Run is a quality listen. [Apr 2015, p.90]

Romantic, modern, vintage, classic, spinning pop illusions while sublimely dancing with the dark arts--there’s a definite “vibe” throughout The Shadow Side and the mainstream would be better for it, should the world surrender themselves to Andy Black’s deceptive embrace.

A beautiful example of what "heart-on-sleeve" music should be. [Nov 2004, p.148]

The results are as thrilling as ever. [Oct 2004, p.140]

Emptiness has rarely sounded so fulfilling. [Sep 2014, p.108]

They can take their time crafting their next move, as they've given us lots to chew on here with this dense, pleasing, and--most importantly--fully enjoyable album.

A smart, slashing set of B-plus-level pop-punk. [Apr 2003, p.78]

Tokyo Police Club retain their enthusiasm with Champ; they just want to show off the new tricks in their pony show. [Jul 1010, p.130]

Stereolab continue to elevate breezy retro pop to luxurious new heights of spac-age swank and bilingual bliss. [Mar 2004, p.94]

Garbage were always futuristic, but this album proves they're still ahead of the curve. {Jun 2012, p.81]

Slowly, Bogart is inching closer to mainstream appeal. [Aug 2013, p.88]

A fine distillation of everything New Order have been. [May 2005, p.176]

Bubblegum comes amid plenty KD material, but with endearing romps like the Nirvana-indebted title track and Criteria-sounding "Somewhere Unoccupied," it might be his best batch yet. [Nov 2013, p.88]

It is a solid, exciting and ambitious album that proves is still a lot of mileage left in the band.

The quartet have delivered some of the most raw and willfully demented rock music to be vomited up in 2017, and Patton's inimitable contributions ensure that the crazy meter remains permanently in the red. [Aug 2017, p.82]

A delightful listen. [Oct 2002, p.79]

Overtly confessional and cathartic, it's no wonder the pair have been held up as one of the main participants in the emo revival. [Sep 2014, p.106]

This is Sleigh Bells at their most adventurous. [Dec 2016, p.102]

This record contains the musings of a full-fledged adult who's still young enough to remember the ache of youthful restlessness, indiscretions and uncertainty. [Nov 2014, p.87]

Mastodon prove they keep moving ahead with this rewarding album. [May 2017, p.80]

The serrated serenades of Object 47 offer all the compact joys of past Wire classics like "154" and "Chairs Missing," but amplified and digitalized for the internet age. [Sep 2008, p.149]

It's moody as hell, with an aching, nameless despair and all the intimacy of a crack-up. [Jan 2005, p.108]

Homme's modern macabre lyricism and experimental, melodic prowess... make this a more complete album that Lullabies. [Jul 2007, p.176]

If alt-country were truly alternative, it might sound more like Lookout Mountain, Lookout Sea, especially on 'What Is Not But Could Be If,' where Silver Jews leader David Berman's booming vocals run as deep as anything this side of Johnny Cash or Leonard Cohen in their prime. [July 2008, p.151]

Lyrically keen and immediately catchy. [Mar 2002, p.84]

Much of We Were Dead feels like a culmination of the sound that Modest Mouse have spent the last decade or so honing. [May 2007, p.145]

Wrap Cracknell's voice around a sweet, soulful confection and she remains the embodiment of all modern pop dreams and desires. [Dec 2000, p.94]

Fan waiting for the true follow-up to 2001's Go Plastic may now warm their souls by the heat of his hard drive. [Jun 2012, p.84]

On Song In The Air, they rock harder than ever. [Jun 2003, p.96]

Blood Money's biggest strength is its lyrics, which are rich with symbolism, and which withstand and reward deep analysis even outside the context of the music. [Jul 2002, p.96]

[Weikel and Summers] positively push forward, blissing out with an educated northern soul and a highbrow glide-guitar jones that finds them creating their own space in time. [Aug 2004, p.106]

The Sunlandic Twins feels like a surprise party that could make a broken-hearted birthday boy smile. [May 2005, p.124]

Hughes and his crew blow through the kind of drums 'n' acoustic booty jams that would make R.L. Burnside do ankle-grabs in his grave. [Jun 2006, p.188]

