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

For what looks to be a one-off, it's remarkably fleshed out and intricate. [Oct 2008, p.151]

It's not an album that will change your life, but it could alter the way you look at bits of it. [Feb 2003, p.64]

Recalls the band's earliest days. [Apr 2003, p.74]

On Nothing Violates This Nature, the Boston hardcore mob demonstrate once and for all that they’re far more than the sum of their parts. It is also one of the angriest and most violent records you will encounter in 2013.

His world-music diversions should challenge even those who aren't pedestrian Iron & Wine fans--but that's what EPs are for, right? [Apr 2005, p.116]

On paper this may sound bleak--and in many ways, Curse Your Branches is--but ultimately there's a level of solcae in Bazan's sadness that's remarkably reassuring and, stranger yet, satisfying. [Sep 2009, p.106]

You may be surprised to learn that the roadside corpse does more than twitch; it gets up and positively rumbas in places ("Girls of Summer"), while "New Birds" heaves with the same fidgety agitation that occasionally made Joy Division seem special. [#147, p.83]

Everything here is so enjoyable that it really doesn't matter that the man who helped give birth to the whole lo-fi movement has embraced a certain level of maturity. [March 2001, p.76]

It's still hard to believe that a punk band formed more than 20 years ago are capable of releasing a new album that's both vital and worthy of the promise of their early material.... With Dizzy Spells, the quintet may have topped it all. [#155, p.83]

The music is mostly an interesting hybrid of unlikely elements and naggingly catchy tunes. [Jul 2005, p.186]

The songs explode with more energy than the whole underground combined. This makes it very hard not to love Los Campesinos!, and makes it easier to forgive the fact this record could have been better served as an EP. [Nov 2008, p.162]

America is an even blend of the oddball Deacon you know and the more refined, mature artist he's growing into. [Sep 2012, p.88]

They hold their own with the noisy, angular and often bluesy rock found on Harmonic. [Jun 2012, p.82]

The end result is Silverstein's career-best work and one of the best albums of the year thus far. [Mar 2013, p.91]

These 11 songs are decidedly more polished. [Oct 2015, p.100]

Aggressive is probably the most compelling statement you’re going to hear for the validity of heavy rock music in 2016.

You'll blare Valuables on the car radio one moment, then throw it through headphones for study time later. [Jan 2017, p.83]

Give[s] Skyward In Triumph and Earth 2 a run for the title of Best Album By A Duo, ever. [Jan 2005, p.113]

They deliver a collection of moving songs unified by skillful, understated songwriting, and a warmer, more organic tone than its predecessor, 2009's winning Chasing Hamburg. [Oct 2011, p.110]

Palmer captures the human condition like no other artist. {Oct 2012, p.90]

Stand too clsose to the bagpipes, harmonica, scream-along choruses and a constant artillery of thundering drums, and your ears are gonna get powder burns. [Apr 2010, p.130]

Anxiety's Kiss is what Coliseum have been working towards all these years. [Jun 2015, p.97]

Through every shift in tone and style, Fernow keeps his focus, connecting these songs with small bits of spoken word that conjure up dark visions of people desperately searching for meaning in an increasingly dismal world.

Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix is an absolute blast, rich in ringing guitar and euphoric synths but thankfully light on fromage and staid rehashes. [Jul 2009, p.130]

Stag for the most part rocks with biting fierceness and vibrant energy. [#155, p.81]

Nobody creates teeth-rottingly sweet indie rock better than Denver's Dressy Bessy. [Sep 2003, p.102]

Musically, it doesn't seem like Chan has gone anywhere. [March 2003, p.88]