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.

She remains utterly, excessively self-involved.

A work of thematic and dramatic constancy.

Sprawling, overwrought, unkempt rock music.

The only real problem with Hearts of Oak is that the band still can't make their less immediately compelling tracks sound as electric and urgent on record as they do when the Pharmacists tear up the stage.

While appreciating Yoshimi for its merits poses little problem, actually enjoying it is more difficult.

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.

Unwinds slowly, slipping between ghosted noise-and-field-recording passages and the sustained explosions of big, bombastic caterwaul that have become Godspeed's signature sound.

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

Fleeting moments of genius flanked by sketchy songs... [and] curious, dense production burying Eitzel's amazing voice under layers of maudlin instrumentation.

Boy, is it a sprawling mess.

All you can really do is sit back and politely applaud.

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.

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.

The astonishing way in which the latest outing from San Franciscan deconstructionist darlings Matmos was put together is of such novel conceit it threatens to overshadow the final product.

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.

The songs on Mama's Gun slip from one to the next effortlessly, coming together as a set of sedate, buttery-smooth grooves.

Ancient Melodies of the Future sounds more like "vaguely familiar melodies of the past," but so do some of the best albums in rock.

Yanqui U.X.O. is the work of a band that has finally become confident in its popularity and influence.

One-upping their previous masterwork, 1997's The Dandy Warhols Come Down, Thirteen Tales... will trip you out, especially when listened to on headphones in the post-midnight hours.

One problem: Common is an MC, not a musician. Which makes it difficult for him to achieve his lofty goals. Mostly he fails.

This is giddy pop-rock in Technicolor.

Walking With Thee isn't a rehashing of last year's Internal Wrangler; it's actually an inferior version of it.

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.

Fans of the group's previous recordings may have trouble accepting the fact that Lost in Revelry doesn't have the high melodic consistency of We're All in This Alone.

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 set works like a spun-up set of carefully collated cuts, sequenced with stuck-tape-over-the-tabs-in-the-corners mix-tape affection that makes the whole seem like a sticky-sentimented sentimental love letter to the boys' record collections.

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.