It’s just a shame that as entertaining as such popular revisionism can be, his 1989 will be remembered more as a curiosity than it does a full-bore artistic statement.

Ultimately, My Other People feels like the work of a band in progress that hasn’t entirely figured out how they operate as an ensemble.

Resurgam is pleasant and occasionally quite captivating ear candy from an artist who may nevertheless have to work harder in the future in order to remain distinct.

As sophomore efforts go, Form & Control is a great success.... Unfortunately, what it lacks are hooks.

These moments feel like indulgent outliers to a typically controlled and compelling record, but even at its most indulgent, this record remains a solid and charming set, one that marks a fresh and exciting new start for Doug Tuttle as a solo musician.

With a new full album on tap for 2009, the advance four-song EP Festival Thyme seems to indicate the band may finally have found their footing again.

Wolfe is as uncompromising a poet as she has ever been on She Reaches Out to She Reaches Out to She, and while her disparate choices of canvas give us a bumpy ride, it’s one worth taking in good faith.

The problem with Everything Goes Wrong is that the song structure at its core is very, very good. But that same song never varies.

Even as this lyrical and conceptual vision remains compelling throughout All Ashore, it manifests less immediately in the music itself, which lacks the dynamism that animates Who's Feeling Young Now? and The Phosphorescent Blues before it.

Fragrant World is an uglier, darker affair [than Odd Blood], full of tangled synth lines and hyper-compressed rhythm tracks. It's sometimes brilliant, too, with at least two hooky standouts ("Henrietta", "Reagan's Skeleton") – but it's also the first Yeasayer album that threatens to collapse under its own teeming weight.

He’s still poetic and hard to pin down, but if there’s one criticism, it’s that his fondness for the midtempo-to-slightly-uptempo range risks making things run together.

Whereas the highlights of Occult Architecture, Vol. 1 are artful in their simple arrangements and concepts, stretches of the album could be fairly characterized as too straightforward and simplistic.

There’s a more defined sound about their sophomore than to their debut, but in opting to clear up the blurred focus and smooth the edges of "Cuts," they also instilled in their music a thirst for hooks and melodies which they don’t always provide.

Regardless of your perspective, it's a solid "pretty good".

It reminds me that equilibrium, in chemical terms, is stasis -- I get through the whole thing without hearing much chemistry at all.

I find that I want to like this record more, but with the overall sound lacking in presence and depth, Tan Bajo is by and large mere paint-by-numbers retro garage rock, with a few cuts resembling the Jesus and Mary Chain with the white noise stripped away.

While the new elements of the band’s sound make this an interesting record, it’s not as strong in its execution as "Declaration." The negative changes detract more from the album than the positive changes add to it.

Solid, but inconsequential.

The Golden Record is a hushed but exciting new album, one that delivers some brilliant moments but, perhaps more importantly, promises a bright future for Little Scream.

If you can get beyond Garcia's new-wave-icon posturing, Sunlight Makes Me Paranoid is a modestly enjoyable, pleasantly lean-sounding record, the kind of thing that would make you rest on the radio dial as you drive.

Bridwell's small-town observations have previously had a shallow yet quaint quality to them, but Mirage Rock goes far too heavy on the clichés.

What Matters Most ends up being a mixed bag. Musically, this is a strong record. .... As much as I like Ben Folds, though, hearing him come back with a new pair of songs about women who are borderline crazy is disheartening, and it casts a pall over the rest of the album. Some longtime fans might not have that same visceral reaction, and they’ll probably enjoy What Matters Most more than I did.

Former Lives also falls prey to typical solo album problems, like stylistic explorations that a band might correctly veto as ill-fitting throwaways... and songs too slight to appear on a major release.. Yet [other] songs hint at how good Former Lives could have been had Gibbard simply indulged his pop storyteller side.

This record is where it all began before they [Welch and Dave Rawlings] (with the help of producer T Bone Burnett) put out their first disc. In other words, Gillian Welch fans will appreciate hearing the original sounds of the band.

Ultraísta is inventive but it overloads on likeness and similarity. There's enough here to warrant several listens and maybe even an impulse purchase but not quite enough to suggest that a follow-up record is necessary.

All in all, The Mosaic of Transformation is a slightly uneven record. It generally transcends the tropes of its genre, but occasionally substitutes substance for style. The songcraft is not up to par with Smith's past work, but the album offers plenty of rich textures and unique sonic flourishes.

Dungeon Golds reeks of Record Store Day--it sounds like something that a super fan would hoard away. This doesn’t mean that the tracks are really odd or even deviate much from the overall output from the band, it just means that a fistful of really great songs were paid too much attention over too long a period of time.

Unfortunately with the addition of the Notwist’s awkward electronic sections Close to the Glass becomes frustratingly uneven.