A 28-minute, 10-song romantic pop album that includes two gems that handily best their early geek anthems "Buddy Holly" and "Undone (The Sweater Song)."

The band continues to rock in the Rush/Metallica eight-minute flexathon tradition: it may impress you with individual lines, but in the end, it excels mainly at musical gymnastics.

A work that retains their signature sound while embracing a more mature and cautiously positive outlook on matters of the heart.

With Lewis' weighty, tuneful voice and Mike Mushok's meaty, anthemic guitar, Staind recall the Soundgarden/Alice in Chains era of early-'90s rock. Free of phony posturing, DJ scratching and over-reliance on vapid thrash riffs, they're almost like an alternative version of today's mainstream metal.

Perhaps his most humane album and warmest work to date.

While Placebo's latest, Black Market Music, doesn't have any single track as galvanizing as "Pure Morning," Molko, Swedish bassist Stefan Olsdal, and English drummer Steve Hewitt have again crafted a hip-hop-laced collection of hard-driving rock that effectively mixes clever wordplay with solid musicianship.

Here, country twang knocks against rap, funk basslines and blues harmonicas, and liberal lashings of reggae, ska and dub are added -- all adding up to a groove jam congealed into a multi-faceted but consistent and accomplished sound.

All for You is every bit as impressive a collection as Control, her first collaboration with Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis fifteen years ago.

There are more layers here than on Mouse on Mars' last album, 2000's critically acclaimed Niun Niggung, and everything is more intricately detailed, each sound given plenty of space in the mix.

He delivers all this with passion and booming authority: the teacher is back in front of the classroom, where he belongs.

Lemon Jelly's groovy, Technicolor music exudes a warmth and sense of fun that predates samplers, sequencers and the concept of the DJ-as-auteur.

Revelling/Reckoning is a dense, daunting work -- and, quite possibly, her strongest one yet.

Throughout the album, Cole & co. offer up one pop nugget after another, all carefully honed through warts-and-all shows held in New York over the last few years. The result is that The Negatives isn't just Cole's most consistent disc in 11 years; it's also quite possibly his best ever.

Ditching lo-fi aesthetics for a more radio-ready sound in the spirit of, say, the Raspberries or Badfinger, Pollard has wisely chosen not bury his songs in oblique lyrical references and muddy tape hiss.

Live in New York City is that imperfect creation in which the whole equals something less than the sum of its parts. Taken one song at a time, though, it can be as compelling as live music gets.

Time Bomb is loaded with two things that are markedly absent from most of today's hard rock scene: memorable melodies and a loose but swinging rhythmic foundation.

Here's music tailor-made for cruising down the road with the wind blowing through your mullet.

An album of surface comfort masking massive insecurities -- a perfect complement to the nation it so redolently evokes.

Comparisons will inevitably be made between Canto and the Buena Vista Social Club disc, but the most significant similarity is that they both feature great songs and terrific musicianship.

The collaboration ultimately benefits both players, adding a touch of art house abandon to Hammond's at times studied formalism, and authenticity to Waits' Martian grease-monkey blues.

With guitars down in the mix (when they aren't unplugged altogether), Clapton's ever-evolving voice is the real centerpiece.

Listeners might tire of its mechanical edge, but luckily Daft Punk folds in a few more layers. Whether the listener believes it or not, Discovery postulates that club music can possess depth of sound and be more than a never-ending beat that simply marshals your body along with it. Thus, the songs are shorter, more eclectic and rife with hills and valleys of beat that urge you to stop and listen.

But if "Chemistry" is a pure-pop sugar rush, much of what follows is equally sour, often falling into the thematic trap that snares so many post-hit albums: lots of songs about how success is really hard on rock stars and their girlfriends.

It's too bad this independently released album will most likely fall through the commercial cracks, because Stag is one of those rare albums that fuses aggression, good music and sharp institutional critiques without sounding strident or, um, stiff.

Granted, not everything here is top drawer scarf-worthy.... Still, it's worth noting that the album works to a middle-of-the-set peak -- which means that Aerosmith understands the dynamics of CD construction better than bands half its age.

It contains some of the most affecting work she's ever created, exploring the power of songs stripped to their essence, and the juxtaposition of delicate melodies with the explosive emotions conveyed by her lyrics.

This is Duncan Sheik at his most orchestrally, acoustically indulgent, and it's a lovely, haunting effort.

With Cydonia, Paterson continues on the trippy trajectory he established in 1989 with his debut 22-minute single, "A Huge Ever Growing Pulsating Brain That Rules From the Centre of the Ultraworld."