She sounds as distant as much of the Anthology of American Folk Music, and yet there is an intimacy to her songs. This is a singer/poet who really feels things. And this is the new, weird America, and Holland is singing its woes with a wisdom far beyond her age.

Like early arcade-game programmers, Ratatat are working with a greatly reduced palette, and the synth reductionism means they're never going to escape cute.

Rocks like Bad Company and Thin Lizzy and vintage Springsteen. Look out.

They don't always sound consistent on this debut, occasionally misfiring with underworked material, but overall the strengths overshadow any weaknesses, and when they truly hit their stride they're devastatingly effective.

Tortoise have, in the past, asked more from their listeners. This time they let us off a little too easy.

While the album is not as cohesive a vision, many of its songs are more focused.

Their newfound versatility detracts somewhat from their own identity.

The music here tries to be as unobtrusive as possible, its plasticky tone and carefully shined finish constructed to contrast with the earnest soulfulness of Usher's singing. And it's in his words that the album finds the substance that it does have.

It's the sound of someone crashing and burning in a heap of misguided, grandiose intentions.

The beauty and richness of our seemingly mundane lives can be found here, in the bossa-nova of minor catastrophes, the pseudo-jazz of strippers, and the easy lilt of coffee cups.

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.

Horn turns in the best work of his career, giving DCW a collection of sounds so potent and invigorating that the album may be Belle & Sebastian's Revolver.

On Out of Season, Gibbons' voice takes the spotlight. There's a quivery sound, similar to Billie Holiday's, which gets lost amid Portishead's stops and starts.

For those devoted to this rock band's increasingly artistic gear, Gibbard's a bard spinning pop-song sonnets that cause such constituents of fandom to reel real deep in some crooning-along swooning induced by the lithe lyrics.

Whether you listen closely, for the sonic textures, or in a cursory fashion, scouting out the allusions galore, with each listen you'll likely appreciate something different.

Atmosphere are clearly at the top of the emo-rap game; it's just not necessarily a game true schoolers will want to play.

The album largely treads the same brazen minimal-electro territory; and most of the dick/tits/cunt-centric songs will be familiar for anyone who's seen Peaches' girlie-show shows in full-frontal effect over the past couple years.

There's no question Aesop Rock makes essentially no sense half the time. The other half, he's painting abstract art all over fractured soundscapes. The music is smart and progressive; it's also pretentious and challenging.

While some of their songs deliver nothing more than noisy twaddle, British Sea Power are a formidable band when they choose to simply stop making sense.

Swings like a pendulum from playful dance beats, cutesy female vocals and spacey synth effects to feedback-drenched, guitar-heavy rock fronted by a raspy male singer. And it does so with such affection that the unique power of their contagious, inventive sounds cannot be denied.

Pierce seems to have lost the magic that he once seemed in total command of.

Meloy's words stir your insides like good poetry, his imaginative tales climb into your mind, set up camp and stay awhile. But without the enchanting, heart-wrenching and totally affecting power that is the consequence of The Decemberists' music, the words would not have ever found life.

With all four members taking the mic, cohesion should hardly be expected. Yet, for all the different styles the band employs on this album, all but the closing number seem indelibly stamped as this band's work, uniquely The Wrens.

On this disc, which bustles with other artists' flashes and flourishes, the different personalities sometimes vie for attention.

Cold and lifeless.

What easily could have been a tired retread of rock snob classics instead makes use of the past to provide a recognizable framework in which to deal with the emotional rescue necessary after a damaged romantic relationship.

While the orchestration and production are impeccable and finely crafted, it's not hard to pick out influences from the 1980s, ranging from brooding rock to pulsing synthetic pop.

A sturdy reminder of why Warren will be missed.

In the midst of all this Neptunian mastery, there are two absolutely unlistenable "rock" songs that no fan of modern productionist fervor could possibly stand listening to.

This whole is a sum of 14 songs that adds up to an estimable artistic much, the kind of album worthy of nestling in for months.

The tunes are tepid, but that's not to say they aren't enjoyable to listen to -- in fact, the songs aren't bad at all, but they're not exactly great either.

Boy, is it a sprawling mess.

A welcome return to that good stuff Gang Starr has delivered over the years.

Even the non-Matricized songs are full of useless keyboard riffs, tacked-on guitar solos and loads and loads of overdubbed Lizclone background singers. Never before has so much work been put into making somebody sound so ordinary.

One of the most original-sounding albums in a long while.

