absolutely anything could happen -- as if it's taking final form only as it reverberates off your eardrums.

Ringleader of the Tormentors feels rushed and underdone in both the songwriting and arrangements.

In the end, it is musicianship that makes Duper Sessions unquestionably successful.

My Morning Jacket are much more upfront, and pretty easy to share. Band of Horses keep a lot shrouded in effects and indistinct lyrics.

Cannibal Sea is startlingly immediate.

While not as dark, muscular or streamlined as the band's excellent, eponymously titled 2003 album, Flat-Pack Philosophy grows better and better with each listen.

It is hard to say which side of Mogwai is more moving, the quietly beautiful or the transcendently loud, but the great thing about Mr. Beast is that you don't have to decide.

Like previous albums, this one is full of sharp, sudden observations, rueful admissions of failure and surprising sweetness.

Despite dozens of listens, much of Whatever People Say congeals together like so much spent gravy, with only the clever couplets sticking out.

This is the defining Destroyer work because of its size and scope, because of its melodicism ("Painter in Your Pocket" the hottest pop song Bejar's authored yet), because of the caliber of its musical chops, and because of the shots Bejar continues to fire.

The tracks fail to hang together in a convincing way -- often giving the impression that they were more or less strung together on a whim.

The Life Pursuit is an immaculate album; Belle & Sebastian craft pure pop perfection better than just about anybody.

The songs are subtle and powerful, full of pain and humor.

Exceptionally beautiful and assured.

It is quite possibly Stoltz's best work ever, and certainly one of the landmark releases of 2006.

An abundance of morose, meandering material in search of a hook.

Lyrically Black Cadillac is exquisite. Musically it's far more than a country record, expanding into those mighty rooms of roots music and pop-rock where Bob Dylan's Time Out of Mind and Lucinda Williams' Car Wheels on a Gravel Road shine and burn against their own dark palettes.

At their best... Pearls & Brass churn out hard-rocking sculptures of distorted sounds at buffeting volume, but with a meditative, trance-inducing core.

I don't expect people outside the shadow of the Rockies to understand this music.

Up Above Is, in such, a gentle enough jam to work/non-work in an incidentalist sense; but compare it to folk that do this sort of gear with a fearsome seriousness -- like, most obviously, the Vibracathedral Orchestra -- and T&C come up as pale as a Midwestern mid-winter tan.

The earthy tones, accomplished songwriting and passion within Full of Light give Mendoza Line newcomers good reason not only to hear their new album, but also to dig into their back catalog.

Their record runs through a range of instrumentalist archetypes and quietly surprising turns-for-the-worse, from electrified screech to tape-op minimalism, through pastoralism and soundscapery, to numbers where they knock out all manner of feigned sturm und drang.

A rare, perfect instance of collaboration, where two distinct sets of talents merge into something larger than its parts.

Over two CDs the music expands towards novel-like richness.

What's impressive is the way they bring all these elements together, the natural world leading seamlessly into a brighter landscape of surreal otherness.

My feeling is that Rehearsing My Choir is an odd, initially indigestible album that is far more interesting than most people are willing to admit.

Although surprisingly self-conscious at moments, Feels remains rife with a triumphant beauty, a bucolic sound that stirs and entrances the listener like a happy secret.

The spell is broken, however, by pieces like "Tears From the Compound" and "Oscar See Through Red Eye," which get lost in the marshes of their own hypnotic rhythms, sugar-sweet synths and lo-fi, breathy drones.

Listening to Hypermagic Mountain is like picking up the live end of a downed power line.

Berman's most accomplished album.

Their third full-length is their best ever, a passionate yet cohesive vault into outsized rock sound.

This album more than any other swiftly dispels the notion that the trio are condemned to register wary introspection through brooding atmospheres.

Just another bloated arena show.

An exhilarating take on rock-'n'-roll caught, torn, between striving for the light and reveling in the dark.

What makes Thunder... such an easy-to-love affair is the schoolyard exuberance they ply their tunes with.

The comparisons to the Mamas and the Papas are ultimately weak; there's a lot of blues mixed in with the folky pop, and traces of '80s British band Prefab Sprout, who also spun their troubles into melodic gold full of boy/girl harmonizing.

Lacking both the musical and counter-cultural thrill of the Brion recordings, this album turns away from a certain artistic "rawness" in the original recordings, razing away counter-melodies and acoustic decay for a well-polished delivery that presents the photogenic songstress in a more "flattering" light.

His songwriting shine is soon obscured behind the dark clouds of densely layered home recording.

From the first few seconds of the album, you're hooked.

Among contemporaries, Calla now stand alone, making dark, beautiful, intensely understated music that's as much landscape as narrative story.

The resulting sound is tougher and more insistent, a succession of incessant rhythms layered with fuzziness and distortion.

Whether it's due to the backing band, or the better studio resources, Banhart seems more self-assured than ever as he sings his songs on Cripple Crow.

