A near-perfect mix of two sympathetic talents operating in top form.

Because no other act really sounds like Labradford, which matches its Ennio Morricone-style melodies and analog synths with a sense of menace missing from most ambient music, it's forgivable that only subtle distinctions differentiate one recording from the next.

In the hands of a lesser group, such retro affectations would be little more than a clever gimmick... In the hands of Jurassic 5's four gifted rappers and two enormously promising DJs and producers, however, it's a brilliant musical strategy that draws on the energy and enthusiasm of the old school to take hip-hop in new, exciting, unexpected directions. A flat-out great full-length debut.

What sets Red Devil Dawn apart, though, is a sense of personalized tragedy that Bachmann hasn't addressed much before.

It would be a mistake to call the result "lo-fi": For all the songs' elemental ingredients, Beam is a gifted producer, imbuing The Creek Drank The Cradle with both breeziness and portent, subtlety and simplicity.

A filler-free tour de force.

For the most part, Ghost channels its shaggy sound into pop music. True, it's pop music that constantly threatens to erupt into noise or fade into silence, but it's still hard not to hum along.

Love seems to come from a far more freewheeling Bob Dylan than the one on The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan, or virtually any other album he's recorded.

Even at their most piercingly observant, Collingwood and Schlesinger never lose their warmth for their subjects, and their lack of condescension comes through in the music, as well.

Musically and vocally, the band sounds tighter and more accomplished than ever.

To a certain extent, Fire sounds like a joke, but a pointed one that approaches rock less as a conceit than as a directive, something to drag into its cultural surroundings rather than a trope to fall back on.

Song for song, this could be its best album.

What's the point in complaining that Electric Version doesn't offer enough of one of its countless good things? The only thrill missing here is the enviable joy of hearing New Pornographers for the first time.

Love Is Hell gets where it intends to go, because instead of Rock N Roll's tossed-off muscle-flexing, Adams supplies actual songs. [Review applicable to both Part 1 and Part 2]

Some of the most focused, artful, and affecting work of his career. [Review applicable to both Part 1 and Part 2]

Basement Jaxx traffics in some of the most shamelessly insistent and inventive beats around.

Nixon sounds like the Superfly soundtrack recorded in a different dimension, one in which Mayfield and Marvin Gaye met up with Lawrence Welk for an impromptu jam session.... a drowsy near-masterpiece.

Given his prior eclecticism, it's stunning to hear the unified, boldly conceptual approach Cornelius takes on his new Point.

It's a gorgeous, life-affirming gem for those willing to seek it out.

The unrelenting bleakness that pervades most of Marshall's music can be oppressive when taken in excess, and The Covers Record's gloom is exacerbated by the fact that its instrumental accompaniment seldom entails more than a piano or guitar... That barren approach can't match the stunning elegance of 1998's Moon Pix... but it is appropriate: The Covers Record is Marshall laid bare, and it needs no embellishments.

Deerhoof sounds like a group of music-school whizzes playing at being a homey rock band, dividing the distance between their Steely Dan and Shonen Knife records. [31 Mar 2004]

It's a testament to hip-hop's liberating ability to transcend geography that a Californian, a brilliant young producer from North Carolina, and a New York-based independent label have united for an album that says more in 35 fat-free minutes than most rappers will ever say. [24 Mar 2004]

The Notwist's previous stabs at fusing pop, techno, punk, and jazz were dominated by post-adolescent melancholy and petulance. Though Neon Golden obsesses over locked rooms and missed chances, it also acknowledges the pleasures of stasis, the distant possibility of change, and an overall affinity with the "freaks."

Though his rhyming Wu-Tang compatriots are conspicuously absent, Ghostface's latest does what nearly all latter-day Wu-Tang releases have been trying to do without much success: return to the brilliance of 36 Chambers. [28 Apr 2004]

The album is driven by Wratten's sensitive voice, ringing guitars, haunting synths, pattering drum machines, and some of the most beautiful songs you'll ever hear, like a cross between Cocteau Twins and The Cure.

The album combines a deep reverence for rap's visceral power with a desire to move the genre beyond its primordial synthesis of beats and rhymes.

Balls-out heavy metal with an emphasis on speed and keyboard-driven hooks, the album rocks almost recklessly, but without the trappings that burden its peers: There's no camp, no irony, and, most notably, no angst.

Dark and delightful.

Though it lacks the thematic and tonal diversity of The Ghost Of Fashion, Soft Spot finds Clem Snide at its most instrumentally expansive, lavishing the album's 11 songs in a soothing coat of strings, horns, "orchestral scenery," and other whistles and bells.

The album drags a bit near the end, but there's not a bad song on it, bursting out of the gate with the instant classic "Big Exit" before stringing together a bevy of strong material. But Stories From The City doesn't fully reveal itself as a classic until its astonishing midsection, particularly the rip-roaring "Whores Hustle And The Hustlers Whore" and the breathtaking "This Mess We're In." The former is one of the most bracing, thrilling songs of Harvey's career, and it's followed immediately by the latter, a gorgeous duet with Radiohead's Thom Yorke.

