Though not as darkly elegant as Permutation, Supermodified is still rife with sophisticated Brazilian lounge-jazz samples and unpredictable drum'n'bass skitterings, this time augmented with more overt nods to hip-hop and Aphex Twin-style sympho-electronica.

The album retains the trademark layered sound of earlier work, the dueling guitars, the wailing vocals, the powerfully musical drumming, yet it plunges into much darker territory than before.

There are very few artists who could pick up where they left off after ten years, or even five. To do this after half a lifetime is extraordinary.

It probably won't sway rock and roll, and it most likely won't change your life, but it's a solid disc from a consistent band who haven't let their major-label affiliation change them.

Geogaddi isn't a classic.... Disappointing, however, it is not.

If he's not this generation's most raggedly refined songwriting presence, then he's certainly in the top ten percent of his class -- a bona fide show-stopping tunesmith on a par with giants Elliott Smith, Ron Sexsmith and Richard Davies.

But as wonderful as parts of Old Ramon are, the spaces between the high points are at times, less than impressive.

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

This time out, Moby manages to establish himself not only as a talented multi-instrumentalist and genre-jumper, but as someone who can write interesting songs in a variety of genres -- a point he's missed in the past.

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.

Kids, parents and nerdy long-time fans alike can take something out of this.

It's a languid and elaborate affair -- a throbbing amalgamation of wiry, Au Pairsian art-funk, steely Gang of Four resolve and Cabaret Voltaire-inflected industrial howl.

Our Endless Numbered Days won't knock you off your seat with ribald lyrics or rambunctious riffs, but its confident, measured chords and precise tones will hold your attention long after they've grabbed it.

Picks up, astonishingly, exactly where the band left off, not exactly retracing old paths but branching off of them into new and exciting vistas.

Again raises the standard for thoughtful, well-crafted pop.

This is a wonderful album -- and a significant advance over the excellent Sung Tongs.

Their expanded sound, with its explosions of noise and romantic swells, deserves reconsideration by fans and skeptics alike.

Like waking up one morning to discover you suddenly like coffee, this is one of those albums that feels natural; the discord and the overwrought weepiness, the experimentalism and the simplicity -- everything works. It fits.

A perfect synthesis of modern studio manipulation and old-time pop craftsmanship, shattering all notions of what pop music can, or for that matter, should be.

Ghosts of the Great Highway easily ranks among the very best of Kozelek's dense discography, and it seems fair to suggest that it will become the measuring stick against which any future non-Red House Painters material is compared.

It seamlessly combines the choicest bits and bobbles of other acts into an overwhelming patchwork of sound and fury, but in the process, the band occasionally loses sight of their own identity.

Yoko is a much, much darker record than anything else in Beulah's canon.

Call it the exclamation point on Gibbard's stratospheric year.

If you can't quite muster truly fervid enthusiasm for Send, it's probably due, in some part, to the matter-of-factness of its presentation. There is much here to be excited about, but carefully cultivated detachment seems to be Wire's preferred modus operandi.

Expansively orchestrated, Nixon ultimately comes off as beautiful but slightly disturbing...

Whether the band is shakin' its collective art-rock ass to syncopated beats or barreling through treble-infused dueling guitar throwdowns, there's never a dull moment here.

Essentially, you get one disc on which Godspeed You Black Emperor tinkers with their sound a little bit, and one on which they deliver exactly what you've been expecting. That's a good mix.