Isbell's best songs will remind you of Richard Buckner, Raymond Carver, and Neil Young.

On this album, GB make the Dead Kennedys seem subtle. And it would be nice if there were more variety to their sound.

New Maps is a terrific sounding record; at least two-thirds of it begs many repeated listens.

This album blows the doors off its predecessor. Save a pair of disinfected ballads ("The Last Fight," "Gravedancer"), Libertad is all about hand-grenade chords, drag-racing riffs, and circus-tent choruses.

Ms. Kelly, though, has some points to prove, foremost among them that this songbird can rock.

T.I. is at the top of his game, though, and he makes it heard.

A return to form in every way.

With results that transcend category, Willis sounds like an artist renewed.

Far be it for the imaginative contrarian to retrace Dylan's steps, and sure enough--despite an omnipresent harmonica--Ferry does just the opposite.

Everywhere on Icky giant riffs leap and shout, with Flamenco horns and those eerie bagpipes and rhythmic shifts and Jack's impatient vocal kinetics, marking new territories even as the White Stripes again populate them with vintage ideas.

Songs cascade along in loping forward motion, as prone to lushly orchestrated decomposition ("Apnea Obstructiva," "Te Amo...Por Que Me Odias") and succulent adagio ("Faltamos Palabras," "Olhas") as they are to the simple, charismatic sense of melody that propelled S&S.

A travel kaleidoscope of a neverending road passing by the window.

Lost Highway isn't "Bon Jovi goes country" so much as a meaningful tribute to the Nashville ethos done on their own terms.

Amiina enchant like a peek inside an elven gathering under the roots of Yggdrasil.

No less than a half-dozen songs have hit potential.

Characteristically classy tunes that will thrill Thompson's fans, who have been waiting for just such a set of literate and challenging music from a musician who never delivers less.

There's an undeniable, infectious energy at work here which is put to great use with the self-deprecating humor and immense pop chops.

The nine tracks run a tad samey-same, but that's at least part of their charm. They and assert Boeckner anew as a prescient, skeptical voice, coarsely toned and draped in machine-sounding music even as he inveighs against the post-modern world--technology and urban living and traffic and so on.

It's certainly the group's most cohesive album in ages.

Now this is more like it.

A tight disc that skitters from track to shiny track with imagination and a renewed sense of rap's widened boundaries.

These 50 minutes of music are as cohesive as they are conquering.

A knockout punch.

A return to their former glory days, Snakes and Arrows shows this seminal prog rock band reclaiming some of the sonic territory that they'd lost over the past few years.

They have the mannerisms, the loose raucousness, and the intense focus on melody that marks the combined work of Pete Doherty and Carl Barat--except Mando roughs it up without antagonism, under control but with a blast of hefty motion.

The real discovery is that he's capable of making the same old racket at just a fraction of the volume.

For elder listeners Fear probably won't serve as the powerful statement it wants to be--its themes have been explored to more exacting impact before and, musically, it's fairly standard progressive fare--but it is a strong and intelligent album and for a generation that's grown numb from three-minute ditties about life at the end of the country club cul-de-sac that embrace rather than rage against the dying of the light, it may serve as a wake up call and provide hope for a brighter and more color-infused tomorrow.

There are moments of light and hope on At the End of Paths Taken, but overall it is a deliriously dark and brooding album.