Still the savviest dance act on the planet, the Jaxx are beat connoisseurs whose fetishes have grown increasingly exotic. Here, the duo hallucinate an urban dance-music radio show in which a Romanian brass band backs a disco diva and British grime gets remade as electronic samba. No instant classics like 1999's "Rendez-Vu," but the productions remain fresh, hype, and kaleidoscopic.

Oregon living fossils Fred and Toody Cole were both born in '48, got married in '67 (three years after Fred first recorded), started Dead Moon in '87, and have never quit. They're as legendary for their dogged perseverance as for their lo-fi psychedelic cow-punk, and this two-disc, 49-song retrospective of self-released output probably should be half as long. But so what?

More Atmosphere than Atmosphere themselves, upstate New York's Gym Class Heroes have finally untangled the emo-rap paradigm, understanding that it's the target demographic first, then the method, not vice versa. Travis McCoy is an intuitive, if not inventive, MC, and the band knows all the nuances of post-frat rock.

Richard Buckner's voice -- a husky, quivering moan equal parts Dwight Yoakam, Nick Cave, and an agitated grizzly bear -- deserves the spotlight it's gotten on his dark country-folk albums. But on Meadow, it's backed by a slicker, more confident band than in the past.

With his third solo album, Ben Kweller serves up the mini-classic of ultramelodic singer/songwriter pop that he's always hinted at, placing giddy wall-of-sound rockers ("Run" and "Penny on the Train Track") alongside soul-kissed weepers ("Red Eye") with skillful aplomb.

MewithoutYou isn't a Christian group, at least not in the conventional (read: lame) sense of the term. The band plays snarling post-punk, sort of like early U2 but angrier, and you don't have to share singer Aaron Weiss' faith to empathize with his feeling of being trapped between what he is and what he hopes to be.