Their most challenging album to date. [June 2003, p.98]

Goofy out-of-time tunes. [Oct 2003, p.136]

Mind-melting Indian-flavored strings... wispy vocal guest turns... and snarling, droning guitar riffs drench Rising in a pleasing psychedelic haze. [Jul 2003, p.124]

The result is Gogol Bordello's best album in their 14-year career. [Aug 2013, p.94]

Researching the Blues is more like a graduate dissertation on power pop, and should be required listening. [Sep 2012, p.94

A great summer album. [Oct 2005, p.170]

A compelling spin. [May 2006, p.164]

If You ever needed proof that great tension can be generated without screaming or dialing an amplifier volume knob all the way up, start here. [Dec 2012, p.90]

You may need subtitles to truly grasp the psychedelic splendor of Devendra Banhart's Smokey Rolls Down Thunder Canyon. [Nov 2007, p.174]

Not a true turkey in the bunch. [#153, p. 83]

While some songs could benefit from a slight edit, Woods still feels complete--and essential. [Jun 2012, p.80]

One of the most joyous and poignant party albums ever. [Feb 2002, p.74]

There are faint notes of Bossa Nova and Kate Bush in Bejar's sunny yet skewed arrangements--femme flights of fancy that brush past '70s and '80s folk-pop without sounding less than organic and original.

Everybody's Coming Down is a spacey rock record with noisy guitars and plenty of dynamics, with all of the endearing alcoholic romanticism that we have grown to love. [Sep 2015, p.97]

Where [Interpol] often seem weighed down by their own miserable aura, Editors sound brightest in teh depths of their blackened pop gems. [Apr 2006, p.204]

Bewitching from front to back. [Jul 2006, p.192]

From a purely musical standpoint, there's no question that this is All Time Low's best work to date.

Deerhunter have long proved themselves to be one of the most inventive bands around and the most deserving of the boatloads of hype and bandwidth that has been devoted to their work. Halcyon Digest solidifies that notion even as they sound like they are evaporating into the ether.

Toth makes a greater effort to rein together all these different musical approaches into a crystalline whole. By doing so, he's inflated his songwriting even further, helping it reach greater altitudes. [Feb 2013, p.94]

Doomsdayer's Holiday shows a band pushing the limits of psychedelic post-rock and testing the boundaries of post-metal. [Dec 2008, p.142]

Hiller's sense of humor and eclectic tendencies make this recording a deep listening experience. [March 2001, p.81]

New Leaves benfits from Kinsells'a vibrant looping and somber monotone lyricism. [Nov 2009]

The entire thing is a cathartic art project that feels like the moment of forced calm after an exhausting sob. [Feb 2014, p.92]

At an age when most of his peers have ceased to be relevant, [Richard H. Kirk] continues to forge highly charged music that seethes with vitality. [#147, p.89]

Moody music that avoids settling on any one sound for more than half a song. [Feb 2004, p.78]

Starsailor back up their hype with a debut album worthy of more than a few cursory spins. [Feb 2002, p.80]

As adept as the band are at alternating between metalcore and pop-punk, McKinnon’s words are similarly nuanced and multifaceted here.

Redolent of the sound of Spiritualized's Pure Phase. [Nov 2001, p.94]

There's plenty of killer talent to be found here. [Jul 2003, p.108]

Anyone who saw his performances last summer will immediately recognize the invigorated sound here, somewhere between Merzbow and metal, between liquid and solid. [Aug 2001, p.95]

Music doesn't get more devastating than this. [Dec 2012, p.90]

Splendid ramshackle pop corniness. [Dec 2002, p.81]

Their flows are slower, their observations more profound, and their subject matter drifts further inward. [#154, p.83]

Volume 2... is an equally resounding success.... [it] draws on darker material, and thus yields more aggressive vocals and frequent minor keys. [#146, p.86]

These 12 songs are far more immediate than the sometimes-diffuse material on 2010's Of The Blue Colour Of The Sky. [Nov 2014, p.92]

