Christ Illusion sounds like an bid to get back to the Reign In Blood era by reining in the tech prowess that weighed down God Hates Us All and Divine Intervention.

After a year of Kanye and Pharrell's Lacoste-sweater-vest raps, this gutter shit should find DMX welcomed back with a vengeance.

Five Jurass's virgin excursions into P-Funk and electro find some comfortable new sonic territory.

If you were expecting some next-level shit from Pharrell Williams on his self-produced solo debut, you're in for a huge disappointment.

The mainstream-organic gloss of his production has always baffled me.

All the reckless abandon the New York Dolls name conjures, the spontaneous handclaps, sloppy guitar-slashing and youthful over-indulgence that made those early Dolls recordings such a kick are sadly nowhere to be found here.

If only Steele could keep a lineup together for more than a few months and follow through with his original plan of working with producer Dave Fridmann, Personality might've risen above the level of ho-hum patchwork pastiche.

Once you wrap your head around The Knife's strange little world, it's actually a pretty interesting place.

The uniformity of song structure, tone and tempo, though initially captivating, soon becomes monotonous.

Another Fine Day sounds less like a party platter made by boozing buddies than a desperate attempt by yesterday's alt-country stars to slap together tunes that wouldn't sound out of place between Journey and Fleetwood Mac on classic rock radio.

A sleepy stretch of mediocrity that unfolds with lackluster monotony, Two Thousand once again fails to live up to the potential suggested by their One Time Bells debut.

True, there's a pop sensibility at work here that betrays their band roots, but that's exactly what makes this the kind of dance album you can actually listen to from beginning to end.

The Audience's Listening is kinda like a Fatboy Slim B-sides collection circa 1998 without the catchy bits.

Impressive song construction ruined by heart-wrenching dramatics.

Happy New Year is unpretentiously unique, challenging and eclectic.

There's very little here that ups the ante (or matches the highlights) of the original Illinois disc.

The spare melodies and bleeps-and-loops approach result in chillingly direct songs.

As with his last couple of releases in the American series, his voice no longer commands attention with booming authority, but there's something about that gasping frailty that makes this proud final bow even more endearing.

The songs are pretty much middle-of-the-road, generic radio alt-rock devoid of any real personality.

For every moment of cynical dance pop genius, there's a dull midtempo dirge bereft of decent hooks.

Unfortunately, Furtado doesn't have the rhyming skills, vocal chops or attitude to pull off any one of her new personae.

Whether you'll like the newest Keane offering depends largely on your appetite for melodrama.

A pretty decent melancholy pop album that deserves to be heard outside of dormitories and campus bars.

The production bangs, and there are many references that'll appeal to readers of liberal non-fiction (Fast Food Nation, Chomsky, Al Gore), but some of the good Mr.'s thoughts on this future we live in are unconvincing.

Considering the expensive talent involved, this is a colossal disappointment.

With Rather Ripped they continue their slow but remarkable progression that currently finds them, for the most part, dropping old SY standbys such as long experimental noise passages in exchange for a significantly more sedated route.

As if the synthesized strings and electronic dabbling weren't sad enough, [Spektor's] ascerbic voice has been all but lost in squishy couplets about making things better and needing to "know you."

Singer Davey Havok continues to impress with his range and ability to quickly turn from a throat-searing scream to a bare-boned croon, as does the entire band's consistently exciting approach to songwriting and their music aesthetic.