Skimskitta is a beautiful album. It is warm and enveloping. It is full of shadows but flashes with brilliance. It is oblique, yet often familiar. It is intelligent, inventive and inspiring. And it is very hard to put into words.

It is (Smog)'s most colorful, vigorous, and alive album to date.

A few missteps into the mainstream aside, Log 22 shows Bettie Serveert entering their second decade of recording with grace and winning humility.

Using inventive sounds and solid structures, he has created a damn fine album.

Harper performs his knock-offs so earnestly you'd think he were resuscitating some forgotten art, rather than aping tunes that are played 24/7 on oldies radio.

While many rock and electronic groups amble pleasantly along without a musical thought in their heads, country's combination of tradition and musicianship just keeps producing albums, like Chinatown, of a really tremendous caliber.

It is simple, winding, hypnotic and beautiful, and it makes being human bearable for a while -- without in any way detracting from its essential tragedy.

Compared to similar but more extroverted acts like Capitol K and Manitoba, Clue to Kalo lacks the jagged pop edges that stick in the listener's memory.

All of the tunes are energetic, but their similarity will definitely become apparent by the time you reach the album's end.

If the Throwing Muses are not still at the top of their game, they are very, very close.

Despite the diverse array of styles on display throughout Lost Planets..., this is Sprout's most cohesive set of songs to date.

While there's no denying the hedonistic charm of "Emerge" or "Turn On", it's also obvious that the album slips easily into a beat-happy rut, never quite pulling off the total and complete transfixion it was so obviously designed to achieve.

Warren too often undercuts his successes by trying to impress us with his strangeness.

The Notwist can sculpt more emotional sounds and music into a compact and cutting four minutes than most can do in a career.

While there's nothing too stunning to be found on Three-Four, there's also nothing really sub-par.

She Has No Strings Apollo is, if anything, a portrait of one of the most passionate bands you'll ever hear, at a time when they've fine-tuned their improvisational telepathy.

For the most part, words and music are woven together in interesting and convincing ways.

It's probably a bolder, more daring record than it will ever be given credit for, as it's rare that an artist recognizes that she does some things very well, and then does them.

Give Up's one real pitfall is that, on the whole, it sounds almost exactly like you'd expect a collaboration between these two men would, or for that matter, should, sound -- which certainly isn't to say that the music isn't enjoyable, or memorable.

A mature, elegant effort, full of richness and depth.

Although not every track here is of the highest quality, all sixteen tracks are woven together expertly.

Sure, they meld muscular riffs with smoky organ meditations, folky landscapes, pompous orchestration and the occasional IDM skitter, but not without losing the transcendent detail that makes each of these genres worth savoring and holding on to.

Their rehashed rawk riffage is relentlessly enthralling, but their beat-you-over-the-head scream-tactics lend themselves to a sludgy sameness that, by album's end, has worn its welcome pencil-thin.

Recorded with an ear for detail but guided by a loose hand, this is the most open, welcoming Cat Power album yet.

I hope that These are the Vistas doesn't go down in history as "that record where the jazz guys played Nirvana", because it is much more than that.

If there's anything wrong with Life On Other Planets, it's that the band really isn't branching out at all -- and when you get to your fourth album, it's hard to sound as fresh and vital as you once did if you aren't trying anything new.

This is one of Cave's best album in years, if not an immediate candidate for a career highlight.

If he's not this generation's most raggedly refined songwriting presence, then he's certainly in the top ten percent of his class -- a bona fide show-stopping tunesmith on a par with giants Elliott Smith, Ron Sexsmith and Richard Davies.

More sonically adventurous than its mainstream look suggests.

However nice the guitar sounds, though, it's hard to ignore the fact that it's dressing up songs that would be a bit dull without it.

Flashes of the energy and precision JOA exhibit in the live forum are, arguably for the first time, perfectly realized here.

While there's undoubtedly a wealth of ideas to be found here, listenability is the real wildcard.

Equal parts prog-rock pretension, spiritual rejuvenation and glam rock harangue.

However, while Looks at the Bird's expanded arrangements are more conventionally "listenable" than much of Field Recordings, this comes at a small price.

