Gavin DeGraw
Free
J-Records

Free follows Gavin DeGraw's eponymous second album by less than a year -- a quick turnaround by any standard, but its swiftness is shocking considering that it took him half a year to deliver a follow-up to his 2003 debut, Chariot. Free feels as if it were recorded quickly: it weighs in at a mere nine songs, including a reworking of the previous album's "Young Love" and a cover of Chris Whitley's "Indian Summer," bringing the total of new tunes to an EP-length seven songs, every one given a treatment that's decidedly looser and smaller in scale than the slick, overworked Gavin DeGraw.

Flo Rida
R.O.O.T.S. (Route of Overcoming the Struggle)
Poe Boy Music/Atlantic

Standing for "Route of Overcoming the Struggle," R.O.O.T.S. is an especially unreasonable title for Flo Rida's follow-up to Mail on Sunday, the album featuring megahit "Low." With the handful of plaintive or reflective numbers included here all being forgettable and dull, it's way too noble a title, one that points out all the album's shortcomings. The autobiographical opener, "Finally Here," seems bemused by life's journey, not in awe, and "Rewind" is a hackneyed closer with a thin "turn back time" metaphor supported by Wyclef's pathos for hire. Of course, the reason you're here is for the numerous poptastic club tracks, all infectious and empty in true ringtone rapper style.

PJ Harvey & John Parish
A Woman a Man Walked By
Island

A Woman a Man Walked By arrived just a year and a half after PJ Harvey's equally difficult and brilliant White Chalk. That alone makes it notable, since the last time she released albums in such quick succession was the early to mid-'90s, around the same time of her last songwriting collaboration with John Parish, ,i>Dance Hall at Louse Point. That album's unbridled experiments provided a sharp contrast to the subversive polish of its predecessor, To Bring You My Love; while A Woman a Man Walked By isn't quite as overt an about-face from White Chalk, the difference is still distinct.

Diana Krall
Quiet Nights
Verve

Bossa nova is not unfamiliar to Diana Krall, but 2009's Quiet Nights is her first record devoted to the gently swaying rhythm. Teaming up again with arranger Claus Ogerman, who last worked with Krall on 2001's The Look of Love and who also frequently collaborated with bossa nova godfather Antonio Carlos Jobim, Krall winds up with a mellow, lazy album that recalls the relaxed late-night sophistication of Jobim's duet album with Frank Sinatra, which Ogerman also happened to arrange and conduct.

Peter Bjorn and John
Living Thing
Almost Gold/Startime Internat

Since "Young Folks" was such an inescapable smash for them in 2007, it would have been easy for Peter Bjorn and John to try to follow in its bubblegummy footsteps and become a happy, shiny pop band with a strong line in novelty songs. Instead, the trio first released an instrumental album (Seaside Rock) in late 2008 and then returned with the much darker, less bubbly album Living Thing in the spring of 2009. That being said, Writer's Block wasn't that upbeat, and apart from "Young Folks" and a couple other tracks, its sound and lyrical themes were pretty gloomy at heart. There were plenty of guitars, though, and that's a big difference, as Living Thing continues the trio's effort to refine and reduce its sound into just the essential elements needed to put the songs across.

Keith Urban
Defying Gravity
Capitol

Keith Urban's fourth album, Love, Pain & the Whole Crazy Thing, was released literally days after he entered an alcohol treatment center to treat his disease. The album was issued, debuted in the top spot in the Billboard country charts, scored four hit singles, and eventually went double platinum. What's so remarkable about this is that Urban's rehabilitation regimen didn't allow him to tour for months after the disc's release, potentially hurting sales. It didn't happen. Urban's now trademark meld of country, pop, and rock & roll connects deeply with fans and they are nothing if not loyal. Defying Gravity is his fifth studio release, and in many ways it simultaneously builds on its predecessor while standing apart from it completely.

Yeah Yeah Yeahs
It's Blitz!
Interscope/DGC/Dress Up

Never content to stay in one musical place for very long, the Yeah Yeah Yeahs take their restlessness to the limit on It's Blitz! -- and wind up making some of their most contented-sounding songs along the way. As if to prove one more time that they're not just the architects of New York's early-2000s rock renaissance, Karen O, Nick Zinner, and Brian Chase strip away the guitars and explosive dynamics of their early work even more thoroughly on these songs than they did on Show Your Bones. In their place are shiny keyboards, synthetic sounds galore, and a very different kind of energy powering this music than any of their previous work.