The best comparison for April is Neil Young. [June 2008, p.131]

Bassist Jeff Matz and double-kickdrum killer Des Kensel flank Pike at every turn. The album-opening title track establishes a menacing, mathematical momentum, and the trio never falter.

The whole thing is over before you know it packing a punch as sweet and warm as a shot of whiskey. [Jan 2005, p.108]

American Slang is no disappointment--these are expertly written songs by a band who continue to learn who they are and what they play as time goes on. [Jul 2010, p.121]

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

RJD2 possesses the rare ability to transform moldy samples into fresh-as-tomorrow compositions. [Jun 2004, p.110]

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

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

After the Party stacks up with the Menzingers' best material. [Mar 2017, p.82]

Those who stick with Arab Strap will discover endearing wit and vulnerability in the duo's songs, as well as tender melodies and graceful acoustic playing. [Apr 2006, p.204]

Hit or miss. [Dec 2003, p.154]

Xiu Xiu nail their nebulous mix of new wave and post-punk gloom, but also lace their tunes with uncompromising experimentation and emotion. [Apr 2004, p.88]

It's a thing of subversive beauty, a striking debut that's self-assured and captivating. [Mar 2004, p.104]

The most powerful, viscerally brutal album the quartet have released to date. [Sep 2001, p.100]

While the pair should have more fully explored such detours from the norm, Revolutions Per Minute is arguably the finest hour for both Kweli and Hi-Tek.

Distractingly crowded soundscapes throb like an all-night rave, leaving you too exhausted and battered to pay attention to the words, a major deficiency for a hip-hop album.

The band may have taken their time, but the finished product more than justifies the wait. [Mar 2014, p.89]

This is a farewell album, but the band are going out at full strength. [Jun 2014, p.104]

While A Chance may not move Matmos any closer to either the song or sound distinction, perhaps the fact that their music consistently provokes smiles and dark thought with increasing accessibility warrants our continued, if not increased, attention... [#154, p.76]

It ain't pretty, but the intensity is undeniable. [Mar 2013, p.92]

As usual, the production is raw with traces of the recording process still evident. Although Transference lacks the overwhelming variety of "Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga," there are notable moments of exploration. [Feb 2010, p.96]

It might sound formulaic, if it weren't so gorgeous. [Jun 2009, p.102]

The album doesn't have the reunion hype that helped make American Music Club's "Love Songs For Patriots" such an event. What it does have is songwriting. [Mar 2008, p.140]

His heavily metal solo debut delivers bigger stylistic departures (and wilder guitar solos) than his other side projects. [Aug 2011, p.114]

Being lacks enough urgency to sustain nearly 38 full-throttle minutes and becomes an analogy for the unvarying capitalization on its record sleeve.

Finally makes good on Malkmus' claims of musical maturity. [Apr 2003, p.80]

When they're on, they're really fucking on. [Dec 2002, p.94]

Did we say "hard to resist?" Make that "impossible." [Aug 2006, p.224]

There Is A Hell is an impressive and ambitious third effort that proves these Brits have staying power. [Nov 2010, p.109]

In Many ways, No Age have successfully distilled the pop essence of early-90s Sonic Youth: no mean feat, just not as memorable as last time. [Oct 2010, p.116]

C'mon, which was the band recorded in an old church in their hometown of Duluth, Minnesota, has moments of slowcore brilliance. [May 2011, p.93]

The vocals are one of the duo's strongest points, but the entertaining and skillful guitar work is right up there, as is the songwriting dynamics and arrangement prowess. In other words, everything about this one is a winner.