Tindersticks have always made music that conjures up smoke: songs that are elusive, wispy and ephemeral, sung by men with somewhat rough smokers' voices. With Waiting for the Moon, unfortunately, little remains once the smoke clears.

This is exactly the album that should be blasting from car radios all summer.

Sumday's only real flaw is the creeping sense of professionalism that is starting to emerge in the band's songwriting and playing.

Sprawling, overwrought, unkempt rock music.

Like so many great singles of the past, this is the sound of a good band getting great. Don't miss the moment.

This band's playing is so tight you wonder if the members aren't cogs in a machine.

Where The Blackened Air sounded haunting, Run to Ruin sounds downright haunted, and, indeed, it's got moments filled with menace and chords written to make you feel uncomfortable.

It's nice to see him seek stronger production; beatmeisters like RJD2 and Joey Chavez provide supple soundscapes for the Ace Man to rock over. But ol' reliable Acey kinda forgot what makes him one of the essential MCs of the last decade: ridiculous wordplay.

The most shocking aspect about You Forgot It in People is just how easily everything seems to be accomplished. Every note and transition is smooth and effortless, and there is such a wealth of brilliantly executed music.

Rather than letting one in on the game, Lafata's lyrics keep things at comic/ironic distances, where they're shrouded in the mystique of embodying pop-cultural critique.

Band Red spins bouncy, raw, sloppy and slightly erratic punk that can stake a claim for carving out a jagged edge of its own, complete with loveable, contagious sing-along sounds.

Surprisingly misguided and disjointed.

Cex's production style favors an air of deep melancholy and foreboding, similar to the style of the Anticon Collective.

One Word Extinguisher doesn't shock the way Vocal Studies... did but, if his debut drew the vivid hip-hop/electronic blueprint, Herren convincingly takes his plans and constructs something big with the follow-up.

This is giddy pop-rock in Technicolor.

It's spontaneous and weird and, while its initial thumping may turn off those liking their trip-hop controlled, those who are ready to sweat a little will be rewarded by this unique duo's evolving imagination.

[The songs] are just similar enough to blend together in a close listen, but they also work as a diverse soundtrack behind whatever it is you're doing.

O's seductive, cooing/shrieking contributions to the power of the Yeahs are immense, but they are no bigger than those of guitarist Zinner or drummer Chase.

Road-testing new material has produced a tight and confident work that transcends many third and fourth attempts by artists of similar caliber.

They're trapped by this, their one-trick shtick; it the same old song, played again, Sam, for all those girls in white belts who won't stop 'til they get enough.

Throughout Love and Distortion, the Stratford 4 convey through their music that sounding like other good bands that came before them isn't a bad thing.

She remains utterly, excessively self-involved.

A dizzyingly crafted explosion.

As a whole, The Secret of Elena's Tomb is a compendium of many of the things Trail of Dead have been to date: provocative lyricists, well-honed musicians, and now film directors.

Idlewild are rapidly outgrowing their influences as they forge a unique identity that leads me to suspect that they may soon be inspiring a slew of like-minded new bands.

Just like every other record Malkmus has been involved with, it doesn't feel like an album, doesn't feel like one whole work, doesn't feel focused, or of some specific intent. Pig Lib sounds rambling and goofy and slump-shouldered and half-assed and happened-upon and lazily comfortable with every step that it takes.

May well be the best of its seven studio albums, one that even approaches the heights of the stellar Singles Going Steady collection.

In one instant, lead singer Jordan Blilie is whispering passionately in your ear. In the next, he tears into your insides with growls so piercing you'd think he'd transformed into a savage beast.

More life-affirming than life-changing, on Up the Bracket the Libertines deliver a stellar set of songs that -- both musically and lyrically -- neatly synthesizes the past 40 years of English rock.

Music of reassuring terror.

The Magnolia Electric Co. succeeds where other albums of a similar nature fail because it has the courage to point towards what is wrong with itself and the medium through which it is presented.

They are pop and punk and rock and indie and a combination of all these things, but, more than all of the above, they are Harris' personal songs and they are incredible.

Drawing notions of rhythm, tonality and structure akin to the work of avant-garde greats Roscoe Mitchell, Sun Ra and Kool Keith, Antipop vs. Matthew Shipp is an inventive, spaced-out fusion of classical free jazz and futuristic electro hip-hop.

You aren't free after all, because once you've let the album in, you may never shake it off again.

Easily the band's most consistent, tonally tight disc thus far.

If there's one misstep on 100th Window, it's that [Sinead O'Connor's] talent and her range are underused.