When they play, they sound confident and sloppy. When they sing, they sound sincere and sarcastic. They crunch and slash like early punk, toy with country like The Mekons, and use chiming melodies like indie rock. And all fastened together by a combination of mockery and carelessness, they come out with something that could easily stand up against any of the favorite rock 'n' roll records you turn to for a good time.

With Noah’s Ark Coco Rosie have truly come into their own, delivering an eccentric sound so one-of-a-kind it could have come from no world but their own.

Sigur Rós piece together breathtaking orchestrations that sound like they're singing to you from another world, telling you why your world is not so bad, that even in all the miserable monotony, something beautiful perseveres.

Amber Headlights fails, when it does, because it's trying to be two things at once: a personal reflection on life and death and a commercially acceptable rock record. But when the album ditches the tricks and conventions that define mainstream rock and focuses on Dulli's songs, it is very powerful indeed.

Never the hardest rocking of bands, Death Cab for Cutie sound positively muted throughout Plans, Gibbard's obsession with the temporary nature of relationships and life itself receiving appropriately somber accompaniment.

No BIG message here; I Am Kloot simply made a good, heartfelt rock record and, without sounding like they had to try too hard, pulled it off.

They've broken their own mold and achieved something unexpectedly fine and durable.

In danger of hitting the point of "OK, we get it" -- when that zap of newness wears off and a successful band suddenly feels less than essential -- the New Pornographers instead come up pretty big on Twin Cinema, transitioning to a sound just as catchy as their old stuff but with more space for the tunes to breathe.

Spine-tinglingly great.

Pixel Revolt feels, at the end, like two EPs packaged together and passed off as a full-length. The justification could be made that the fierce, angry and frustrated responses to international armed conflict and girlfriends leaving are very much the same, though that would seem to be kind of a stretch.

Melding big, weary Fleetwood Mac-esque emotion to stretched-out arrangements, both electronic and folk, the Canadian singer/songwriter's power lies in his dedication to his own individuality.

The songs don't float off into space; the strumming guitars and subtle electronic effects give the fantastic lyrics an earthy feel, rather than lifting them into the air.

The problem with Warnings/Promises is the material: the band failed to bring enough good song ideas with them when they went into the studio.

It doesn't have the edginess of the Kid's previous recordings, and cloaks its eclectic sense of play in tasteful, textured layers, but in so doing achieves a consistency that has previously been lacking.

Honeycomb is a coherent and listenable collection of songs.

It's the conviction and passion within the singing -- both male and female -- that wins me over in the end.

The gear is buffed to such a productional sheen that its every sound seems like a reflective surface, the compositional complexity leading to an album as confusing -- and, ultimately, distancing -- as a hall of mirrors.

Hiatt delivers a batch of songs that powerfully evoke certain places, certain times, certain characters, with an eye for detail and an understanding of the complexities of human behavior seldom seen in songwriters these days.

Chávez Ravine works because, ultimately, it isn't a history lesson or museum piece. It's the sound of musicians, now on the periphery, playing and singing the music they love.

The album succeeds in creating a dreamy mood that is both soothing and slightly unsettling. And yet this mood is relentless, and, ultimately, all the songs begin to sound the same.

You could dismiss Teenage Fanclub as not being original, but that would be missing the point. Instead, appreciate a group that, in 2005, can create absolutely perfect songs that somehow manage to channel the magic of early-to-mid-'60s pop-rock.

This is a compelling debut/reunion, with the two men seeming to push each other far more than any of their recent collaborators have.

Record of the year.

His 12th record holds no surprises for longtime fans, and yet here it is, his best, his greatest.

It is, in fact, what almost every other Oasis album has been: Not nearly as bad as overhyped sufferers might fear, not nearly as good as its enthusiasts want it to be.

His party peaks too early, though, with the gear soon settling into a middling middle, where the songs start to sound less distinct, and the changes start to become less pronounced, and interest starts to lag, and where, eventually, like a desperate host hoping to keep the party going, Hebden stacks on break after break in a gallant attempt to remind you that the disc is actually playing.

A Certain Trigger has Maximo Park inserting enough creativity, energy and personality into their music to get away with lifting sounds directly from such post-punk bands as XTC, The Jam and Wire.

In stripping things back Mercury Rev suggest that in their case more actually was more, that bereft of the digressions and expansions they're just another band with a nasal, naïve-sounding singer, a way with a hook and a penchant for using the studio as an instrument.

While the album is pleasant, it takes awhile to open up. And once opened up, it's nice, but hardly revolutionary.

It's a relaxed and ambitious collection that confirms Ryan Adams' reputation as a top-notch singer and songwriter who easily jumps styles and evokes comfortable sadness with every turn.

Finn's masterful lyrics can't be ignored. And the music, stopping, starting and crashing with wrenching enthusiasm, is equally undeniable. But the way Finn understands the human condition in all its glory and contradiction is, simply, brilliant.