There's an easiness and directness to these tunes that was missing the last couple of times out, aided by Joe Henry and Ryan Freeland's no-nonsense mix but owing mainly to Farrar's vivid songwriting.

As precious as your grandma's finest china (and 10 times prettier), All Will Prosper nearly dissolves into shapeless clouds by album's end. But by then you've already dissolved into it.

Carpenter remains one of the most thoughtful writers around, but lately she's been reluctant to leave her musical comfort zone.

Gemini's theater-rock is no pain to listen to, but true drama queens will want to get their fix elsewhere.

Even though his heavy drug phase seems to be largely over, Borrowed is his "Sgt. Pepper"--not because he’s spelunking far-flung experimental trenches, but because he finally understands that life is larger than his ego (self-depreciating as it was).

Still, like the lovable Muppet, Flaws is just a little too green to have any major impact.

Their most subdued effort yet.

A return to what Jones does best: Stax-inspired soul-rock showpieces, brassy ballads, and an emphasis on the massive voice itself, which hasn't dissipated a scintilla since 1964.

Even Folds’s knack for a well-placed f-bomb has devolved into a lazy device masquerading as irreverence. His attitude may remain young at heart, but his irony’s over the hill.

It's kind of cool, kind of confusing, and kind of boring.

At the core of any Swollen Members project--and Armed to the Teeth, their first in three years, is no exception--is a clean, uncomplicated spread of kaleidoscopic semi-pop bangers from producer Rob the Viking.

Fans and detractors alike get exactly what they expect with bratty rockers like 'Outta My Head' and 'Rulebreaker,' but things seem to “get real” a bit with a more-introspective (if you can call it that) track like 'Murder (I Get Away With).'

Lifeless and boring.

Here they get back to where they once belonged, layering all manner of squiggly synth riffs over the kind of sleek techno grooves that define Get Physical, the well-regarded Berlin label they helped found. That gives the music an appealingly relaxed vibe, but it also produces the slight scent of concession.

Shadow's densest and longest work at first sounds like an overstylized, underwritten retread with lots of superfluous cuts sporting names like "Tedium." But it eventually rewards hard listening.

By the end of the 13-track disc, Lee's unwaveringly hopeful message starts to sound preachy. But if it works for him, well, maybe he’s onto something.

My advice is to skip directly to disc two, though I'm happy to report that the typically melismatic Mrs. Jigga shows a shocking degree of vocal restraint on the ballads.

It's hard to find many flaws in this new disc from Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros.

Some tracks, of course, are as sexy as a soggy batch of freedom fries once the words are comprehensible. But the best updates... have a seedy splendor all their own.

And so it goes with Mogwai's A Wrenched Virile Lore: a broad range of electro producers, ambient knob-twiddlers, and singer-songwriters re-assemble the Scottish post-rock champs' most recent studio album, the excellent Hardcore Will Never Die, But You Will, mostly with shitty bonus-feature-styled results.

Though no new ground is broken, the classically trained pianist and Berklee alumna shows her confidence and talent with this strong break-up record right after the quirky cool of last year's Taller Children.

The pointlessness is grating. XI Versions' final three songs do show signs of life--Animal Collective, Walls, and Pantha himself manage to work up a buzz--but they can't compensate for time killers by Lawrence, Carsten, and Efdemin that make inoffensiveness offensive.

They don’t always succeed on Walk It Off, in part because producer Dave Fridmann’s oversaturated-in-both-senses-of-the-word indie-psych sound does them no favors in their attempt to establish an identifiable TNT brand.

Ditch the first 20 minutes and open the album with the stunning, nearly seven-minute "The Violent Bear It Away," which is tucked away toward Destroyed's end, and here's a career-defining work.

Blackout may be more a tribute to the skills of the A-list producers who guided her through the disc than to any of her own talents.

Although it's an imperfect effort in some regards, the somewhat conceptual OX 2010: A Street Odyssey testifies to Vast's highly developed steez, and does so with complements from MCs who effortlessly jibe with his arcane rhyme selections.

As Blur, Morrissey, and even Oasis learned the hard way, engaging in parochial social criticism — as much of Yours Truly does with its references to youth clubs and housing estates — doesn’t connect with more than a cult of Anglophiles here in the US.

Lissy Trullie sounds simultaneously hungry and tepid, as if Trullie wants to make a big splash, but her album lacks the conviction or vision to make it happen.