The disc's effectiveness comes from the subtlety of the theme as much as its pervasiveness.

Dizzee's voice still sounds like a helium-inflected hiccup, and the beats still sound like they were recorded directly from a Nintendo, if not an Atari.

It's definitely a departure from their earlier albums -- or, more precisely, an evolution -- but in no way did they drop the ball. Instead, they may now be playing a different game.

Listening to Funeral takes a bit of patience. With most of the songs, the payoff doesn't come right away; in some cases, it sneaks up on you after several spins.

Perhaps their sloshing disintegration, whiplashing folk-crunch, honeyed melancholy and deliquescent time-lapse... never quite settle into a stable Gestalt, but the music hints at the presence of more looming somewhere behind it.

Sounds like it's coming from bluesmasters who've lived twice as long and seen three times as much.

The unpredictable song structures are fresh and innovative, too, twisting off in unexpected directions mere seconds before you can remember what they remind you of.

A solid set of shadowy songs with driving melodies.

The question is not whether Medúlla is brilliant; insofar as this can be objectively asserted, it most certainly is. The question is really, Do you like Björk? Do you like her a lot? Obviously, a Björk a capella album is going to be lost on you if you never really liked her vocal style in the first place.

Imagine a troupe of gloomy cow-punks careening down a thundering Hawaiian pipeline and you've got a bead on their wildly divergent sound.

As gentle, elegant end-of-the-summer albums go, Frozen Orange scores top marks. As a David Kilgour record, it's more subjective; some listeners will love the polish, while others will consider it surplus to requirements.

The giddy shift towards pop and even traditional dance music structure that Mouse on Mars take here is so irresistibly fun and persuasive that the very thought of loyalists furrowing their brows and crossing their arms is comical.

Radian boasts a sound far deeper and richer than most of their push-button contemporaries.

Half Smiles of the Decomposed isn't quite the guns-blazing finale I always imagined the last GBV album would be, but it never becomes a limp-wristed approximation of the band in any of its previous guises.

You won't be sure whether you blacked out from a seizure, gave birth to twins or simply had one of the best musical experiences of your life.

She Loves You's real triumph is the fact that it sounds like a Twilight Singers record first and a covers collection second.

Kinsella and his crew finally seem to have found a way of expressing themselves that doesn't feel introverted and exclusive.

Green Imagination succeeds because it rarely seems obvious or disingenuous, even as it indulges in copious quantities of shamelessly retro fun.

McNeely and Matz have found their calling and left a lasting impression with this fierce yet fragile album.

A terrific and long-overdue reissue that's sure to satiate established fans as well as the new converts it hopes to earn.

His most compelling, not to mention complete, work to date.

Homesongs is his minor key playground, filled with masterpieces in the making. All you have to do to enjoy them is slow... down...

It's all so beautifully simple, especially moody acoustic guitar/piano laments like "Fewer Words", that you almost miss how effective the arrangements are -- gorgeous, heartfelt melodies yield odes to a life that's consistently surprising and alive with optimism.

This is great stuff, and a significant advance over both of Comets on Fire's previous albums.

Tyrannosaurus Hives has hit garage rock's heart like a huge syringe of adrenaline, and even if it doesn't awaken the hibernating beast, its furious tempest is a blinding final gasp for a genre that has repeatedly rewarded mediocrity.

Sorry I Make You Lush runs on fresh sounds and non-drowsy wit.

This is a big, sprawling, difficult but rewarding album, from a band whose reach exceeds its grasp, but only by a little.

A gleefully cohesive miasma of sound.