Chase This Light is packed with huge pop moments, galloping off with the exhilarating 'Big Casino' and swiftly following it with the towering 'Carry You,' songs seemingly custom made for action-packed pick-up truck commercials.

The best tracks on Oblivion with Bells are also the most ambitious....But after that pair of opening tracks, you have to wait until the very last piece, a long, trancey bit of psychedelic drift called 'The Best Mamgu Ever,' to hear something more than unformed melodies and unstrung ideas.

The Art of Love and War, on the re-launched Stax label, is as full-bodied an affair as this old-school-leaning, incessantly self-exploring diva has delivered.

Viscerally contemporary, Necessary Evil harnesses youthful exuberance from across the charts, and Harry and her team of producers and songwriting partners do radio-ready rock, pop, and soul-lite with à la mode savvy to spare.

It's a more pensive presentation--dare I say it: more mature.

Brave may not be the most groundbreaking record ever to climb the pop charts, but it's enough to convince you JLo's discs don't stint on substance.

This record's delightful and wholly original; no one else could possibly have made it.

Cease punctuates its magnitude among Sub Pop's top-drawer power elite (The Shins and Iron & Wine), asserting this Band of Horses' fast-rising run for the roses.

Nearly thirty years after her debut with the Banshees, Siouxsie can still sneer and storm as fiercely as ever.

Credit producer Brendan O'Brien for the wall of sound that backs 'Girls in Their Summer Clothes,' which sets the atmosphere for one of the great vocal performances by Springsteen.

Songs of Mass Destruction is a sterling, rock-solid, expert example.

Complete with its complicated lead and sprinkles of string instruments, it lies in contrast to the simplicity and blithe spirit of the record's remaining half-hour--but joins the other 11 songs directly in the wheelhouse of the Dashboard Confessional fervent.

Fogerty's voice sounds great throughout; passionate, more committed and comfortable with these songs than he has seemed in years.

The first studio release by the Sadies in three years represents a big sonic advance.

100 Days, 100 Nights makes for a very welcome addition to any avid listener's contemporary soul music library.

If you're over 21, file souljaboytellem.com under guilty pleasures. If you're younger, let it rip without reservation.

Ten years later, they've regrouped with Norton for a disc that's more sophisticated and diverse, if a tad less rockin'.

More definitive than ever, the rhythm and percussion complement Beam's voice, a lulling, almost eerie tone that occasionally recalls John Lennon's early solo work

While the raw, raging blues of 'Red Is the Color' ranks with Earle's most powerful music, 'Satellite Radio' could well be the slightest (as well as perhaps a plug for Earle's own radio show), but the artist's willingness to take chances attests to a restless creativity that refuses to be corralled.

Songs About Girls is, for sure, a big, noisy record. But in addition to the kind of hugeness, it's sometimes hard to get your head around.

The singer's gentle vocals and Spanish-meets-classical guitar style make a quietly compelling match, especially so on his sophomore CD In Our Nature, easily the best work--either as a solo or contributing vocalist--that he has released to date.

Keyshia Cole proves for a second time--for sure and way beyond the shadow of a doubt--that she's headed for Mary J. Blige-style hugeness.

Even in its duller moments--the flaccid ballad 'Shirk,' the truncated sax solo that closes 'Virgo,' rainbow messages from God ('Elliptical')--this record fails to depart from the serious verve that has kept this artist relevant and refreshing for years.

Mitchell's songwriting shines brightest at such singularly poignant moments where specificity of images meets the vagaries of the instrumental arrangements, and, in the end, these and other highlights ('Bad Dreams,' 'Night of the Iguana') definitively carry the torch.

The curiously titled Reunion Tour (four years between albums but they never disbanded) ups the lyrical ante ever more with contagious tunes like 'The Last Last One,' 'Hymn of the Medical Oddity,' and 'Relative Surplus Value.'

The singer's whiskey-stained voice infuses those words with a fierce mix of pride, hurt, resignation, sadness, strength, and humility--traits that make her one of the finest R&B singers of her generation. There are other riveting moments rivaling that from this deeply moving set.

Scott weaves through the music like a woman who's taken her time contemplating what feelings ought to sound like.

Here's a set that suggests rock has got its head screwed on straight again, that the path to real feelings need not necessarily be led by Norah Jones.