Producer David Bottrill (King Crimson, Tool, Muse) gives Battle for the Sun a lean, sharp sound, stripping away a lot of the synthetic weight that bulked up the group's last few albums.

Like its predecessor, 21st Century Breakdown delivers less than it promises; it’s more successful as a rock album than as a rock opera.

Noel provides the best songs on Dig Out Your Soul, although his bandmates certainly can’t be accused of slacking in their efforts. The problem with this one is that it’s front-loaded with Noel’s songs, which makes the proceedings start to drag a bit.

Throughout, the joyfulness and invention, a marvel of pop craft, make Here We Stand hit the spot.

Weezer (red album), co-produced by Rick Rubin and Jacknife Lee (who has worked in the studio with Snow Patrol and R.E.M. and was a guitarist in Compulsion), is slight and flimsy (10 songs, 42 minutes), but finally returns the band to its peak entertainment level.

Brimming with confidence and good humor, Don’t Do Anything is another high point in a career that threatens to become overstuffed with them.

A solid enough set from the Around the Sun tour but not particularly revelatory, it’s exactly what one would expect from a late-period R.E.M. live album, with no surprises in performance or setlist.

In Rainbows is a richly textured and resonant record. In a career marked by dramatic reinvention, Radiohead’s latest phase — growing old gracefully--is going quite well.

The instrumental "Ballad of the Beaconsfield Miners" showcases Grohl's acoustic guitar chops, while the piano-driven "Home" provides a lovely ending to an excellent album.

The songs are catchy and listenable, but Samson's lyrics lack the depth of songs like 'Benediction' or 'A New Name for Everything' on its predecessor.

Rise to Your Knees doesn't sound exactly like either previous incarnation. Those expecting a return to form will find this one decidedly mellow.

Dylanesque is a winner, succeeding both for its incongruity and its sympathy.

Feist offers diversity and charm.

Favourite Worst Nightmare is a surprisingly significant improvement on an excellent debut.

An impassioned, angry and devastating document.

A rewarding, resonant album, Neon Bible ranks among the best indie rock recordings of all time.

The dolorous and enervated West reins in some (not all) of Williams' willful stylistic misadventures while holding fast to her golden triumvirate of death, love and longing.

More than any rock album in recent memory... this is a producer's creation.

It's like being stuck in the seat next to a chatty, batshit backwoods pixie for an 18-hour plane ride.

Individually, the tracks are every bit as good as anything else he’s ever written; as a whole, however, the album is too much of the same thing, as one glum tale follows another.

A likable, cogent album of adult punk-pop that matches Dando's easygoing voice to genial fuzz-rock.

As music for airports, the album hums along like a tension-age sedative, but if it was meant to be a grand artistic statement by an acclaimed band with a distinctive vision, it's pretty much static.

It's hard to imagine any other band with as much indie cred that could succeed with this material; it would be too audacious.

The Robinsons remain a fascinating couple on Get Yr Blood Sucked Out, burning through more inspiration and ideas in one album than any band has a right to.

While the depression accompanying a relationship breakup comes through, several tracks lose their quirkiness in the studio setting.

Unfortunately, his lyrics don't measure up; he writes songs that repeat a phrase or two in lieu of any sort of finished thought.

By so clearly rejecting the terms and expectations of rock and pop, The Drift asks fairly explicitly to be taken as a serious work of art. However, for all its highbrow aspirations, it seems to fall between two realms, lacking the innovative reach that would make it a credible presence among contemporary avant-garde compositions.

The gap between expectations and delivery, the contrast of emotions that go into real life as opposed to pop fantasy, makes this brief but satisfying album a pointed delight.

There are problems. For one thing, some of these songs have been done to death. More important, their voices don't blend all that harmoniously, and not all the arrangements do the tunes justice.

You in Reverse is a tremendous record -- engaging, enveloping, engrossing.

The songs aren't bad, but there’s a loss of personality in the grooves.

Every song is compelling.

Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not manages to celebrate and mock its cultural milieu simultaneously with genuine affection and sarcasm balanced so well that the scale never tips too far either way.

The performances are all good, but E’s voice is alarmingly scratchy.

More of an expansion than a breakthrough.

Unfortunately, attempts to abandon [their] formula offer little evidence that they can excel at anything else.

For the most part it succeeds quite well in its single-minded pursuit of disco euphoria, but there’s definitely a whiff of flop-sweat emanating from it.

Perhaps those who regard the Northwesterners' compositional skills with awe will find this a fascinating prism of strong creative angles, but as a follow-up to an extraordinarily gorgeous web of noise and delicacy, it leaves a lot to be desired.

Some of the bridges still get hazy, and a few songs sound like each other, but for the most part, the guitars revel in their unleashed electricity and the rhythms are layered, propulsive and paradoxically so anchored they seem free.

Ultimately, The Campfire Headphase shows continuity with the duo's previous recordings but fails to replicate the sheer beauty and awe-inspiring quality of past material, sounding at times like the work of very good Boards of Canada copyists.

What may be the most confident and cohesive Silver Jews album yet is shot through with urgency and gravitas, but tempered, of course, with liberal doses of dark humor.

This music has the serene lilt of pop and the hope of sentimentality but also the gravity of unconventional responsibility. Rather than roaring, this music sears.

The type of banal, greeting-card rubbish that even Diane Warren would probably find trite.

Takk... resembles the movie The Aristocrats: a narrow selection of material given killer performances.

The propensities for treacle and brimstone are cut by the realism of his portraits and the certitude in his voice. A Nick Drake-like wonder here, it is sonorous, even-keeled and assured.

This is The Coral at its best: tight and stimulating, earthy and radiant.

The further they veer from the course (like the misshapen slide guitar and honking harmonica in the stupendous single "Ain’t No Easy Way"), the more memorable the sound.

