We weren’t sure if Madonna could surprise us anymore. Until she did.
Octahedron is something of a new beginning for the Mars Volta.
The Ecstatic is a refreshing bounce back from the precipice of the Land of Sellout.
Regina Spektor’s fifth album, Far, follows all the usual rules and memes of bouncy folk-pop, often with unbridled glee.
Fourth is refreshing and earnest enough to avoid the tedium that’s plagued Pete Yorn’s recent output.
The album suggests that the Jonas Brothers simply don’t have the chops to make it once the current teen-pop bubble bursts.
Ultimately, Beacons is a funkier, more playful take on the band’s familiar sonic motifs.
Little Boots’s preemptive status as pop savant might actually turn out to be warranted.
Are You In? falls into 10 distinct parts, but they blend into each other seamlessly.
With this album, Wilco amps up the studio sheen and a weird sense of friendly humor.
The truth is not that Callahan is spending years cowering on one side of the shadow line in between crossovers.
Electric Dirt continues the artist’s reflective summarizing of his musical past.
Across Murdering Oscar, Patterson Hood’s songs fall into a folksy rut.
Travels with Myself and Another is an attack, but a delicately delivered one.
Wait for Me does just enough to succeed as a dalliance in minimalist aura.
If Dark Night were created 20 years ago under the same circumstances, it may have never reached a single pair of ears.
Rhett Miller is an extraordinarily talented slacker.
So which incarnation of the indefatigable Black Eyed Peas truly is more vexing?
The material here is rendered almost entirely colorless by its reconstituted nature.
Thankfully, in a thoughtful gesture, Man of Aran is presented as a bonus DVD synced up with the band’s new score.
In the end, the musical heart of Hombre Lobo is neither intriguing nor well developed.