Over the course of this album, you may laugh, frown, cry, cover your ears, or reach for the remote to fast-forward. But then you'll want to listen to it again.

Dark, downtrodden, and gloomy.

It's an improvement over Standards, which sounded unfinished, but it's nowhere near the peaks of Millions, TNT, or even the self-titled first album's great "Tin Cans And Twine."

A lot of major label-imposed ideas, like rhythm guitar and a heartbreakingly conventional new bass sound, combine to utterly ruin the record's first half. If you can make it through to News' innards, however, an EP's worth of something like better-recorded, more thought-out Lonesome Crowded West material awaits.

Of Montreal are at least three indie subfads too late.

The album is arguably better than the group's much-heralded debut, if by "better" we just mean more sonically impressive overall.

It has so many promising moments, so few -- and I would say hardly any -- flaws, that I just can't help but think, "what if he saw it through?"

Rachel's has produced one hell of a gorgeous concept album - a sort of Dark Side Of The Moon for the Debussy set.

There is no doubt in my mind -- and in this I seem to have a lot of company -- that Transatlanticism is Death Cab For Cutie's best album so far.

Flaws aside, Speakerboxxx more than lives up to its billing.... The Love Below, however, is a revelation.

While the songs aren't that different from "classic" Spiritualized, the method in which they were recorded presents a whole new set of sonic possibilities.

Not unlike Wilco’s Being There, Show Me Your Tears gives classic rock lovers a new album to celebrate -- an album to drink by while mourning the fact that most aging rock icons rarely supply anything this raucous anymore.

Rouse pushes the envelope in a completely different direction, and with modest, although not total, success, he delivers an album that will rival the New Pornographers' Electric Version as the -- for lack of a better word -- most fun album of the year.

On first pass the album might feel like a lateral or even backward step. After repeated spins, however, its subtler arrangements take up digs in your head like pesky squatters who one day, inexplicably, start doing chores or even paying rent.

Yet another shining psychedelic opus.

As impressive as the early singles were, the material on The Violet Hour is often commensurate, sometimes superior.

The album has enough setbacks that Terroir Blues cannot be considered on the same page as Trace, Straightaways, or anything he did with Uncle Tupelo.

Singular parts of this disc throw forth a few pretty piano chords or guitar strums but don’t expect to gain anything from this listening.

This is fun, fun, fun stuff -- one of the year’s best albums, no doubt.

In a way, this could be Blur's best record.

By turns alluring, obnoxious, and laugh-out-loud-funny.

To long-time Jayhawks fans, the new album -- almost entirely acoustic -- is a welcome return to form.

An odd, almost schizophrenic collection.

Somehow The Ugly Organ has enough pop appeal and pseudo-uplifting sentiment to make it listenable.

While not quite as satisfying as Wilco's 1998 collaboration with Billy Bragg, Mermaid Avenue, the new record is a great document of two groups that enjoy experimenting and pushing the musical envelope.

This mixture of revealing honesty and defiant self-confidence pervades the majority of You Are Free, an affecting and unforced 14-track album that stands as arguably her most diverse and rewarding effort to date.

Once again, the enthusiasm of the delivery and the fun of being absorbed into the music belies the fact that the group's four members are amazingly talented at what they do.

Hearts Of Oak is one of those albums on which each song has the power to get you thinking, and the hooks to resonate inside your head long after it's through playing.