Bat for Lashes
Two Suns
Astralwerks

Natasha Khan's debut album as Bat for Lashes, Fur and Gold, was so vivid and fully realized that it was a tough act to follow: she found ways to make her wildest flights of fancy into music with the immediacy of pop and the intimacy of a singer/songwriter's confessions. It takes a lot of ambition to pull off that kind of alchemy, and that ambition defines Two Suns. Khan's sounds and visions are even more widescreen here, full of pristine electronics and heady concepts, and Scott Walker, the undisputed king of high-concept music, duets with her on the ultra-theatrical finale "The Big Sleep."

Doves
Kingdom of Rust
Astralwerks/Heavenly

Four years after retreating to the English countryside to record 2005's Some Cities, Doves return to a more urban state of mind with Kingdom of Rust. "My god," Jimi Goodwin sings during the title track, "it takes an ocean of trust in the kingdom of rust." Guitars chime throughout the chorus, where Goodwin's baritone howls in search of a lost love amidst a town's landscape. Orchestral strings make an appearance toward the song's conclusion, bringing with them the same sweeping, Brit-pop uplift that peppered the band's debut album.

Jadakiss
The Last Kiss
Roc-A-Fella/Def Jam/Ruff Ryde

In a genre where albums frequently miss their street date, Jadakiss' The Last Kiss is an especially late hip-hop release, having been pushed back, retitled, and retooled numerous times. This problematic arrival shows too in the final product, but the problem may not be the much maligned rapper's ability or inspiration but the constant mishandling of his material. So many prime street cuts have been given away to comps, mixtapes, and soundtracks in the five years since Kiss of Death was released that only the slick, polished numbers remain, save the misleading kickoff "Pain & Torture."

Bob Mould
Life and Times
Anti

Based on its title, it's tempting to think of Life and Times as an autobiography, especially when armed with the knowledge that Bob Mould recorded this album while writing his actual autobiography (scheduled to hit stores in 2010). It's tempting, but not quite accurate, as this is less an orderly journey through the past than memories refracted through the prism of the present.

Rascal Flatts
Unstoppable
Lyric Street

Here comes the hubris. Rascal Flatts managed to keep it at bay through most of the 2000s, even as they turned into the biggest act in country music, but with their sixth album, Unstoppable, they succumb, trading their "aw shucks" persona for a title that Michael Jackson somehow missed in his King of Pop phase and acting like superstars, not boys next door made good. That humble streak always kept Rascal Flatts relatable, even when they went multi-platinum and drifted into colorless country-pop, and without it the group sounds a little bloated.

Neil Young
Fork in the Road
Reprise

It somehow is fitting that Fork in the Road arrived in stores a week after President Barack Obama announced his bail-out plan for the American automobile industry: it's Neil Young's one-man campaign to remind everybody what cars used to mean and what they should be again. Neil always has had a soft spot for cars -- he drove a hearse from Toronto to Los Angeles, immortalizing the vehicle in "Long May You Run" -- so this album-length motor manifesto couldn't be called unexpected, nor could its palpable, ever-flowing undercurrent of nostalgia be a surprise for a man who owns a toy train company.