With a handful of vibrant songs that match either a late-night lounge vibe, or elevate their retro-country game, the album's only major flaw is forcing too many drastic costume changes on their angelic voices. [Mar 2010, p.98]

They haven't lost any of their quirky cool mojo. [Nov 2001, p.97]

Uninspired goofiness... [#154, p.98]

Bianchi's hackneyed lyrics... often overshadow the music's subtle pleasures. [Oct 2005, p.170]

The lyrics on Folker make the tripe in Westerberg's early solo material... read like T.S. Eliot. [Oct 2004, p.144]

FYS are still trying to figure out just who they are and who they want to be musically, and ISWSOF accurately represents that struggle.

Orchestral additions are cool, but here they dominate both in terms of volume and notes-per-minute, transforming potentially aristocratic black metal like "The Cult Of Venus Aversa" and "War" into poorly layered sonic slop. [Dec 2100, p.111]

Temper Temper probably sounds great played in an arena. But on the stereo, it just isn't enough. [Mar 2013, p.90]

Taken individually, Ritual's songs can meander too much; as a whole, however, the album is a success. [Feb 2011, p.90]

The other songs beg for remixes, guest vocalists or anything to give them more depth. [Nov 2012, p.92]

Album, boring. [Dec 2004, p.150]

This Means War exhibits admirable growth.

Farrell's silvery adenoidal baritone scissors through bass-heavy raggamuffin beats, dreamy swells of keyboard-fueled atmosphere and ticklish breakbeats -- and the slapdash aesthetic somehow coheres. [Aug 2001, p.79]

Unfortunately, as with many Verve albums, Bar's dreamy tempos and strung-out riffs, while fragile and beautiful, start to fade into a middling mess of sameness around the middle of the disc. [March 2003, p.98]

Taken alone, these six tracks are fascinating enough from a conceptual standpoint, and listening to a band audibly restraining themselves is quite scintillating. But it's hard to shake the feeling that these pieces would likely have a significantly greater impact when connected with the entire Testimony performance.

Like a football running back, it's when the band put their heads down and sprint straight ahead that they score. [mar 2009, p.113]

The hooks aren't quite as memorable as last time, and Elvis Baskette's production at times make the band sound like faceless radio rock--but the disc ultimately might soon find TFT making good on their arena-rock aspirations. [Jul 2011, p.112]

The majority of the album sounds like generic radio rock. [Jul 2012, p.98]

Trinity is almost perversely uninvolving on first listen. [Sep 2002, p.90]

[Travis Morrison's] earworm melodies and piquant lyrical outlook are Uncanney's only source of nutrients. The rest are empty calories. [Nov 2013, p.94]

Not everything hits the mark, but there's enough to delight in and offer plenty of hope for the Chiefs' future. [May 2014, p.93]

Poison excels at using retro flourishes without drowning in nostalgia or irony, and it never forgets the future is brightest. [Jan 2009, p.130]

Decas is not exactly coherent listening experience. Still, it's a worthy addition to the band's weighty catalog. [Dec 2011, p.118]

It may be one of the least "punk" albums a pop-punk band will make this year--but it's probably one of the best, too. [Feb 2006, p.113]

The hue of the proceedings feels significantly dialed-down and stark and the result feels more like a Jollett solo album and less like a great band flexing its myriad abilities. [May 2011, p.92]

Beta Love feels too much like the band's token electronic record. [Feb 2013, p.92]

It's the band--and Sturgis--who make Slave To The Game the most impressive album to date from the most underrated band in deathcore. [May 2012, p.72]

While electronic music fans are not always a lyrics-first bunch, the sentiments here will probably sound better shouted at Glastonbury or Coachella than examined via earbuds.