It's one of the few Europop albums that not only deserves worldwide domination, but also has a really good chance of achieving it.

If The Unfairground doesn’t quite qualify as a "stunning" return to form--"stunning" never really being Ayers’ stock in trade--it certainly represents the delightful and unexpected renaissance of a perennially undervalued artist, whose quiet but significant influence is long overdue for re-assessment.

Vernon’s music is stripped-down, uniformly quiet, and confessional, his clipped, cracked, Will Oldham-inspired lyrics not evidence of cabin delirium, but the work of an artist warmed by a creative glow that only pure isolation (read: freedom) can fully render.

What Hey Venus! ultimately is, is a good record of classy pop/rock songs, arranged and produced well, shot through with a degree of personality and skill, and almost completely lacking in the inspired, eclectic madness which made "Radiator and Guerilla" so damn good.

At first listen, N.B. sounds creepy. But ignore the lyrics, surrender yourself to the joys of pop songwriting and N.B. seems to approach perfection.

Parades, both restrained and wildly dramatic, gently touching and warmly enveloping, is not a record that sits comfortably with convenient labels.

45:33 works both as exercise-soundtrack and discopunk-odyssey because James Murphy understands how to make people move on a basic, physical level. [Review of UK release]

Load Blown does more than enough to keep "very" and "awfully," respectively, in the mix.

All of their typical sentiments are there, but where their prior releases used spacey interludes and bridges as a recess from the hopelessness, the group employs these moments more sparingly.

Prefuse 73 sounds freer, and yet more deliberately formal--most of the songs break down like classic hip-hop does, two-thirds of the way toward the end.

While the commercial potential of her new album may be up for debate, as a showcase for Rosin Murphy’s talent, Overpowered is an enormous success.

In Rainbows, then, is Radiohead as straight and lean as they’ve ever sounded.

The debut album was good, but this is better. Much, much better; the kind of record I will happily and willingly return to long after this review is dead and buried.

An astonishing act of rejuvenation and reclamation, the album may just be the group’s best to date, and solidly reestablishes Eleanor and Matthew as progenitors of brilliantly exciting, mind-scrambling pop.

If you’re already among the converted, Random Spirit Lover is a second straight masterpiece from arguably the most talented songwriter of this generation.

You can write off some of Cease to Begin’s bland regionalisms as lacking in spice. But if, come midnight, Marry Song's' serpentine gospel finds home in your head, you better get up and read.

This is a pretty great album, filler and all.

Hera Ma Nono improves on "Ok-Oyot System" in almost every way: the guitar sounds are more vibrant (padded with reverbs, phasers, and other bubbly what-have-you’s); the songs hang together better as a record; the slide between Swahili, English, and Luo is as effortless and colorful as good pidgin; and, most importantly, it usually gets at--or at least hints at--African music’s most cherished balance: unhurriedness with a pulse.

They’ve evolved into a tightly wound and grotesquely attuned power trio; and nowhere is that more evident than on the hyper-bpms of Grass Geysers.

Outwardly, We Are the Pipettes is fun, sweet, and attractive. If you hang around, it starts to feel brittle, frigid, bitchy, and weird.

The moments of "hey, that sounds a bit like ..." are few, but notable; and perhaps unavoidable with such a distinctive vocal presence. In any case, these are welcome echoes from the past, not a weary retracing of footsteps.

Carrabba’s keening grandiloquence may have lost some of its most explicitly cathartic qualities, but The Shade of Poison Trees remains his best work in years.

The group synthesizes pretty much anything you could lump under a general Americana label--bluegrass, country, alt-country, folk rock--to create an idiosyncratic sound more West Coast than Nashville.

Jones simply feels more involved in the music on 100 Days.

Good Arrows is still a series of beautiful songs for that part of us all that just wants to stay in bed all day.

Ultimately, it's that broken, half-told beauty that gives Dog its mystery, but also perhaps its feel of a record you may always like but around which you may never really feel completely comfortable.

In Our Bedroom After The War is Stars' most consistent, nuanced album, and says good things for the future, but Campbell and Millan won't write a perfect record until they learn what their songs need, and abandon the inevitable few tracks on which it's refused.

The album sounds simultaneously familiar, yet alien.