As with previous Evens efforts, the urgency flows out through MacKaye's precision-like guitar tones, and the emotion that drips out of his and Farina's harmonies. [Dec 2012, p.90]

The Dropkick Murphys don't fuck with a good thing on The Meanest Of Times. [Oct 2007, p.156]

The result is near-perfection. [Mar 2012, p.97]

The band flex all their muscles from a decade-plus of experience without hesitation and, more importantly, without overdoing it. [Jan 2008, p.129]

While not as captivating as 2001's brilliant The Ghost Of Fashion, Soft Spot is yet another winning effort from this vastly underappreciated quartet. [Jul 2003, p.120]

An adventurous, forward-thinking collection.

The recordings have the warmth and pop of a vinyl record, creating a perfect environment for Adams to honor his influences.

My Brother's Ears/My Sister's Eyes is warm, engaged and driven by subtle, but forceful, optimism.

Volume Two, as its title announces, succeeds Volume One's charming, old-timey sensibility, relying again in Deschanel's sweet croon to augment the already inviting tracks. [Apr 2010, p.130]

Flies In All directions is a pleasing, grand buffet for Weatherbox fans. [Jun 2014, p.108]

VV naturally still resembles PJ Harvey prepping for a catfight in spots, but her vocals on standout pop nugget "Rodeo Town" reveal vulnerability reminiscent of the original tough cookie, the Pretenders' Chrissie Hynde. [Apr 2005, p.126]

Most of [the remixers] subtly tweak the originals into charming facsimiles of Beck's clap-happy, orchestral folk-blues funk ditties. [Mar 2006, p.138]

The folk direction of the group's past few albums still lingers, but it's mostly buried behind immense decibels and frightening intensity. [Nov 2012, p.92]

Tracks like “Balance The Odds” and “No Love Lost” dip cautiously into the metal sphere, breaking the EP out of its more rigid beatdown vibe.

MC Rut are riveting, the rawness and intensity of their performance drenched in the pints of sweat they undoubtedly shed at every show.[Nov 2010, p.116]

The result is an album that's equally pissed and poised. [Apr 2012, p.92]

Bemis may have grown up, but he's still a master at crafting poignant lyrics that take a sharp look at his fears of becoming irrelevant and thoughts about God. [Jul 2014, p.97]

The duo-especially Urie, who turns in some of the premier performances of his career-sound absolutely recharged, likely a result of the lineup shuffling, but also perhaps a realization that the '70s were a nice place to visit for a couple years, but life in the 21st century is much more fun.

The result is a vivid, nostalgic traipse into what good rock bands ought to sound like. [Mar 2008, p. 144]

Though nominally house music, Unreasonable Behavior's tracks expend as much energy on engaging the listener's mind as they do on moving the body. [Dec 2000, p.86]

Unflinchingly heavy, this midtempo metal won't disappoint believers. [June 2003, p.101]

They're taking an experimental risk that pays off well. [Dec 2016, p.102]

This debut will pour plenty of gas in the band's tank. [Nov 2014, p.94]

The record’s high peak, “Upstate Blues,” displays more Kinsella influence (this time Owls) in its jazzy bursts. But the clever wordplay is all Weiss.

Bon Iver is a brave change in certain places and only a careful departure in others, but its seemingly polar styles blend smoothly as only Vernon is capable of.

Surrendering to its strange charms could be one of the smartest decisions you make this year. [Jul 2013, p.106]

There's a defiance to BRMC's carefully crafted mix of brooding vocals and blurred melody that unites disparate musical elements into blasts of noisy cohesion and howling passion. [#155, p.72]

While earlier efforts verged on immateriality, Set Free memorably mixes acoustic strums, brushed drums and Andrew Kenny's wistful vocals. [Nov 2005, p.208]

They're still crisp and cold--kind of like the Terminator--but somehow unlike Ahnuld, it's possible to hear a human heart beating within the steel. [May 2008, p.138]

Despite the obvious fun Foxy are having, the darkness that comes from balancing life and career ebbs just beneath the surface, bringing a depth that isn't immediately evident through the copious gloss and glitter. [Feb 2012, p.82]