Johns’s stylistic schizophrenia might set you off here; even his singing on Young Modern changes from cut to cut. Everyone else: dig in--this thing is quite a feast.

whereas Krell's keening, pleading falsetto dominated Love Remains, Total Loss finds him granting the rest of his sonic palette more prominence.

Langford and co-vocalist Sally Timms lead listeners through tales of country, God, and man with a weather-beaten grace that would make Nick Cave fans squeal.

With Room(s), Travis Stewart has somehow managed not only to wrangle in the off-the-cuff tendencies of the genre, but also create one of the more fully realized dance LPs in some time.

At first, the minimalist, glitchy grooves sound like a lot of the neo-electro trend these days. But Mason’s off-kilter lyrics and psychedelic sense of melody soon overpower the thrift-store Gary Numan and Depeche pastiches and the trite S&M vibe.

For now, these four remaining songs from their indie days are perfectly competent, reminiscent of the Pixies, and hard to remember even though they're perfectly tuneful.

It's great to know the band still have some ire burning, but White Crosses is a crushing listen for someone who bought into Against Me!'s revolution.

A few songs in, I was reminded that I hate mixtapes--or at least, I find it hard to make it all the way through them, especially when they're made by other people and especially when they're filled with weak endless dub reggae.

Alas, at this stage of the game, The Chaos may satisfy, but it rarely excites - something of a snag for a band whose whole purpose seems to be capturing in song the thrill of a thrill.

Tomboy is a tricked-out, big-budget epic built for IMAX.

Their songs of experience suggest they spent some time exploring that darkness, only to have found the light on the other side.

Veteran rock legend Alan Moulder and eclectic electro-guy Dan Carey make sure Something sounds as huge as its aspirations, bringing an impeccably massive sheen to every note.

Ashes & Fire is as close as it gets to the brilliance of his first post-Whiskeytown offering, Heartbreaker.

1,000 Years--the record Sleater-Kinney might have made at the very beginning if they'd been ambivalent about whether to turn up the volume and the attitude--is a meditation on age, timelessness, and nostalgia that could elicit a glass-half-full/half-empty decision from fans.

The good news is, this album is going to garner a dozen swoons in her direction for each romantic woe she professes on it.

Although the band's sonic stew isn't particularly remarkable or consistent (instrumentation oscillates between warm and comforting, and distant and anemic), their lyrics have a peculiar charm that keeps them alluring.

'Jerks' is a scathing freakout that made me want to hear Sonic Youth's cover of the Untouchables' 'Nic Fit' all of a sudden; '7/23' is a clopping, slightly flat, strangely iridescent love note; and the focus that disperses over the course of six hazy minutes of 'State Numbers' takes the opportunity of "The Ricercar of Dr. Clara Haber" to slap itself in the face a few times and the shimmering outburst of 'The Lighter Side of... Hippies' to remind you why you made it so deep into this oddly arresting album in the first place.

The disc is an appropriate soundtrack for springtime and new beginnings, and this Sigur Ros–lite of a solo project does carry Jonsi across the equinox without his bandmates-turned-family-men. But it sounds more like the work of a chick hatching than a free bird.

He still dabbles in more-chin-stroking fare, but he's able to ground his adventures in enough melody to preserve the album's flow--and your bearings.

Even if he's stuck in the past, Lewis's best songs feel timeless.

It’s just an Omaha boy playing some good old country pop--for once.

The 18 cuts here showcase the Birmingham (England) group’s brand of eerie yet pretty electro-acoustic pop as well as any of their three proper albums.

Reatard wants to do it all, and he comes pretty close.

The rest of this satisfying album is a classic Hal Willner production, complete with the unusual cover choices (Decemberists, Espers, very late Eno) and the usual Willner Family Players (Nick Cave, Antony Hegarty, Rufus Wainwright, Marc Ribot) in back-up duties.

Anyone up to date on the current dance-punk scene would have little trouble taking most of these 11 songs as outtakes from recent albums by such higher-profile acts as Soulwax, LCD Soundsystem, and Simian Mobile Disco.

The shoegazy noise genre is again slowly creeping toward the pop spectrum, and Sports might push it even farther toward the indie mainstream, but it needs a new tag - let's call it blackout pop.

Don't expect anything in terms of experimentation--this makes stellar mixtape fodder for an indie-pop prom night also scored by Dum Dum Girls and the Morning Benders.

So Outta Reach isn't so strong that I'd recommend it above its predecessor [Smoke Ring for My Halo], but its songs are very much cut from the same cloth.