This record improves on the band's earlier work and might even score them a stateside breakthrough.

This is a carefree release that is meant for our "reptilian" brain.

The album is nothing like a career-killer, but it is a career-worrier.

Attack Decay Sustain Release sets a dance-friendly party mood and sustains it over the course of forty minutes, but it does not explore new territory.

Like the subjects of these songs, the music itself wanders.

Symphony may have more of a cinematic steadiness and flow, but the absence of songs as hauntingly memorable as "Cherry Blossom Girl" or "Surfing on a Rocket" does not make for a better work.

On their appropriately (and doomily) titled third album, Oceans Will Rise, Montreal band The Stills address the end of the world in the only way they know how--with marginally catchy, heart-on-sleeve ballads that never hook up with their aspirations.

"Blackout" seemed like it signaled a more club-orientated path for Spears, like Madonna or Kylie Minogue, but Circus is a hodgepodge of pop themes that never really finds a face.

As a band whose biggest source of praise so far has been its unpretentiousness, The Shaky Hands may be better off with a little more bombast. If only they had the skill to put it together for more than a flash.

So while this new set of Civil War-era songs is an often beautiful listen, they end up obscuring Kenniff's musical vision rather than illuminating it.

Despite the impressive stylistic voices and rich production, there's ultimately something hollow around the project.

This album isn't on par with the Sadies' searing early material or recent similar country-rock albums from the likes of Oakley Hall or Okkervil River.

More so than the debut's, these songs fare like standup comedy on repeated listens: Once the punch lines are spoiled, who wants to listen to a joke again?

The result is a schizo split between album and single: While you’ve got ten tracks that other bands have done bigger and better before, you’ve still got one that’s untouchably singular enough you want to root for the guys, even when they seem to be fighting their own best interests.

Who Killed Harry Houdini? is beset by lukewarm, heart-on-sleeve ballads that spoil the album and sub-form slices of pop that never take off.

The skills Barthel and Carter possess at creating this kind of sound with just a keyboard and guitar, as well as the two bandmate's longtime personal chemistry, points to a promising future. Professionally, however, Eyelid Moves is something of a stumble out of the gate.

Though Manchester Orchestra’s dedication points to the possibility of good things in the future, Mean Everything to Nothing falls largely flat.

The Seventh Seal is perhaps the most stale, thoroughly unremarkable album of 2009, and confirms a sad fact: Some comebacks are better left unexecuted.

¿Cómo Te Llama? is composed almost entirely of the same kind of songs that made "Yours to Keep" such a lopsided affair.

Ultimately, though, this is a definite misfire in an otherwise impeccable career.

The album, sweet as it sounds, is so polite that to keep from offending listeners it stops short of saying anything to them.

The lyrics meander, often failing to offer so much as a hooky line or even a coherent narrative.

Unfortunately the album as a whole, modulo a few bright sections, fails to come to life.

The Vision shows that thus far Joker works better pushing out erratic singles than within the format of a full-length.

Tamborello's textural sensibilities remain, but his ability to supercharge glitch into something intoxicating and luminous seems to have dipped out the back.

The Black Kids may only have one trick, but as long as they only pull it at a house party, it’s the only one they’ll need.

All too often Shadow Temple falls short and is flat out boring when it should be actively engaging. It took Rama 14 years to rise to the throne and bring peace and harmony. The band members need to do more than this if they want to if they want to outperform their namesake.

Taken as a whole Shy Pursuit feels like a flat amalgamation of post-millennial indie-pop tropes clean-cut from the quirks and charms of their creators.