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"Every wall you build, I'll knock it down to the floor," the Sri Lanka–raised, London-based Maya Arulpragasam testifies over the syncopated clang of someone knocking mightily on a cold metal door. And with that, she captures nothing less than the sound of the third world demanding entry to the first.

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"Give me a sad song / I'm in a class of my own," sings the former Mrs. Richard Thompson on her first solo record since 2002's moving rebirth, Fashionably Late (her first recording in 17 years). And indeed she is.

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For their sixth album, New Orleans jazz-funk quintet Galactic solicited a bevy of guest rappers: On "What You Need," Lyrics Born plays a boisterous street boot-legger, while Mr. Lif ("And I'm Out") and Gift of Gab ("The Corner") portray black men haunted by random violence and police sweeps.

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Kentucky's least country sons, now entirely removed from the Francophile disco of their first album (2002's pleasantly innocuous Le Funk), continue to mimic '80s new wave on their third. But without the strong vocals and volatile rock leanings that make the Killers and Interpol sound modern, Bring on the Comets is ultimately a bland regression.

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Singer/songwriter Will Sheff gives overkill a good name on Okkervil River's fourth album. Unleashing a torrent of words to describe the endless search for anything that matters, he wails like the high-strung little brother of Old 97's Rhett Miller.

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It's always been tempting to define Sum 41 by what they're not -- not pointed and ambitious like Green Day, nor goofy and irreverent like Blink-182 -- but their fifth album makes such judgments feel like needless bellyaching.