Utterly modern and utterly compelling.

His weighty messages are duly noted. Unfortunately, they're delivered so acrimoniously that the overwhelming lack of fun in the music makes his albums a chore to listen to.

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.

The only obvious goal seems to be shorter, more direct songs, delivered with more straightforward demeanor.

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

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

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

The band is never so consumed by brainy showmanship that they forget to rock -- this album kicks harder in places than Led Zeppelin and Black Sabbath ever did, or The Strokes ever will.

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.

That unholy alliance of punk guitar and drum machine now shows off the organic contours of "real" band interaction -- check out how smoothly they funkify with one another on "Fake French."

Her songbird's voice has never sounded more beautiful than it does here.

A slow-burn knockout.

Doss on his own delivers a more controlled sound that recognizes quality over quantity without falling off the deep end of electro-dabbling, a fault that plagued some of OTC's later recordings. The result is clear, concise and powerful.

If you know the Divine Comedy's previous work, it's hard to imagine how Regeneration could disappoint; if they're new to you and you're a fan of literate, orchestrated pop music, give it a try.

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

Jurassic 5 deliver on this, their major-label debut.

Group Sounds may not be astonishingly great, but it mostly rocks with the raw, excellent sound RFTC has come to own.

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

It is, in such, truly great, or truly arrogant, or truly conceited, or truly preposterous, or truly confused, or truly bemused, or truly profound, or truly magnificent. Or maybe all of these things. At once. Or at times.

Part of what makes this album work so well is that Gummere is willing to cede the mic to other bandmembers whose contributions contrast nicely with his own vocals.

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

Overall, Loose Fur is kinda interesting, especially as a historical document, but it's not much more than that.

Like a night taxi ride along a broad, lighted, skyscraper-lined city street, Happyness, the band's latest, feels wondrous, daring and slightly dangerous.

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

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.

The music roars along, occasionally slowing to build tension, then letting loose with a corrosive guitar assault.

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.

Her most direct, distorted disc since she did Helium's The Dirt of Luck a decade ago.