This is mature, considered, powerfully expressed stuff, anti-hipster in its refusal to draw explicit attention to itself, commercially questionable in its lack of instant-gratification melodies and structures. What a breath of fresh air that is.

Grinderman might actually be Cave’s sappy hopeless romantic testament. That he accomplishes it without orchestral arrangements and mopey strings is truly impressive.

A restless, questing work.

Without interesting stories to tell, it all feels like an empty-calorie exercise in vapid songcraft.

Because of the Times... reveals a band growing musically and revealing the requisite growing pains.

Mostly he just wants to make big, fun, Bowie-esque declamations or work out a nervy punk jones.

Clearly, what we’re dealing with here isn’t a new Modest Mouse, but one with a few new, calculated tricks.

An unflinchingly grim set.

Leo hits a few bull’s-eyes.

The arrangements are lovely, as always, but it’s Bird’s openness (as opposed to his inscrutability) that pays the greatest dividends on this exquisite, resonant work.

Person Pitch is a paradoxically personal yet expansive work, a set that seems incredibly intimate to Lennox but universally open to a world of possibilities.

In the end, underneath the strings and the percussion and the guitars, that is what The Arcade Fire has been about: making us want to do. That the band again achieves that goal, after changing its scope and refocusing tis sound, makes Neon Bible a success.

The Search is protest music for the cryptology set.

For better or worse, RJD2’s talent is beat-making. While it’s easy to applaud him for following his dreams, we can’t give him extra marks for his output.

Give Tobin credit for shaking things up, but Foley Room is more an example that proves he should stick to his strengths and go back to the vinyl-filled crates for material.

All Of A Sudden I Miss Everyone is not that perfect album that reinvents the genre, but it is a primer on everything good about it.

Perhaps an unrefined but fiery bar band would have been better suited to accompany such nakedly raw material.

You want back-to-basics? This is it.

The hooks are much more muted than on the band’s debut Oh, Inverted World, and overall Wincing the Night Away assumes a less assertive stance than sophomore standout Chutes Too Narrow.

Kingdom Come is exactly the kind of rote product Jay-Z seemed to want to avoid when he "retired": It's a victory lap without a victory, a rare instance of a rap superstar blowing his own horn and yet sounding half-hearted about it.

Orphans is a bravura showcase for the instrument of Tom Waits’ voice.

The narrative plot of each song retains the best features of Newsom's previous work, and is gloriously wordy. Here might be the album's one weakness, since it's simply hard to understand a line like "Scrap of sassafras, eh Sisyphus?" when it's set to rhythm, to say nothing of back-and-forth dialogue.

+44's first effort is an enjoyable diversion, but it's not apt to stop anyone's heart.

As with many concept albums, the concept itself gets buried beneath the show-off virtuosity, the band's ringing need to not only impress but bedazzle the listener.

An album that feels a bit self-conscious in its adult-contemporary skin.

Shadow simply holds together better than recent Jurado efforts.

Unlike the groups' prior albums, Remember the Night Parties carries less heft due to its shimmering pop mindset.

What sounded fresh and spontaneous a decade back now seems labored and wearying.

Ultimately, they don't come across as unbearably pretentious so much as just really, really misguided.

Finn’s examination of restless youth and wasted nights might not be as incisive nor as relevant as he clearly wants them to be, but there’s little question The Hold Steady has never sounded tighter.

The Crane Wife is an album that nicely fits into the Decemberists' universe and has roots in earlier works, but sounds -- and hangs together -- better than any of them.

The best Hitchcock album of the new millennium: Less insistently jagged and catchy, but with a bit of sting wrapped in its more tasteful arrangements.

With all due respect to Mr. Albini, perhaps it’s time Nastasia broadened her collaborative horizons.

The Outsider is a mix tape. The artful flow that defined Endtroducing and The Private Press has been eschewed in favor of individual tracks, and the album succeeds or fails along these lines.

Despite running out of gas down the stretch, Ben Kweller is still a validation of its creator’s burgeoning gifts.

