1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

Login or Register to rate this item.

Three albums in, the Stills still sound ambitiously confused. A brooding Interpol wannabe in 2003, the Canadian band ditched that sound (along with their singer) for 2006's more rootsy Without Feathers.

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

Login or Register to rate this item.

Remember when samples from junk-store LPs set to big beats ruled dance floors?

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

Login or Register to rate this item.

"I'm brown like a blunt," Shwayze reports on opening track "Roamin'," and it's a stellar summary. The 23-year-old Malibu rapper's debut is as shallow as a spray-on tan; it's stocked with bro'd-out, giggly rhymes about 420-filled nights and T&A aplenty over lazy, midtempo beats from producer/reality-show rocker Cisco Adler.

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

Login or Register to rate this item.

Here's some déjà vu for fans of Hella guitarist Spencer Seim's Nintendo-spazz side project the Advantage and his solo half of Hella's 2005 double album Church Gone Wild/Chirpin' Hard (he was responsible for the latter disc).

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

Login or Register to rate this item.

Drummer John Pike cowrote the lyrics for much of the debut album by these Syracuse, New Yorkers before he mysteriously drowned last summer, so the images of cemetery flowers in "Each Year" and the cheerfully delivered e.e. cummings quotes on "Dying Is Fine" aren't the post-traumatic writings of a grieving band.

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

Login or Register to rate this item.

Kristoffer Ragnstam comes from notoriously well-groomed Sweden, and that extreme fastidiousness creeps into the bouncy singer-songwriter's second album. When things get overly crisp, his new-wavey pop sounds like it's emerging from a vacuum-sealed can: "Sorry for Being the Man of 1,000 Questions" too closely recalls a slick Prince homage by Flight of the Conchords.