Some of those changes have been for good, and some haven't, but the former wins out on Hiatt's 20th album.

At its core, though, Anywhere I Lay My Head is a curious project that never seems to light on any raison d'etre beyond indulging Johansson's love of Tom Waits.

Longtime fans may accuse the band of losing its edge with age, but The Lucky Ones is still an exciting and efficient bridge between the Stooges' growling ruckus and Nirvana's noisy pop anthems.

A long swim from the mainstream mainland, Islands has made an album that's slow to unravel and difficult to grasp. It's best enjoyed as it was most likely written: in small pieces.

Some of her tunes are more steady than sizzling, but when she taps into the likes of the soaring, synthesizer-driven 'I'm a Fire,' her smart combination of rich personality and kinetic energy invites a trip to the dance floor.

3 Doors Down--the band and the album--won't be breaking any records with this release, but they have produced a solid, if not spectacular, collection of a dozen tunes for their fans, who have been waiting two years for something new.

These 12 songs are beautiful in their bucolic simplicity, and elegant, too, in their tidy melodies and warm flickers of emotion.

Much of this album is leaden and lumbering, with the vocals mixed low (thanks, Albini) and gummy bass tugging at curtains of distortion, but there are shining exceptions.

The album is a credit to all involved; if merely pastiche, it's a marvelous one.

It's by no means a cheery album, but Narrow Stairs shows Death Cab for Cutie has overcome its major-label jitters and resumed making vital music.

These 13 tunes unfold at less of a breakneck pace than some of the band's earlier songs, but the musicians are as tight and the songwriting as strong as on anything the group has released.

The 30-year-old San Diegan makes another foray into sonic cross-pollination with heavy doses of polish and free-flowing energy on his third full-length studio album.

Had the album been inspired by any other play, that ambiguity would be a problem. Given the vagueness of the source material, however, Burnett's interpretation makes perfect sense.

This time, however, the subject matter is more mundane, and Jackson's flattened vocals are paired with less imaginative post-punk guitars and synths.

No Age is certainly an adventurous band, but its sound here suffers from too much repetition.

The album is loaded with arresting musical touches.

Like much of Diamond's canon, these songs are rich with melodramatic flare-ups.

Jumping from Sub Pop to Toronto-based Arts & Crafts, the band is as strong and endearing as ever on Kensington Heights.

This time, Madonna is just another singer drawing on the chart appeal of Timbaland, Timberlake and Pharrell, which makes this particular piece of candy taste like a sour ball: It's appealing to fans, but it's not for everyone.

White, a Wesleyan graduate, takes the best elements of punk, new wave, dub reggae and electronica and fuses them into an utterly arresting sonic pile-up different from anything else around.

It's a gruff, sometimes paranoid album with a decidedly subjective point of view, but Rising Down cuts no corners as its tells some hard truths to a society that is only too happy to stay in the dark.

Smile is one of the better heavy releases this year, and one of the best in the band's extensive catalog.

The songs are pleasant enough, but they ultimately feel a bit over-thought, and Bragg often makes his best points with nothing more than his voice and an acoustic guitar.

The only thing missing, really, is the visual context. That's a big piece of some of these songs--it is a TV show, after all--but even so, Flight of the Conchords the album is a thorough, and thoroughly entertaining, overview of Flight of the Conchords the band.

That leaves the expected collection of highly buffed beats, a dozen producers deep, which occasionally generates material that ranks with Mariah's best.

The production is lush, the songs are well-written and Lewis can certainly sing. It’s just a boring record that hews too closely to the modern album template with a couple of hits and a bunch of filler.

Dig, Lazarus, Dig!!! is even more entertainingly disturbing, a rocking psycho-carnival ride (complete with swirling organ) that clearly nods to Cave's roots.

By and large, though, the players justify their flightiness.