This promising notion of marrying the overly pensive, doomed-romantic Billy persona with orchestral-sized studio ambitions is a wash, the cumulative effect being undeniably gorgeous, in a rainy-day internalized apocalypse kind of way.

Return to Cookie Mountain validates the promise of TV on the Radio, an outfit that heretofore had displayed more potential than actual returns.

Amputechture, with its obsessive exploration of religious fanaticism and the physical expression of devotional desire, is not an album wanting to be loved so much as feared and listened to with a sense of awe and taxed exasperation.

The Boys are still presenting themselves as an emotionally sensitive duo, but the smoothness pulls the urgency out of some of their problems.

I Am Not Afraid of You and I Will Beat Your Ass is a delirious jumble, the rare album that holds together because of the sheer audacity of its diversity, rather than being torn asunder by it.

It's hard not to like music this well-ordered and composed, but in the end it sounds as if The Album Leaf has taken a break on innovation and is settling for being derivative -- of itself.

Intense, invigorating and beguiling.

This is a subtle, whispered scream of a work, one that demands nothing of a consumer’s time but pays decent dividends for those willing to make the investment.

If Time Out of Mind is the weathered, death-obsessed uncle who drinks too much and broods over things unchangeable and distant, and Love and Theft is the rakish cad gleefully dancing on the edge of the apocalypse, then Times is Theft’s clean-shaven, less-interesting brother, with a bit of schooling under his belt and a professional spit-and-polish finish.

A few throwaways... keep Theory from attaining the rarified heights of earlier efforts. But in the final count, it’s just nice to hear this criminally underappreciated outfit sounding so sharp and revitalized.

The most frustrating aspect of Idlewild is its lack of energy.

Damaged is quintessential Wagner: a ponderous, carved-wood gut-punch of a record that finds hope in the mundane details of everyday life, even as the big worldly picture comes crashing down with alarming force.

Get Lonely reveals an artist in full command of his craft.

They've slowed down the tempo a little and cleaned up the sound a lot.

The material doesn’t resonate, however, and pales next to Ward’s prior effort, Transistor Radio.

While The Trials of Van Occupanther may never be more than a cult favorite, those seeking to till peculiarly American musical soil will undoubtedly reap a rewarding and plentiful harvest.

In terms of sheer Freddie Mercury bravado and guitar-shredding, genre-jumping prog-rock pomposity, this stirring record is indeed (forgive me) something of a revelation.

The biggest upside to the release, however, is that now the intrepid Illinois enthusiast can cobble together one super playlist.

The results are competent, if unsurprising.

At its best... the band more than justifies the hype.

No one expects an album full of songs about death to be fun, but overall this set feels more ponderous than it should.

Victory For The Comic Muse seems destined to be one of those odd works beloved by cultish fans of Hannon’s work, but an unfocused misfire from the casual listener’s standpoint.

Promising but safe.

Last Days of Wonder finds the Handsome Family hitting a comfortable stride.

Rather Ripped is a solid collection of songs smartly executed by a band secure in its legacy and refusing to go gently into that good rock night.

Ultimately, those enamored with Walker's infrequent but peculiarly expressive post-'70s work (from Climate of Hunter on) will find much to enjoy here.

Taking the Long Way wraps its still-raw emotions in sweet satin sheets of breezy, middle-of-the-road pop. While there are still some country elements, the album mostly exists in that top-down netherworld of Sheryl Crow albums and Tom Petty's "Learning to Fly."

The Obliterati's first half makes 2004’s stellar comeback ONoffON seem tentative.

The concentrated unity of form and content that elevated sterling sophomore effort Bows & Arrows has been replaced by a footloose approach to songwriting and style that fails to mesh.

The moody “Together” reveal[s] what’s possible when White and Benson join forces. If only collaborations in this vein had been given greater consideration, the Raconteurs might have had something truly revelatory beyond a whimsical side project.

It's a murky finish for such a bracing start, but when it works, Powder burns as brightly as the most affecting moments in Dulli's catalog.

Frenzied throwaways like “Modern Art” and vapid observations like “popular culture no longer applies to me,” from “Bad Weekend,” keep Bang Bang Rock and Roll from attaining that rarified feel of unveiling something truly special.

