Mellow and breezy, Spelled in Bones has “summer record” written all over it, with its warm, gentle pop melodies that would make Paul McCartney proud.

Parish is having fun on this album, and the musicians he’s bonded with enjoy the ride as well.

Despite the somewhat dubious timing of Heavy Rocks' release, there are still some awesome songs to be found here, and the album as a whole acts a great sampler platter of all of Boris' strengths.

This is a heavy-metal record in the classic style, stealing bones from the open graves of Black Sabbath.

Demolished Thoughts is a consistent and strong record all the way through. In the same way Mascis turned his talents effectively to quieter tones, Moore gives us a new perspective on the talents we've seen from him for decades.

We're Animals may not be as mind-boggling as Numbers' 2004 release, In My Mind All the Time, but it merges elements of the precursors to the new wave/post-punk movements with a psychedelic ambiance.

The Dum Dum Girls’ debut, I Will Be, plays like a veritable best-of of current trends in lo-fi rock ‘n' pop. In fact, the disc’s (admittedly exhilarating) fidelity to the budding-but-already-overdone genre nearly weighs it down.

For much of Diaper Island, he hits his sweet spot of raw indie folk-rock, but for others he seems to be bending his personality to fit the demands of guitar noise, instead of the other way around.

The album has no song that truly feels like a single, and thus no particularly strong cuts ground the album.

Highway Companion contains the most clear-eyed and hopeful songs that Petty has written in memory.

Time to Die by itself isn’t a bad album, necessarily, but it’s not even close to the same level as Visiter and what made Dodos different to begin with. I hope that on their fourth album, these guys return to their roots.

Xcel’s production doesn’t stray very far from its R&B and soul influences, but this time it comes without almost any samples, relying sometimes on players from a homebrewed funk band to create clearance-free beats instead. Unfortunately, this new recipe doesn’t always hit the mark, and songs such as “Black Diamonds and Pearls” sound more like smooth jazz than What’s Going On-era Marvin Gaye.

Kicks is less of a cocky triumph, but it still cements 1990s’ position as the torchbearers for no-nonsense Brit-pop.

Twin Sister live up to their advance press here: They're a good band with room to grow, and a couple great songs.

The rest of Wind’s Poem plays out slow, shimmering, and really just classic Phil Elvrum, even if the album’s tone is darker, well produced and generally well executed. But once an experimentalist folk musician, always an experimentalist folk musician, and kudos to Elvrum for experimenting even further outside of the realm.

Not only have Brion’s strings been replaced by an indescribably awkward alt-rock guitar riff and a misplaced drum beat, but Apple’s vocals have lost all of their bite and passion. On Brion’s work, she seemed hungry, ready to get back into it all. Here she retains the emotion that such a talented singer can muster on a good day but none of the rawness that signifies her best work.

Sure, the albums is filled with grand, sweeping sonic statements, but they seem to come from a place in extremely close proximity to the art-rock icon's heart. That's why it works.

People will fall in love to this music, and Coldplay knows it.

The Lucky Ones shows him to be as reassuringly sarcastic and self-deprecating as ever.

It's rich in talent, even if short on crossover appeal. Tyler is gifted enough to do most anything with his guitar, and he'll move you if you let him.

You won't catch every note, every shift--he's never that transparent. But there's a welcoming feel to this record that makes it resonate longer than any jarring shift could.

Mostly Lee Ranaldo has created a mid-crisis record that sounds more powerful than frustrated, more strong in its beauty than reactionary in its power.

Although Cold Roses can get messy in the way of a quickly made album, it marks a notable improvement on Adams's most recent LP.

The one drawback to Les Liaisons Dangereuses 1960 is that, with the exception of “Light Blue”, its déjà vu nature makes it difficult to distinguish it from Thelonious Monk’s landmark albums.

Sleep Forever distinguishes The Big Sleep as a force in its own right, and it’s a testament to the band’s growth. That--as well as the tracks themselves--make Sleep Forever a pleasure to hear.

It was all too easy to brush aside Turbo Fruits when the band was doing straightforward, blues-tinged punk. Echo Kid makes that less than possible.

Instead of complaining about the soullessness of life under the major-label umbrella, naysayers ought to be examining the band's true aesthetic motivations for taking an earthier, more straightforward approach on The King Is Dead.

Sure, it’s nowhere in the same league as the seminal CrazySexyCool and the innovative concept album FanMail, and the absence of Left Eye--apart from a touching brief posthumous appearance on “Interlude”--is still keenly felt. But there are still a handful of tracks here which can sit comfortably alongside their incredible mid-late 90s canon.