Its peaks make Whitechapel the band's best album yet by a wide margin. [Jul 2012, p.98]

The pieces don't always fit comfortably together, but the picture remains remarkable. [Jul 2013, p.102]

The end result escalates The Lucky Ones into one of the finest albums Mudhoney has ever produced, as well as one of the best albums of the year thus far. [July 2008, p.158]

There's not a single song that's captivating enough to hold our attention. [Dec 2006, p.188]

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

Hesitation Marks, the new album from Nine Inch Nails, is both business as usual and remarkably prescient.

The group's ability to layer long, melodic arcs over squibs of dissonance has never been more surgical or soulful. [May 2011, p.92]

Perhaps the only surprise about Violent Waves is how strong and focused, creatively fierce and yet cohesive Circa Survive sound.

There are minor lulls here, but enough highs to majorly please.

Though the songs are certainly longer than on Floor, Oblation actually harnesses greater energy than its self-titled predecessor. It's also tighter, its melodies more confident and stable than Floor, while buzzing along with their familiar, sludgy foundation, Sleep-y, Sunn O)))-y tone and all.

This is Iron & Wine's most resolute statement, and what a wake-up call. [Feb 2011, p.87]

This is as meandering and shoegazing as Sub Pop indie folk gets. [Sep 2001, p.92]

The album's transition between punk-rock madness and mid-tempo melodies keeps Rush To Relax from getting redundant, and while you may have heard this sound before, it rarely sounds this good.

Vital [is] the most we;l-rounded Anberlin album to date. [Nov 2012, p.86]

"Black Balloons" is built on a riff exactly like Bon Iver's "Perth" sped up, and hearing the grating lyrical wail of "Columbia" and you're left wondering if so much time away was a result of writer's block. [Feb 2013, p.90]

There's nothing on Everything Ecstatic the likes of Madlib haven't already done better. [Jul 2005, p.186]

Equally adept with paradiddles and software plugins, these digital-age surrealists have birthed a musical hybrid all their own. [Nov 2003, p.100]

While the album may not move you the way their first album does, maybe it'll just take a minute for the second one to sink in, too. [Apr 2011, p.120]

MacNeil delivers a riveting, throat-destroying performance that owns every moment [Oct 2012, p.88]

Thnakfully, as the album continues, the songs grow more developed as orchestrally augmented tracks "Right Place" and "LA Rain" showcase Burhenn's distinct vocal abilities. [May 2010, p.108]

Bulldozer lacks outstanding highlights, but is consistently enjoyable. It feels impossibly intimate, guarded and playful, all at once. [Nov 2013, p.88]

In spite of the somewhat dour tone of this album, there’s plenty of musical depth and light to be found throughout.

Keep You certainly reaches for a hefty, developed sense of self beyond the grounding the band's held in contemporary punk, hardcore and emo some years now, but in doing so, it actually strikes the absolute perfect balance, enfolding the listener in honest and cathartic glory while enhancing its edges with just the right effects pedals and auxiliary instruments.

Full of hopelessness and destructive defiance. [Mar 2004, p.94]

Red Barked Tree is something of a letdown, oddly placid and even soothing. [Feb 2011, p.90]

The best songs... are the ones heavily influened by the Posies' Ken Stringfellow and Jon Auer. [#154, p.98]

Repetitious choruses and monotonous, middling tempos make the songs blur together. [Oct 2003, p.126]

Hot Shots II recalls the repetitive excellence of 1998's The Three E.P.'s, with still more chant-like repetition and scarcely a change... [Aug 2001, p.76]