It is refreshing to encounter an album that does a number of different things well rather than sticking to a tried and true formula.

It's not a bad album -- it's just not particularly notable.

A rewarding, re-listenable collection of solid rockers and ballads.

In short, this may not be an album you'll want to listen to every day, but its disproportionate number of "Holy shit!" moments should earn it a spot close to your stereo.

Its ten tracks wend their way through a forest of oblique metaphors, kaleidoscopically fractured images and alt-country instrumentation, their path lit only by the wounding fragility of Orth's voice.

Every track on Hate surpasses the high standards set by its predecessor. Go buy it right now.

While the disc's increased emphasis on electronic textures, balanced songwriting and non-linear production is a welcome breath of fresh air, it lends itself to a feeling of sameness that becomes increasingly apparent as the record progresses.

It is a more intimate and more cohesive work than anything else he has done, but it is decidedly difficult, tossing aside more ingratiating effects in favor of a haunting, ethereal mood and a single, thematic narrative.

The technical skill and creativity at work here are enough reason to give DJ Me DJ You more than a passing listen, even if the songs don't make your head bob up and down and your feet tap.

Last Night is a perfectly serviceable mellow slow-jam R&B record -- and that's a damned shame.

There's probably nothing here you haven't heard before, but it's all wrapped up in a particularly appetizing package and garnished with lots of artful discord.

It's a languid and elaborate affair -- a throbbing amalgamation of wiry, Au Pairsian art-funk, steely Gang of Four resolve and Cabaret Voltaire-inflected industrial howl.

There are no sweeping creative revelations -- are there ever, on eighth albums? -- but nothing here sullies the group's legacy either.

It's achingly beautiful without relying on maudlin sentimentality to win the listener over. Genius.

He's at the height of his powers here, as vital and relevant as ever.

The brittle treble-heavy assault is replaced with clarity, greater exploration of texture and more "professional" recording.

Yes, this is a funny record, but it's not a comedy record; Har Mar has an acrobatic voice that rivals pretty much any male in R&B today, and he writes some genuinely catchy, sticky melodies that lots of other acts would kill for.

There's definitely nothing earth-shattering here... but there's nothing that's going to alienate the fanbase, either.

The band should be proud of Yanqui U.X.O. -- it proves that they're not hopelessly married to the fine-print details of their formula, and that they can still wring fresh ideas from familiar territory.

An overblown, overhyped dreamy swirl of sound that can't commit itself to being anything.

A curious beast -- dark, confused, displaced and often hopeless.

A watered-down mix of big-budget tricks and studio sheen.

Add N to (X) have retained their sense of direction and honed their sound into a powerful and persuasive entity.

It may not be the best album of their career, but it's certainly the most interesting -- and a reliable cure for your indifference.

Though it sounds strange at first, Skinner's delivery is so absorbing that the accent issue will be an afterthought before opener "Turn the Page" has ended.

[A] decisive step in a darker, weirder direction.

It's comforting, for sure, and you could very well fall asleep listening, or use it as background music, but you'd be missing a lot.

The disc is an absorbing listen, and a crucial weapon in any battle for subwoofer supremacy, but as far as generating an emotional response is concerned, it pretty much flatlines.

In terms of pure power-pop delight, Velocity of Sound is hard to beat -- it's one of those records that taps directly into your musical pleasure center and jabs repeatedly at the best bits.

Like their NYC peers Liars and the Rapture, HHH are adept at fusing dancefloor polemics with angular guitar atmospherics, yet their sound lacks the sweat-soaked sexual ardor that those groups flaunt so remorselessly.

It's true that a lot of Musique Automatique can get old really fast.

The Teaches of Peaches is as tacky and low-budget as a '70s porno flick...and just as much fun.

As spiritual as Talib Kweli, as musically complex as Mos Def, as joyfully syncopated as the Roots, Power in Numbers sets the standard for intelligent hip hop.

Six of the seven songs are understated, melodic mid-tempo pieces.... The song that breaks the mold is also the album's best moment[:]"Astronaut."

