Family of Love is strong, with songs that suggest rather than demand, but nonetheless maintain Dom's glossy, candy-coated summertime sound.

Only the nuttiest of fans will find any new details (the more-present backing vocals on Agaetis Byrjun stunner "Svefn-g-englar," or the beefed-up church organ swirl in "Ny Batteri"), even if the band's live majesty is captured in full-force.

For the second time in 2006, Wu-Tang’s Ghostface has released an album that makes it seem everyone else in the hip-hop world should be paying more attention to Ghostface.

Modern Guilt is a hot thing of indefinite course.

Having put aside the gimmicky Atari-melting antics of yore, the Castles have created a dense-yet-airy thicket of pure pop transcendence.

With synth tones straight outta Miami Vice and dreamy melodies that cut through the fog-machine haze, Plastic Beach is music for piloting your speedboat beyond the no-wake zone, or for looking back from the future with a sentimental affinity for the past.

If you’re not in the mood for it, Perkins’s uncut melancholy can be a lot to swallow. Still, this is one of the prettiest bummers around.

But tempos that gait like a swinging pocket watch and Kozelek's drowsy, double-tracked voice make a strong case for a spellbinding kind of sublimity. This uncanny effect is even more pronounced on Admiral Fell Promises.

Temporal as a whole is evenly mastered and gratifyingly titanic.

Trees might be at its best when Moore gives into the freewheeling vibe that is the natural outgrowth of spending your adult life engaged in on-stage jam sessions.

Les Savy Fav's fifth studio album finds the veteran Brooklyn quintet further channeling the gonzo energy of their live show, and with winning results.

It is her most authoritative and cogent statement.

Lupe’s new sophomore disc, Lupe Fiasco’s The Cool (Atlantic), is way too long.

It’s now clear that though the District of Columbia might not have representation in the US Senate, residents do have a distinguished rep in hip-hop.

Whether he's in onomatopoetic punch-line mode or scratching the Cee Lo end of his terrific range, Monch is hip-hop's superlative talent, and now he has a solo stripe to prove it.

Out of the Game is melodically smart and consistently rewarding.

The Fool feels like a séance, with guitarist Emily Kokal and her fellow female vocalists focusing their ghostly calls on a mysterious you.

Building levees of emotion and tearing those bitches down - Explosions in the Sky have never sounded more thrilling.

Reign of Terror is way awesomer [than Treats].

Cooder, like a Keith Richards/Woody Guthrie hybrid, observes [the current political scene] all as a damn shame, with little condescension and oodles of wit.

His words are layers of palpable atmospherics; subtle and pleading at times, worried and demanding at others, mainly steeped in a falsetto that rarely wears thin - note "rarely" - it occasionally causes the eardrums to glaze over.

It's an atmosphere-setting collection, with little in the way of memorable riffs or melodies. But that's the point: Earth has needed to slow its roll for a minute now. Here's the inspiration.

The King Is Dead is ear-openingly different for the Decemberists, but the pretty country-rock might soothe even the hardest of cowboy hearts.

Over time, the Mountain Goats have explored different emotional territory. Here they prove they can still make humble, evocative music.

It's a killer.

The cumulative effect can be like listening to a church choir doing canons while simultaneously crushing OCs on your bicuspids, one at a bloody time.

Instead of wandering into opaque experimentation, as they’ve been known to do in the past, they corral those unruly elements into a series of hummable, memorable tunes.

For all its robust, pristinely recorded eclecticism, Rhine Gold holds together beautifully, thanks to Makrigiannis's angelic tenor, which soothes and stirs in equal measure.