Eyes Open shows you the elements of a successful record, without the heart that ultimately makes it a success.

Inspiring and masterful.

How We Operate earns points for stylistic adventurousness but, unlike In Our Gun, doesn’t meet its self-imposed challenge with the strongest batch of tunes.

It's a pleasant surprise for those who feared that the group's glory days were long gone.

Easy Living simply lacks the scope and gritty, lived-in detail that made Skinner’s first two efforts so appealing.

Springsteen sounds natural enough singing many of these songs, but we never forget that that's Bruce Springsteen -- Bruce "Born to Run," "Born in the USA" Springsteen -- singing these songs, and the necessary baggage that the rocker's voice brings with it raises unavoidable questions of intent.

If it ultimately feels as if it's slightly less than its predecessor, that's because there's a sense of the band's acting out more in order to try and show how outrageous it can be.

While there are unmistakable traces of that swampy, sweaty sound, particularly in the three-guitar sturm und twang of the title track, at other points the Truckers openly embrace their rock and punk roots, as if hoping to stomp that nettlesome Southern Rock label into the ground.

The Furnaces refuse to play it commonplace... which is both their greatest strength and most frustrating weakness.

Ultimately, You in Reverse is more a refinement than an evolution of Built to Spill’s sound. Fortunately for those inclined to guitar rock, it’s a great sound.

Garden Ruin’s arrangements simply don’t arrest the senses as forcefully as its intelligent and aggrieved wordplay merits.

Basically, this is the definitive (if incomplete) version of a landmark release.

The earthbound, anxious and somewhat pissed-off attitude is what stands out and makes the strongest impression.

A more shaded, musically expressive version of the continuing story of [Karen] O.

On balance, Fishscale earns its street-cred stripes and adds another worthy release to the Great Wu-Tang Best Solo Effort debate.

Despite isolated moments of brilliance, Drum’s Not Dead fails to mesh.

Subtitulo certainly appears to be an accurate representation of where Josh Rouse is in his life: comfortable, confident, and beneath-the-radar contented. Good for him; bad for fans of Josh Rouse albums brimming over with great hooks.

It's not earthshaking, but it manages a small cocktail of politics, jazz, and well-produced indie-rock that you can refer to as "jams" without feeling embarrassed.

Fox Confessor is often striking, intermittently dazzling and occasionally puzzling.

The back end of the album trundles along, failing to rival the opening energy or offer anything as interesting as the non-anthemic detours.

A high-energy smash-and-grab debut.

Rubies is one of the most enjoyable listens from Bejar’s solo catalog and comfortably stands with 2002’s This Night as his best effort.

Granted, those who have the David Byrne-endorsed Everything Is Possible sampler of Os Mutantes' hottest cuts will find less value here, but Tropicalia serves as a decently comprehensive introduction to an essential period in music history.

The Life Pursuit isn't so much a conflicted Belle & Sebastian as it is the sound of a band continuing to evolve its sound without sacrificing its core identity. It's certainly not the best place for a newcomer to start, but it's an interesting (if not wholly satisfying) addition to the band's body of work.

Comfort of Strangers is a more confident record than 2002’s Daybreaker, exhibiting an economy of craft and unvarnished execution that might glide by less attentive ears but rewards the keen consumer with a warmth and depth worthy of the artist who created Central Reservation.

Donuts is fascinating, disorienting and -- despite its best efforts to avoid such sympathies -- a bittersweet document of a too-young talent who ran out of time.

Despite losing creative momentum down the stretch, it’s still a remarkably affecting and mature record, proof that Chan Marshall kicks off the second act of her career in top form.

Unsurprisingly, the track list is all over the map, stylistically, technologically and qualitatively.

Omnibus is more a historical artifact for the Decemberists completist than a riveting overview of a criminally neglected band from the late ’90s.

It's difficult to listen to the album without coming away with the impression that it should really be two different records. Casablancas' disaffected monotone increasingly seems to belong on a different record from the assured sounds of a band slowly feeling its way out of its pigeonhole.

A grab-bag assemblage that simply doesn’t flow together very well.