Where each successive album seemed like a new page, The Argument feels like a brilliant new chapter.

But if Badu is worried about proving anything, her sophomore album Mama's Gun doesn't let it show. A little grittier and with just the right amount of added ambition, Mama's Gun picks up where Baduizm left off.... Factor in the deceptively simple arrangements, a lovely breakup suite ("Green Eyes"), and near-infinite replay value, and it becomes clear that it'll take at least another three years for the world to catch up with this one, too.

Any suggestion of a musical crisis of confidence, however, vanishes with the album's first chord, which picks up pretty much where Born In The U.S.A. left off 18 years ago.

Lowe keeps turning out albums that sound like the best of his career.

Largely abandoning any elements of rock music, the disc ebbs and flows like Aphex Twin, the hypnotic loops of distorted beats and hissing, humming synths bravely replacing the usual recipe of drums and guitar.... For all its flaws and intentionally alienating tactics, Kid A defies expectations and sets the bar ever higher for the would-be copycats, who could learn a thing or two about taking risks.

Though sonically similar to its predecessor, the new album sets aside whimsical wandering to make room for more straight-for-the-heart (by way of the throat) conviction; simply put, it rocks harder.

Trades the chilly, futuristic minimalism of S. Carter for a warmer, more organic sound rooted in the soul and funk of the '60s and '70s

From GBV's earliest days, Pollard has displayed, in almost equal measure, a talent for catchy melodies and for daring eccentricity, with his best songs balancing the two instincts. That dynamic pervades Isolation Drills, with the tension producing some of the most instantly enjoyable songs of Pollard's career while maintaining a strong sense of experimentation.

Her best album to date.... Vespertine is an album of small gestures, one almost challenging in its stillness.... The cumulative effect is an album both timeless and of the moment, an avant-garde electronic-pop exploration of classic themes.

A terrific head-scratcher of a debut

Confield, Autechre's sixth full-length and its best release since 1997's Chiastic Slide, may also be its most ambitious.

For once, the production-by-committee approach works, strengthening Kweli's vision rather than diluting it.

Guitar rock that knows the grit of downtown, understands the seductiveness of a timeless pop song, and recognizes that a great solo can be accomplished in 20 seconds, Is This It may not quite justify its ascent to instant-classic status.

Heartbreakingly delicate even on the up-tempo numbers, Alice contains some of Waits' career's most tender moments.

Radiohead effectively split the difference between its best-known incarnations on Hail To The Thief, which brings the group's Consecutive Great Albums total to a remarkable five.

A showcase for Jones' remarkable voice, the disc captures a singer whose rare instinct for interpretation always serves the song, rather than working against it.

Out Of Season makes Portishead's remarkable innovations sound like so much extra baggage to Gibbons' voice.

The group frequently wanders into still valleys before chugging back up, properly balancing bounce and punch--Constantines may be the best band since Archers Of Loaf to marry intelligence and brute force.

It's a lush, gorgeous record, but it's also small and still, full of unassuming first-person monologues.

The album is so like last year's terrific Internal Wrangler that it feels more like a companion than a sequel.

An even-better follow-up to Beulah's excellent 1999 album When Your Heartstrings Break, the new The Coast Is Never Clear features the San Francisco band running through a set of songs every bit as lovely as they are unpredictable, with tracks as likely to throw in a banjo as a Moog.

The songs are heartfelt and witty, with the kind of deep sweep that makes listeners happy to be sad.

Yankee confirms what fans have long suspected: Wilco was right, the label was wrong, and the album could be the best of the band's career.

A major album from a major artist, Soul Machine works with a sonic, lyrical, and emotional palette that encompasses everything from joy to rage.

A winsome, beautiful collection of songs... Welch has never seemed more assured, building a creatively expansive work out of modest ingredients.

Heard as a rap album, Original Pirate Material provides a compelling picture of the style wrapping itself around a different milieu. But taken on his own terms, Skinner reaches too deep and true to sound like anything but a remarkable talent in any genre.

Endlessly listenable and almost invariably mesmerizing, Yoshimi Battles The Pink Robots piles on layers of production prowess without drowning out the beat of its human, humane heart.

For all its daring, Reveal still ranks among the group's most instantly winning albums, the kind whose poppiest pleasures, like "All The Way To Reno (You're Going To Be A Star)" and the single "Imitation Of Life," eventually fade into the album's overall beauty.

Given a chance to be herself, Lynn responds with a powerful return to form. [28 Apr 2004]

It all makes for a bleak spread, but Rascal rises up as a singular musical presence too brimming and perceptive to let the coarse world around him pass by untouched.

It's not a Case overview, but a standalone country-rock classic.

The songs still fly by, but they leave an even deeper impression, and the musical palette has expanded considerably.

