The band doesn't quite manage to reconcile its mannered appropriation of a distanced, underground frigidity with its boisterous forays into abrasive, psych-tinged garage rock, but this is probably a good thing, because it's this resistance to homogeneity that gives them the sort of edge they'd otherwise lack.

As an EP, the premise of Lovage would flourish.

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

While these are accomplished musicians distilling their favorite musical influences, they fail to transcend those influences.

A strong return to form.

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

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.

Not as consistent as its de facto partner, Digital Ash still contains several euphoric highs.

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.

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.

Just another bloated arena show.

Surprisingly misguided and disjointed.

Though it's not quite the folk-pop album that some post-Head Music interviews with Anderson had foreshadowed, the ballads do outweigh the rockers, which puts the lyrics in the spotlight, for better and for worse.

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.

Strung with just the right amounts of room-filling tearjerkers (lilting keys and strings), the record is likely to raise a lump in your throat, or at least make you feel fuzzy inside and go "awww" at its prettiness.

Where Maxinquaye was both engaging and coherent, working up to a kind of weird gestalt by way of good songs and dark sounds, Blowback is hit-and-miss.

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.

It's simultaneously refreshing and amusing. And it rocks hard.

Lyrically, I suspect that part of the problem is rust, while part of the problem is age — a song about bumping into an ex-girlfriend, then coming home to tell the wife about it ("Jane Allen") just doesn't stick to the ribs, while the more overtly political numbers feel heavy-handed and preachy.

They're sure punching with more punch than they did when resuscitating the stand-and-deliver sexlessness of analog-electro past with blank face and vacant stare.

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.

As far as songs go, Barlow hasn't been this good in years.

A very strong -- albeit front-loaded -- album.

An improvement over his lo-fi solo debut and his over-produced second disc, but it misses as often as it hits.

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.

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

TA have now officially run out of original ideas.

Auf der Maur plays the kinda late-'90s alt-rock that Veruca Salt's debut (American Thighs, the one with "Seether") hinted at (too bad this isn't the late '90s...).