The most personally felt, universally inclusive record of her career.

A vital document of Led Zeppelin's formidable legacy.

Madlib creatively melds electronic and jazzy elements, entertaining voiceovers akin to the kind heard on Batman or Superman cartoons, and snippets of Sun Ra to fashion a wildly diverse yet coherently executed tableaux of brainy, original noise-art.

The second disc... is the sound of a band at the height of its powers, employing a ten-piece band and backup singers, and exhibiting an absolute mastery of its material.

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.

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

One of the most refreshing hip-hop records in quite some time.

[Speakerboxxx:] A worthy addition to the impressive OutKast catalogue.... [The Love Below:] Unfortunately, Attention Deficit Disorder just isn't a workable substitute for craft, nor is a preoccupation with sex quite the same as art.

What could be utterly pedestrian, so-what material in the hands of a lesser talent is instead imbued with cheeky mythic significance by Skinner -- blessed with an uninhibited gift for gab and a willingness to reveal all facets of his character, grotty warts included.

But if the album feels less personally tied to Illinois than Michigan was to Michigan, the cost is worth paying: The style and overall sentiment of the new album are more sophisticated than those of its predecessor.

In terms of sheer ambition -- and the realization that if you're going to use strings, you might as well go completely over the top with them -- The Arcade Fire is a promising, unapologetically melodramatic sure bet.

Yes, it may not hew faithfully to past MMJ records, but its wide-open range perfectly exemplifies the group's adventurous spirit.

Rather than lose control of his programmed loops, Hebden sounds completely in control, the conductor of an invisible digital orchestra, changing gears on a whim.

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.

There's an unwavering confidence and muscular focus behind the music that holds from start to finish.

Last Exit is noteworthy for taking on a sound that's easy to screw up (emoting over synthetic beats) and actually making it work.

Faultless sequencing, an array of clever (and comfortably familiar) beats, and a refreshingly optimistic, apolitical vibe make We Are Monster a keeper.

In addition to simply being a package for the band's more obscure tracks, the album nicely spans its shift from folksy, melancholy introspectiveness to light summer-pop.

The Pernice Brothers' strongest effort yet.

Chutes Too Narrow proves the Shins have more on their minds than singing the perfect harmony or writing the ultimate couplet, and it's that deeper sense of introspection that makes it a keeper.

For the initiated, there’s true primal joy to be heard in this mammoth creation. You’ve just got to be willing to shed those tightly guarded notions and listen.

Ejstes is a remarkable talent, and it will be worth listening to hear if he leaves his ardently retrograde Dungen identity behind and pushes toward more forward-leaning concepts.

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

With Up in Flames, the sound of post-electronica has arrived.

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.

Rejoicing in the Hands is a remarkable album, and Banhart displays a range and gift for melody that belies his twenty-three years.

Hill feels more like a retrospective than a steady gallop toward the next stage in Smith's artistic advancement.

The fact that a band spawned over ten years ago is so willing to try new things is refreshing, but with The Woods, Sleater-Kinney has surpassed even its most ardent supporter’s expectations as to the artistic heights the trio can attain.

Unsurprisingly, Cave's overriding thematic goal of reconciling morality with desire on Abattoir Blues / The Lyre of Orpheus falls short of its mark. But with such a complex and difficult target, that's to be expected.

I Am A Bird Now is a beautiful-sounding record, and though it doesn’t contain anything as remarkable and emotionally piercing as the debut’s “Cripple and the Starfish,” it nonetheless reveals a band and lead artist refining a musical universe populated by drag queens, cabaret dancehalls and a tolerant and open community.

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

Arular is an impressive first outing, even if it does suffer from repetitive drill syndrome... and too often favors a smart hook over offering anything politically relevant to say.

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.

College Dropout is a competent if overlong debut, which serves up solid but by no means groundbreaking production work a little too dependent on familiar hooks from '70s R&B staples.

An even stronger collection of songs that builds on it's predecessor's sonic foundations while refusing to get stuck in them.

Whereas Boy In Da Corner was the sound of a young man expressing the fear and frustration of growing up in a dangerous and bleak environment, Showtime reflects the confidence and ebullience of a maturing artist optimistically embracing a bright and hopeful future.

South undeniably positions the group as a hard-rocking roots act, and further as one of today's most assured rock bands, period.

Franz Ferdinand's music possesses an intriguing, passive-aggressive kind of wasted elegance that never quite pays off.

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.

Stumble Into Grace's saving grace, naturally, is Harris's voice, possessed of a mature poignancy that transcends pedestrian production; it's far too genuine an instrument for the lackluster arrangements offered here.

There's a newfound depth to the Furries' music, a sense that no matter how hard the band tries to keep things positive, the darkness in the world has managed to encroach on its outlook and musical approach.

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

At 23 tracks (including two strong bonus cuts at the end), One Word Extinguisher simply tries to say too much, dragging noticeably during the final third, thus weakening the final impact.

Dead Cities reinforces the French pair's penchant for distorted vocals and cheesy synthesizers, but the tracks here ultimately add up to far less than the sum of their assorted parts.

Separation Sunday isn’t quite on par with Almost Killed Me, primarily because it won’t stun listeners with its freshness.

The diverse influences are still percolating, and any sense of cohesive absorption of earlier rock outfits' methods and styles never quite congeal into original expression.

