While melodic skull-kickers like "In Person" will hook fans of the band's later work. It's when Hamilton overreaches--a cover of the Beatles' "And Your Bird Can Sing" and the string-driven "LA Water"--that things take a turn for the weird, but mercifully, the schizophrenia is short-lived. [Oct 2010, p.113]

Dark Is The Way, Light Is A Place is largely proof that what Anberlin might now lack in immediate catchiness, they more than make up for in composure. [Oct 2010, p.111]

I'm Having Fun Now is a good time for your ears, and hopefully the start of more collaborations between the two lovebirds.

What's great about Strange Weather, Isn't It? is that it offers enough diversity to save you from making you own mastermix. [Sep 2010, p.108]

Like many trilogies, though, the third one stumbles to reach the bar set by its predecessors. However, Morning certainly doesn't suck, and fans will appreciate its place in the evolution of Eels. [Sep 2010, p.109]

Lovely and bewitching, Cipher unfolds like an elegantly written novel. [Sep 2010, p.112]

The Orchard is a significantly more melancholy collection of songs. But melancholy seems to suit Ra Ra Riot, especially since they don't get too caught up in its gloom. [Sep 2010, p.113]

Why does Warp Riders feel so lacking? The root cause could be that the songs on this album are stripped of the sexy strut that marked the Sword's earlier efforts. [Sep 2010, p.113]

Thanks to a vintage church organ, a sizzling saxophone and a little recording expertise, Pickin' Up The Pieces' deceptively analog sound has all the crackle and warmth of the music pouring out of an old AM radio. [[Sep 2010, p.109]

Sway is a noticeable sonic upgrade from SSLYBY's previous two albums, which can be somewhat off-putting at first, Still, the progression suits the quartet rather fine. [Sep 2010, p.113]

That Cohen and Midgett are still making music after decades of popular indifference and one act of unthinkable tragedy is admirable; that they're still making albums as soulful, uncompromising and evocative as Blood Under The Bridge is close to heroic.

The Suburbs pulls back much of the meandering songwriting and garbled wall-of-sound production that marred most of Neon Bible; it's not perfect, but its moments of clarity make it worth the trip.

The album is a devilishly fun listen when he's behaving liked a genius on the attack [Sep 2010, p.116]

Seattle's Mt. St. Helen's Vietnam Band make a dramatic leap forward on this meditative follow-up to their eponymous 2009 debut. [Sep 2010, p.112]

Transit Transit, the follow-up to 2004's similarly majestic Future Perfect, doesn't stray from the intended path, offering sonic action painting, narcotic dreamscapes and other manifestations of sonic bliss that you simply cannot divine from any band currently operating.

The Portland, Oregon, trio trade their micro-fragmented structures for indie-pop opuses drenched in linear tensions on the meticulously crated Mines. [Aug 2010, p150]

They really hit their offbeat stride on Fortress with "Japanese Woman," the tale of a woman who "lives in my closet" and "eats up all my food when she thinks I'm at the office." [Aug 2010, p.150]

It's a shame it's a one-off, because Dark Night's trippy, psychedelic tunes are a true treat for your ears. [Aug 2010, p.146]

The result is an album that's dream-like and ephemeral, but still surprisingly grounded and catchy--no doubt the result of strong songwriting and a firm sense of time and place. [Aug 2010, p.152]

The band's piecemeal rock 'n' roll emerges a mish-mash of spacey barroom blues, with Kevin's voice sometimes struggling yo pair with the front-and-center obligation that rawer music demands. [Aug 2010, p.146]

Though the album gets too repetitive, the uniformity of Acolyte still serves the band's purpose: Make the floor move.

The album as a whole sweeps across a broad range of stylistic tones, maintaining levity while dabbling in comparably serious musical pursuits. [Aug 200, p.146]

The band come up with hooks aplenty, delivering anti-pop gold on the guaranteed-to-disappoint-no-one Expo 86. [Aug 2010, p.156]

Just beacuse they've moved toward a more organic sound, doesn't mean no fire remains in their bellies. The melodic themes and Dave Davison's vocal phrases may draw Beatles and Country Joe McDonald comparisons, but angular guitars still skitter in the back ground of "Israeli Caves" and "Solid Ground" while fleet-fingered complexity drives "Pigeon." [Jul 2010, p.127]

Not only have Steel Train Shed the jam-band tag with their third, self-titled full-length, they've also finally lived up to their own musical potential. [Aug 2010, p.152]

So despite some standouts--thw more energetic and melodic "Dissolve" and "Swoon"--the Brothers' latest, trippiest trip is best taken as a whole. [Jul 2010, p.123]

Listening to singers Torquil Campbell and Amuy Millan is like watching two dancers perform an urgent ballet: Their equally lovely voices merge and seperate, always working in unison and sometimes soaring above the other. [Jul 2010, p.127]

He comes closer to rediscovering the excitement, ethereal looseness and raucous twang that epotomizes his first three efforts than he has any time in the past 15 years. [Jul 2010, p.123]