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.