The tunes just circle like SUVs in a parking lot; there are traces of a head of steam, of a nod towards explosive tune-structures, but it seems the ball is dropped at the last minute in favour of a holding-pattern approach -- the familiar bassline and chorused keys. It's a letdown.

Fans who still have a great deal of admiration for eighties Wire will probably be most pleasantly surprised by Read and Burn 02.

Deathsentences' series of white-noise sculptures is certainly interesting, but the materials that accompany it will have a far more lasting effect upon your consciousness.

His most diverse collection of songs to date.

While not as thrillingly consistent as its predecessor, Man Mountain is another beautiful synthesis of man-made ingenuity and machine-generated textures.

While the band revisits and expands upon musical ideas from its past, Nextdoorland never seems like warmed-over Soft Boys history; the arrangements are exponentially deeper, the playing is energetic and economical, and the songwriting has clearly benefited from Robyn Hitchcock's twenty-year career.

Its startling brand of dreamlike space-folk, while reminiscent of earlier efforts like Stereopathic Soul Manure, is a wholly unique venture.

Dirty Dancing is a thoughtful, darkly humorous album -- a consistently danceable mix of state of the art electronic music trends.

The Creek Drank the Cradle is very surreal, mythical, haunting; it creates a mood of warmth and comfort, and makes me feel as if I've been transported to another, far more peaceful plane of existence.

After a couple of trips through Trust, you might feel like I did -- uncertain whether you'd just had the best sex of your life, witnessed an astonishingly moving church service, or attended the funeral of a life-long friend.

There's emotion, extraordinary technique, and a surprising, oh-so-welcome passion in the singing.

Ultimately, the album's even-handed mix of [vocalists Helen] Marnie and [Mira] Aroyo makes Light & Magic a tasty cocktail of fiery sensuality and icy perfection.

Unlike many live albums, which edit out or otherwise correct artists' less than studio-perfect moments, this album offers Hayden at face value. It captures his faults, but it also captures his strengths.

How Animals Move is a strange and uneven but ultimately captivating effort by a talented musician/composer.

Divine Operating System has something for everyone (unless, of course, you have a rabid hatred of disco... then you might not dig it too much).

It's hard to put into words exactly what makes this album so appealing. The mindlessness of it all is a major selling point.

For sixty-two glorious minutes, Barry Adamson can add a little danger, a little glamor and a little seamy excess to your humdrum existence.

Underneath all those shiny, shiny flourishes and moddish overtones, though, is some seriously smart, witty music, for the most part.

Attention is a bubbly, pleasurable confection of an album, with beats enough to move your ass and plenty of hooks to keep your, um, attention.

The bottom line is that QOTSA turns in another genre-demolishing, hard-as-titanium album in Songs for the Deaf. This is not your father's metal. It's better.

Devoid of obvious weak points, Lost In Space sounds sad without ever becoming schmaltzy.

Since We've Become Translucent does an almost unimaginably good job of adding heft, weight and, god I hate to say it, maturity to the garage idiom.

If you take your pleasure from the sheer palpability of the music -- the way it walks icy fingers up and down your spine, and paints pictures in the air, so real you could step into them -- Blacklisted will enjoy a long, happy stay in your CD player.

Oooh! takes everything The Mekons have achieved 'til now and makes it rock in truly celebratory style.

While they don't quite have the cross-gender appeal of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, the pouty disagreeability of the Strokes or the urbane refinement of the Walkmen, they heedlessly summon the spirits of post-punk monoliths like PiL, A Certain Ratio and the Pop Group without forsaking their gritty New Yawk-ian roots.

Zoomer has a warmth and spirit that makes the work endearing as actual songs rather than chunks of carefully manipulated data.

The complexity and depth of the songs has increased; the band sounds less like they're trying to channel The Pixies, and more like they're reaching toward the sublime.

As you might expect, the sheer number of tracks means there's a sizeable dollop of filler.

This is one tight little record.

Buy Turn On the Bright Lights. It's great. You'll enjoy it. But don't mistake the next best thing for the Next Big Thing. Interpol still have a lot of proving to do.