Made in China is a raw, angry album that is difficult to endure at points due to the emotionally naked lyrics, but the lo-fi, almost punky, music is a perfect fit.

A greater focus on club anthems and straightforward songwriting broadens the band’s appeal but sacrifices originality in the process.

A stunning return to form.

This song cycle is less about a particular state than it is about Stevens' elegant façade of cleverness.

Clap Your Hands Say Yeah is worthy of the attention, as it reveals a band of great ability and confidence brimming with ideas.

These songs are buoyant and polished, but the lyrics range from bewildering to lame and an afternoon of Schlitz’s voice gets tiresome.

X&Y is well crafted and enjoyable, but it’s bloodless and distant. It feels manufactured, a piece of product in the march to become the Biggest Band in the World.

Not everything clicks on Get Behind Me Satan -- sometimes it’s too timid and freaky -- but enough of it is so unique, even within the Stripes' own canon, that it succeeds regardless of its faults.

While at times the album becomes so lightheaded it threatens to evaporate into nothingness, it is yet another dazzling achievement for the band.

Some of the songs are immediately engrossing... Others mostly carry the story forward while allowing Mann to indulge her career-long taste for vintage keyboard orchestration, coolly elegant pop arrangements and displays of tart wordplay.

The band's audible confidence in its music gives it the ability to negotiate sudden shifts of tempo, volume, distortion and tone without fussiness or confusion, demonstrating what Franz Ferdinand might sound like if the Scots were a little less together.

An extremely catchy collection of solidly crafted pop songs in the familiar New Order idiom.

Two albums of E musings is a bit much, but, on the whole, Blinking Lights does stand as a resounding return to form.

Cathartic and essential.

Architecture in Helsinki's penchant for simple, driven melodies and gentle, nurturing jam sessions underscore one essential truth about this type of glossy, polyrhythmic music: the thin, bittersweet textures are always anchored to a syncopated bass line.

This may be a more mature effort, but in places that sound is ordinary and unadventurous.

A prototypical Damien Jurado album, this is a quietly excellent, straightforward collection of songs performed without much muss or fuss but with great empathy and feeling.

By the end of this brief guilty pleasure, the verdict rings clear: The Killers may have made better singles, but The Bravery made the better album.

The song selection is choice, and his band handles the solo material well enough (especially on “I Have Forgiven Jesus” and a showstopping “You Know I Couldn’t Last”), but a smattering of Smiths oldies doesn't help.

This is probably as close as anyone has yet come to achieving the visions of revolutionary global pop once advanced by the Clash and Afrika Bambaataa; it's equally enlightening to urban street kids and university eggheads.

Bloc Party may not have arrived first in the retro-'80’s sweepstakes, but this great album stakes their belated claim to it.

Devil's Playground makes like it's 1983 all over again.

Even through patches of mediocrity, QOTSA still offer something healthy and respectable to the hard rock world, but too much of anything can be bad for you.

The Best Little Secrets Are Kept is a blast, from the past and otherwise.

If this collection weren't intended as a nearly comprehensive catch-all, it could have benefited from being pared down to two discs. Nevertheless, it offers a convincing alternative overview of Cave's work, covering all the stylistic points and diversions on his epic journey.

Solid and diverse if slightly lacking the gorgeous full- bodied melodies of its predecessor.

Introduces a delectable bit of shoegazery energy and distortion to sharpen up the lulling Ivy groove.

An album’s worth of excellent songs performed with gusto.

Although the record shows scant evidence that over a decade of rock music has passed, the band doesn't sound anachronistic or out of touch alongside its younger competition.

The Beekeeper meanders too much to be riveting in the way Scarlet's Walk is.

Parts of the album feel overly familiar, but it’s good to have the band back in circulation.

A second disc which recaps some of the prior singles and B-sides resonates wonderfully, and provides a contrast for the new material, which is the same only better, faster and harder.

The production is lush and detailed but the songs are strong enough to withstand all the fuss, making this a most ambitious and accomplished record.

Antony and the talented Johnsons brilliantly evoke the grandeur and dolor of cocktail hour ennui.

The harder U2 tries to rock out with wild abandon here, the less spontaneous they end up sounding, making How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb more like an incredible simulation of a punk-influenced album rather than an actual punk-influenced album.

Cave has hinted at a more mature sound on the last few records; here, it comes across in richer, bolder arrangements, the result of his band's more active role in developing the songs.

Phenomenal, with nary a bum track.

Hints at future sonic depths: swirling patterns, impressive musicianship and ambitious ideologies.

Leo's singing (showing a few traces of a soul side) has never been more confident or convincing.

An energetic and original statement.... Essential.

Pleasant but alternately catchy and bland.

A deeply moving record that is greater than the sum of its individual songs, The Libertines achieves near-tragic grandeur.

Often irresistible yet occasionally irritating.

This is not perfect music: the observations seem to easily gained; the faster songs mere replicas of previous monuments; and no matter how graceful the notes' elisions, an unskillful denouement on many of the songs' endings.

A Ghost Is Born is a textbook example of an album created to fulfill expectations the band doesn't necessarily share.

Despite the frigid bore of the album's latter half, the initial grandiosity of the songwriting and vocals make it possible that the Killers can avoid the bleak fate shared by other new wave gimmick acts.

The imperfections in Farrar's singing can be distracting at times, but the implacable force of his delivery trumps wobbly pitch every time.

While not as edgy as The Process of Belief, it is more complex and better produced.

The band's attempts to diversify the tone are not always successful.

The songs on In Exile Deo are her strongest yet.

Garza’s assault on the skins, much tighter than any Bonham comparisons could possibly describe, gives the album much of its strength and character. The rest can be attributed to creative, post-modern lyrics.