Now 62, the mighty reverend may not be able to make you spontaneously combust like yesteryear, but damn if he can't still get you in the mood with his third batch of love songs for Blue Note.

The result ebbs and flows.

The result is impressive genre prowess--especially when he invites Austin unknown Deon Davis (a/k/a Element 7d) to contribute some post-rap boogie on 'Crystal Lite,' or rips off Wham’s 'Everything She Wants' on 'I Choose You'--but Pants might still be flexing prematurely.

Against all odds, Anywhere I Lay My Head doesn't feel like a vain stunt. Mostly.

II Trill, is psychologically up-market, with genuinely well-appointed guest spots (that Webbie and Lupe Fiasco both sound comfortable on the same album speaks volumes) and hungry young producers offering their best tricks.

On Crayons, it’s like no time has passed at all, and of course it hasn't.

Solidified by finally having a mostly established band, this record is less impressive than their pre-’90s work, but better than anything since 1994, and generally a welcome addition to their already established résumé.

With catchy choruses (hear "Why, tell me why?/I don't know" once and it won't go away), assured self-production, and lyrics that lean on nobody's pen, it won't be long before people start comparing other bands to French Kicks, instead of the other way around.

It's their mediocre album.

Take Foxy Brown's (belated) fourth album, Brooklyn's Don Diva, as the latest missed opportunity.

Nouns' title stinks compared to that of their 2007 debut, "Weirdo Rippers," but the jams are way better.

By submerging listeners gently, Water Curses never goes off the deep end.

Estelle turns Shine into a durable debut, pleasant and shrewd.

The good news for people who love bad news is that Portishead have gotten better, too.

Kensington Heights, like its predecessor, isn't as fiery as the best moments on the band's inconsistent breakthrough, 2003's "Shine a Light," but the Constantines still deliver bedrock strength and eternal-flame passion.

Her appeal is questionable when she tries to sound like an American rapper, but on tracks where she just sings--the immaculate junk symphony of 'Be Mine,' the excellently Japanese 'Bum Like You,' the Autobahn power-ballad 'With Every Heartbeat'--she gives Europop a swift Swedish energy and presence.

All in all, Hard Candy could be the greatest swan song to a pop career this side of Let It Be, if you wanna get all hyperbolic about it.

With her eponymous debut's deft mix of dap, punk, rock, pop, house, reggae, and hip-hop, she won't completely live down associations with the famous Sri Lankan (whom she also counts as a friend), but the result emerges as much more than a mere imitation.

The production style displays unique shadings and shifts in sound, suggesting an attention to sonic detail emblematic of a drummer with the deep musical (especially jazz-related) knowledge that ?uestlove owns. But this may also sustain the most oft-heard complaint against the Roots: the seeming inability of their lead vocalist, Black Thought, to unfailingly deliver "hip-hop quotables."

Not a bad debut, finally, but someone should tell her that speaking for the young people doesn't mean merely becoming Shanice with attitude.

The singer's Mancunian bleariness is such that the bittersweet barfly sing-along 'Grounds for Divorce' rings effortlessly real, while the quasi-spiritual questing of 'Weather to Fly' gets reined in by the sobering image of "pounding the streets where my father's feet/Still ring from the walls."

Overall, Mr. Love and Justice is classic Bragg: frequently fantastic folk-rock that keeps both the faith and your attention.

The piano twinkle and mere droplet of a beat on 'Like the Rest of Us' sounds like Slug doing Regina Spektor; the coos and plucks of 'Me' are Yael Naïm; the barista-strum acoustic rap of 'Guarantees' aims for Elliott Smith and ends up with Uncle Kracker; the skipping hand-clap gospel of 'Puppets' is pure Moby Playtime; and, for some reason, 'Dreamer' sounds like Michael McDonald--funkless, martial, stiff, and innocuous, perfect for an upwardly mobile 21-45 demo that seeks neither boom nor bap with their soy latte.

The Mobb Deep don sounds beyond frayed, barely restraining his byzantine gangster paranoia while scratching out his own self-convinced logic evoking both grief and menace.

Serene but emotionally flat, Valley feels like too much church on a cold Sunday afternoon.

Anthony Gonzalez nurtures nostalgia but isn't enslaved by it, and Saturdays=Youth teems with equal parts ache and pomp as a result.

He's always here to try to twist reality's wires some more, just so, and leave a little room to move.

Dig, Lazarus, Dig!!! should prove an exhilarating listen for most fans of Cave's oeuvre. It has a lot of the rawness and jagged edges of a classic Bad Seeds album, hopped up with off-kilter beats and loads of loops contributed by violinist Warren Ellis.