Upping his narrative ante, Skinner goes all-in on Grand, a bold follow-up that sounds beguilingly slight and dry until details start sketching its story.

The Clash's London Calling stands as one of the few unimpeachably perfect albums... but it doesn't necessarily gain from the added scrutiny.

An album that nails both the balance and the imbalance promised by any true fusion of rock and dance music.

Mm.. Food? is a weird, amorphous album that somehow feels simultaneously dashed-off and like the culmination of everything Doom has been working toward his entire career.

It may be predictable, but if predictable means rock-solid and mostly magnificent, why bother asking for more?

With sterling quality to match its massive advance hype, The College Dropout is one of those wonderful crossover albums that appeal to a huge audience without sacrificing a shred of integrity.

While Sexsmith's music once seemed both too precise and too remote, on Retriever, he brings a subtle urgency to a set of songs that could double as proverbs.

The new Smile not only justifies its bearing, but also serves as a major triumph.

Where The Marshall Mathers LP sounded like a primal howl of rage, The Eminem Show showcases an artist trying to make sense out of the chaos and turmoil in his personal and professional life.

A challenge to even the most hardened depressive, Thunder, Lightning, Strike finds one way after another to shake new pleasures out of old material.

This remarkable debut captures the sound of growing up and busting out without sparing the rough edges.

For several albums now, Sleater-Kinney has shown eagerness to experiment, and it seems to be pounding at a wall, getting ever closer to the recording that will break it down. One Beat isn't quite it, but it makes a glorious noise in the process.

The elegance and exuberance of its dancing carries over into its defiantly escapist music, which celebrates hip-hop's endless sonic possibilities with a winning mixture of theatricality and a finely honed spirit of adventure.... Rooted in a love of hip-hop abundantly evident in valentines to the art form ("Rap Song," "Request-Line"), it still takes it in new and seductive places, making Bridging The Gap a heartfelt, infectious classic.

Deft at pulling both heartstrings and party tricks, Buck 65 has peers as an emotive rapper, but he's alone in giving hip-hop such a personal, puzzling spin.

Sonically, Fear Of A Black Tangent represents a massive leap forward for Busdriver.

It may fit neatly with the now-sound, but Bloc Party's debut album, Silent Alarm, feels more like a modern-day dance-punk standard-bearer than a second-stringer or also-ran.

He's made a cosmic artistic leap and fused together decades, styles, genres, and races with his remarkable sophomore effort, Beauty And The Beat.

If Madlib were somehow to commandeer a time machine, kidnap Sly & The Family Stone, Prince Paul, The Firesign Theater, Melvin Van Peebles, Redd Foxx, Negativland, and The Last Poets, lock them in a studio together on Haight Ashbury during the Summer Of Love with Hunter S. Thompson's drug supply, then force them to record an album together, the result might sound a little like The Further Adventures of Lord Quas.

Although hard to digest at first, The Woods ingratiates itself on subsequent listens, making the band's other albums seem half-baked by comparison.

Another remarkable White Stripes album.

Does rediscovering what a guitar can do count as a bold new direction for Joe Pernice? Not so much. But it adds new hues to a near-flawless batch of sorrowful pop wonders, and ups the power of one of the best songwriters of his era.

How he makes good on such a seemingly noxious premise remains a mystery... but Lidell's star shines from whatever angle it might be spied.

It's easy to play a spot-the-Illinois-reference game, but it's just as easy to step back and marvel at the songs' musical range and sophistication.

A bewitching collection of low-key pop.

Twin Cinema doesn't so much vary its predecessors' formula as crawl inside it.

So, while it's easy to imagine most of the songs on Takk... sitting comfortably on previous albums, the ebb and flow would be damagingly disrupted if any of the 11 tracks were moved around, omitted, or added to.

From the first track, The Craft replicates Blazing Arrow's assured, patchouli-scented combination of rock-solid songcraft and spacey experimentation.

It's another solid set of passionate, angry, marvelously produced songs delivered by a singular voice, and it succeeds by following a muse that doesn't just ignore genre distinctions and pop delineations—it doesn't know they exist.

For anyone who's never heard The Clientele before, this is the record to get.

A carefully sequenced, fully imagined album--one that's designed to be consumed by people wearing headphones and staring into space.

Track-by-track stylistic swerves make the album singular and exciting, but like-minded swerves within the same tracks ultimately give We Are Monster its living, breathing charge.

While it's no surprise that the YHF songs sound better live, it's surprising how much better Ghost songs like "Company In My Back" and "The Late Greats" sound with the addition of some synthesizer accents and thicker guitars.

A stunning return to form.

The Rakes' full-length debut is almost embarrassingly packed with winning singles.

Casablancas and company sound loose, and they've regained a lot of the coolest-dudes-in-New-York swagger that made them so initially exciting.

Even though With Love And Squalor quickly ingratiates itself, some of its best parts reveal themselves over time.