A mixed bag of hit-or-miss pop-oriented tunes.

Emphatically validates just how fresh and alive Kraftwerk’s heavily manipulated compositions sound.

Like a deliriously evanescent pep rally from the Outer Limits.

Not only their crowning achievement to date but also one of the year's finest albums, period.

Buffs the rough edges of Words & Sounds, Vol. 1 but sacrifices some of that record's spirited adventurousness.

LCD Soundsystem doesn't quite overcome the high bar set by its bonus disc. That might sound rough, but fortunately, just compiling all of Murphy & Co's singles on one handy CD provides a valuable service for newcomers to his eclectically retro style.

Black Sheep Boy has bold ambitions, but Okkervil River hasn’t quite reached the point where polished execution equals or surpasses preliminary concept.

The group's edgy, fast-paced New Wave 2K brand of rock recalls the sharp, nerdy delivery of XTC, the impassioned focus of the Jam and ping-ponging hooks reminiscent of the Vapors.

Chávez Ravine suffers from an uneven flow due to the varying quality of the material.

The end result is a first-class effort that will not disappoint die-hard Zevon fans. But it's not just for the faithful: First-time listeners will certainly pick up The Wind out of curiosity, and there's no doubt that they will discover what they have long been missing.

While The Lemon of Pink might not sport individual tracks as strong as [Thought For Food's] "Enjoy Your Worries, You May Never Have Them Again" or "All Bad Ends All," it's nonetheless a stronger effort overall, revealing a band growing in confidence with the application of its ideas.

Eggs fails to engage with the unpredictable inventiveness of Swimming Hour, and lacks the skillful brevity of Weather Systems.

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

[Oberst] displays a mastery of material, a reigning in of indulgences that promises stronger work to come.

West is still a better assembler of talent than he is an MC.

What sets him apart from other, more gifted MCs is the refreshing degree of naked self-examination and social commentary he brings to the table.

Hail lacks the overriding musical, thematic or experimental coherence of the band's post-Pablo Honey work. But it is a strong collection of discrete tracks, like an unreleased B-sides collection finally seeing the light of day.

Mezmerize is on par with 2001’s Toxicity as SOAD’s best offering to date.

The overall feel is of an academic exercise in hip-hop cultural anthropology.

Twin Cinema has the winning distinction of being the most rocking set from the Pornographers to date -- and also the strangest.

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

May well come to be regarded as Mogwai's graduation from unproven Young Team to mature, veteran rock outfit.

If 2000's The Friends of Rachel Worth was a tentative warm-up and 2002's Bright Yellow, Bright Orange a encouraging but inconsistent workout, Oceans Apart is the sound of two artists hitting a self-assured and motivated stride.

If you love guitar histrionics, Live in Chicago is a white-hot keeper.

It's brilliant.

It's a distillation of the singer's subtly different moods and modes, a cohesive and comprehensive work that stands as the most representative look yet at his musical persona.

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.

Crimes is guilty of nothing save exhibiting the sound of a band that clearly isn't finished evolving.

Blinking Lights is an astonishing mélange of life and sound cycles, as much about the ghosts of the past as it is an optimistic hedge toward a pensioner’s age bracket Everett clearly endeavors to appreciate.

What keeps Nastasia from succumbing to grotesque melodrama is the razor-like incisiveness she brings to her lyrics.

A fascinating, brokenhearted mess of a record.

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 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.

A downbeat, surprisingly ruminative affair, less concerned with dance-floor breakouts than the inevitable post-party comedown.

The grim mood and countrified sound of Singing Bones doesn't differ dramatically from the past few Handsome Family albums.

Fever to Tell... shows that this seeming one-trick pony is capable of more varied and interesting material than its members have previously exhibited.

Kasher's jagged, jarring song cycle suggests an unholy fusion of the Cure's Robert Smith and Sebadoh's Lou Barlow.

What the band lacks in originality (not to mention coherence and subtlety), it more than makes up for with committed chops and indefatigable energy.

Bjork’s great achievement with Medulla is in taking a self-imposed limitation and managing to craft a full-bodied, multilayered work from such a basic toolset.

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.

A warm, gently beautiful album that rewards the patient listener.

Lost and Safe is an expression of two artists who are neither lost nor playing it safe.

This is the real deal, played by men who haven't lost their edge after a two-decade absence.

Fiction finds Daniel and Eno exploring the tension between a tight rhythm section and chaotic production techniques (from messy guitar parts to bizarre samples). And that provides an edge to the music that not only makes for an attention-grabbing collection, but also rewards repeated listens.

Feels doesn’t trump earlier, more intimate Animal Collective releases. It’s just louder and messier.

Shifts into a cruise-control comfort zone, blissfully coasting on what has come before.

Carter's sulky obsession with proving himself against a field that has all but laid down and acknowledged him as its master detracts from the hard-won grandeur wrought by this nostalgic magnum opus of self-regard (to say nothing of the engaging beats and typically nimble rhymes).

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

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.

Apart the two versions are about equal, combined they could have been amazing.

While the upbeat message is laudable, the entire exercise could prove overly precious, not to mention repetitive, if not for a few tunes that help add much needed variety.

Ghosts of the Great Highway is propelled by excellent songwriting, rich, heartfelt vocals, and solid musicianship.