Idlewild are rapidly outgrowing their influences as they forge a unique identity that leads me to suspect that they may soon be inspiring a slew of like-minded new bands.

Ghosts of the Great Highway is one of those albums that you want to have around for when life gets you down.

Come Feel Me Tremble is a bit of a mess, like they stuck the disc on a wall and threw the songs at it.... But you could say the same thing for Hootenanny, and to me this captures a bit of the same magic.

The band doesn't quite manage to reconcile its mannered appropriation of a distanced, underground frigidity with its boisterous forays into abrasive, psych-tinged garage rock, but this is probably a good thing, because it's this resistance to homogeneity that gives them the sort of edge they'd otherwise lack.

Basic but gorgeously textured pop-rock with a country tinge, Rilo Kiley's music is led by vocals that'll stop you in your tracks.

Fans of the movie who are attached to the film renditions have no cause for concern; none of the songs here are dramatic reworkings of the originals. But almost all of them pop with the same buoyancy and joy, demonstrating that the artists covering the songs are Hed-heads too.

Cex's production style favors an air of deep melancholy and foreboding, similar to the style of the Anticon Collective.

Written with some basic, inviting rock structures, the album replaces the hyper energy and angst of older material with slowed-down, complex textures and delicate grooves -- but still rocks out intermittently.

It's basically more of the same sort of wistful, sometimes hard-charging melodic rock of the group's first and better release, Up the Bracket.

This is intense, serious music for serious times, and writing off Sparta as the "other," less interesting half of their previous group would be a major mistake.

That unholy alliance of punk guitar and drum machine now shows off the organic contours of "real" band interaction -- check out how smoothly they funkify with one another on "Fake French."

One of the best, if not the best, of the Brooklyn-based, Gang of Four-worshipping lot.

The Beachwood Sparks balance deft restraint with hot guitar licks, making Once We Were Trees the best Byrds album since Sweetheart of the Rodeo.

Confield presents one of the purest approximations of "machine music" we've heard yet. It's profoundly unsettling, but that's half its beauty; it's a sonic Frankenstein that refuses to let its plug be pulled.

A shimmering set of utterly gorgeous songs.

An album that is both emotionally powerful and truly beautiful.

While not as dark, muscular or streamlined as the band's excellent, eponymously titled 2003 album, Flat-Pack Philosophy grows better and better with each listen.

What makes Quality worth it is exactly what dragged down Train of Thought -- the slow and syrupy songs.

This is a compelling debut/reunion, with the two men seeming to push each other far more than any of their recent collaborators have.

The Super Furries have indulgently embraced a collision of musical elements; what we hear is a jarring, yet surprisingly seamless, mix of sounds and exceptional songwriting.... Their best work to date.

Her rock-oriented approach here will please some, but such a genre-hopping exercise is only occasionally provocative.

You could dismiss Teenage Fanclub as not being original, but that would be missing the point. Instead, appreciate a group that, in 2005, can create absolutely perfect songs that somehow manage to channel the magic of early-to-mid-'60s pop-rock.

More than just a sick joke, Souljacker is a rocking, thought-provoking journey.

May well be the best of its seven studio albums, one that even approaches the heights of the stellar Singles Going Steady collection.

You aren't free after all, because once you've let the album in, you may never shake it off again.

A very strong -- albeit front-loaded -- album.

The Last Broadcast is big, intelligent, irony-free music that demands an open mind -- and rewards the heart quite well. Magnificent.

Margerine Eclipse is a decided improvement upon their last three albums, discarding the dense and difficult song structures that plagued those albums.