With Ancient Melodies, Built To Spill are concentrating more on developing a single idea rather than worrying about the patchworking of the past. This fails to play to Built To Spill's strength: their firm handle on alt-guitar dynamics. [Aug 2001, p.78]

She's gone from being an indie rocker's wet dream to sounding like the most NPR-friendly singer-songwriter your parents haven't discovered yet. [Mar 2006, p.124]

The lofty expectations are met in full with Saturnalia. [Apr 2008, p.160]

Auerbach moves flawlessly through all of his favorite frames of references. [Mar 2009, p.112]

A patchwork quilt of wispy Britpop ballads soaring majestically in an effort to overcome their own blandness. [Oct 2002, p.78]

Although the lovable weirdness seems absent this time around, fans will be in for a solid and consistent rock album from start to finish.

The sound on Stay Gold is what suits him best: heart-on-sleeve Americana that’s equal parts earnest and exuberant.

Unrewardingly dark. [March 2003, p.90]

Without the usual suspects, The Slow Wonder just seems like a well-produced demo of songs he's readying for Electric Version's follow-up. [Aug 2004, p.116]

Immediately memorable. [Aug 2005, p.164]

Even more devastation stems fro Iain Cook and Martin Doherty's sophisticated and catchy layers of synthesizers and vocal loops. [Oct 2013, p.82]

With Jace Lasek's glistening falsetto intertwining with wife Olga Goreas' dreamy midrange pipes, the Montreal group's third album, The Besnard Lakes Are The Roaring Night, creates a nocturnal viobe in broad daylight. [Apr 2010, p.122]

The Libertines just don't live up to the hype. [Jan 2005, p.113]

Exactly what you'd expect from the involved parties. [May 2005, p.138]

The songs are mature but not boring; nicely layered but not overproduced; well executed but not sterile. [May 2006, p.164]

While the band do seem to reconcile something within by the conclusion of Odd Soul, the unpredictable, biting musical journey to get there makes for some powerful listening. [Nov 2011, p.96]

At times beautiful, at times shambling. [Jun 2006, p.194]

A scattershot bagful of wild rides and demented ditties and an album of maniacal depth and vision. [#146, p.86]

At times monotonous, Heart's strongest tracks are those augmented with vocals by female guitarist Marcie Bolen and basist Carrie Smith. [Apr 2004, p.96]

More cohesive and less frantic. [Apr 2007, p.180]

Gira spins riveting yarns like a charismatic neighborhood storyteller. [Jun 2005, p.164]

As edgy as singer-songwriter pop gets. [Oct 2005, p.158]

Mariachi el Bronx (II) triumphs because not only does it treat West Mexican Musical idiom with respect, it raises the bar for future directions and possibilities. [Sep 2011, p.114]

Thick and lethal guitar chug and vocals bordering on death-metal bellowing are offset by spidery single-note melodies and catchy sequences. [Sep 2012, p.92]

The proof [of the band's maturity] is in each one of the songs: Every member is playing with a richness and depth that can only come from spending all this time in the studio and onstage together. [Jun 2015, p.95]

The Florida foursome still manage to top themselves with each outing. [Nov 2015, p.96]

Bob Mould is no ordinary musician-in fact, you could say he's a pop genius. Silver Age is just one more confirmation of that fact.

There are enough interesting moments... that each spin reveals a new nuance that makes this genre roundrobin worth signing up for. [Nov 2005, p.218]

Even the psychedelic overreach shows a most uncommon artist at work. [Feb 2003, p.64]

For every great line on the album, there are three throaway verses. [June 2003, p.96]

Amazing. [Jan 2004, p.108]

A satisfying and surprisingly profane comeback. [Jan 2005, p.114]

When the music these guys create individually is already so great, why would anyone mind having it mixed together? [Oct 2009, p.106]

A well-rounded album that might be mewithoutYou’s best.

On any other Walkmen album, just the hooky brilliance of the title track could be enough to declare this set a success, but there's never been one quite like this before.

There's just incredible depth to The King Of Limbs, and if you're impatient, you'll miss it.

