1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

Login or Register to rate this item.

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.

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

Login or Register to rate this item.

During an unpredictable 30-year run, Britain's Mekons have taken their scruffy '70s punk roots and pieced together a wonderfully literate version of American honky-tonk, among other eccentric strategies.

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

Login or Register to rate this item.

Making art-rock epics is exhausting work, and if any band has earned the right to dial down the galaxy-hopping ambition, it's these Welsh oddballs. Their eighth album eschews the usual genre-splicing and orchestral sweep in favor of unfussy, hook-filled tunes that generally try to make a point in less than four minutes.

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

Login or Register to rate this item.

These Los Angelenos approach their hometown's timeless decadence with a bummed-out but exhilarating rigor: Digitized romantic obsession ("I Want You"), swaggering degradation ("Innocent Eyes"), country-rock erotica ("Falling to Pieces"), and suburban Anglophilia ("Off to Bed", which drives the Cure's pop-craft down My Bloody Valentine's distortion freeway

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

Login or Register to rate this item.

The fourth Caribou album by multi-instrumentalist Dan Snaith (who has also recorded electronic music under the moniker Manitoba) sounds like it was hatched in a '60s West Coast haze where melodies billow up like bong smoke.