Now more than ever, Hanna's voice and music resonate and inspire. [Oct 2013, p.88]

Smart, eclectically but authentically funky, and humane to boot. [Oct 2005, p.168]

Transcend[s] the alt-country tag. [Aug 2006, p.206]

It's full of the old-fashioned care and craft hip-hop has largely forgotten. [May 2007, p.160]

It's only the countrified twang of the Promise Ring's "Forget Me"--which should be the most emo song here--that doesn't really work. Everything else is delightful and, naturally, delightfully sad. [Jan 2015, p.94]

A Ways Away casts a spell you won't want to break. [Jun 2009, p.102]

Lazaretto finds him simultaneously unbridled as a player, yet meticulous as both mad scientist and personal diarist.

Their darkest, most impenetrable record yet--the aural approximation of staring down a mine shaft at midnight. [Jul 2002, p.75]

These are some of the most challenging songs in the band's catalog, yet they're more approachable than ever before. [Aug 2012, p.88]

The sequencing on Lost Songs is top-loaded with furious rockers that gradually dial down velocity and acceleration toward atmospheres familiar, anthemic and delicate as Conrad Keely's ragged-from-shouting vocal style continues to command attention. [Nov 2012, p.86]

The core of any Low album, though, is the unearthly beauty of Sparhawk and his wife Mimi Parker's vocal harmonies, which, after 20 years, have lost none of their emotion-stirring power. [Apr 2013, p.90]

Twenty One Pilots ramped up everything, from new influences to the number of producers (four) to the metric ton of uncertainties and fears multiplying in frontman/songwriter Tyler Joseph’s cranium. And it’s wonderful.

Their less-than-radio friendly name will likely keep them just outside of the mainstream, but what they've accomplished on this monolith of an LP is going to be impossible to ignore during this last half of 2013.

A pop pin cushion that's incurably catchy, and as prickly as it is pretty. [Jun 2003, p.97]

The result is their most haunted and harrowing album to date. [May 2011, p.98]

Segall's laconic vocals and playing style ties everything together and maintains a blunted brilliance throughout. [Sep 2013, p.92]

A grab bag of great ideas, instead of a truly great album. [Sep 2005, p.170]

He's created the "good, good pop record" he threatened with "Arm's Way," wisely getting out of his own way and letting the simple but undeniable pleasures of the Motownish title track, the synth-happy '80s pastiche 'Tender Torture' and his latest Brian Wilson homage, 'On Foreigner,' with its massed Beach Boys harmonies, shine through.

Manchester Orchestra are no strangers to reinvention, but this is a bold step. It’s a grower of a sound: folky yet enormous, like Fleet Foxes at their most widescreen, and with no immediate hooks (“The Gold” is close, though). When they do emerge, they’re not easy.

It's not brilliant, and some tracks are just dumb. [Jun 2007, p.156]

While the tracks are theoretically similar to the atmospheric vistas of other instrumental units, Jesu's melancholy--accidental or implied--offers a truly unique experience that deserves much more than background-listening status. [Dec 2010, p.114]

Though the length of the songs can prove to be daunting, the album is arguably one of Isis' finest moments. [Jun 2009, p.105]

Here's the thing about originality... You don't really need it when you play this proficiently. [Dec 2006, p.188]

Think Doug Martsch fronting the Shins and playing the sweetest Carl Newman jams ever. [Sep 2004, p.124]

Aesop Rock proves he's also a viable beatsmaker--his spacey, highly textured production is easily the best in the Felt series so far. Slug's rhymes are better than anything on the last few Atmosphere joints and MURS is on point, as always. [Dec 2009, p.113]

The New York quartet have outdone it with Lenses Alien. [Oct 2011, p.106]

The duo are branching out more than usual, finding themselves tougher, smarter and more tender all at once. [Feb 2017, p.80]

It's less mopey than Bright Eyes, less pompous than Sufjan Stevens and better than almost everything else. [Feb 2009, p.103]

Brill Bruisers leaves a lasting impression in the best possible way. [Sep 2014, p.108]

Shimmeringly beautiful and richly unpredictable. [Mar 2003, p.92]