Unless you've just fallen off a bong, the endless whimsy lacks meat. [Apr/May 2002, p.118]

The songs aren't strong enough to hold the disparate influences together. [#13, p.91]

The quartet fills out the album by executing almost eactly the same formula [as the first track] four more times... and the dramatic shock wears off quickly. [Jan 2004, p.103]

Striding purposefully forward on vaguely cinematic fanfares and catchy soul-queen loops, Murs reveals more than you want to know about his sex life. [May 2004, p.130]

The album seems resigned, defeated, passive -- like an hour-long sigh. [#17, p.130]

Without much international color or guest flourish. [Nov 2003, p.122]

The mood is unsettling, exhausted and energetic at the same time. [Oct 2004, p.120]

Utterly entrancing. [Jun/Jul 2002, p.104]

It may not hold the attention of anyone who's been out of diapers more than five years. [#8, p.124]

Pay too much attention to these songs, and they dissolve into sweetly harmonized meaninglessness. [Apr 2004, p.130]

Despite Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga's adventurousness, it's highest points end up being the most conventional. [August 2007, p.112]

Sensitivity in excess. [#11, p.142]

Staggers under the unbearable preciousness of donkey-voiced singer Colin Meloy. [Sep 2003, p.122]

Out Of Season's usefulness as ambience almost trumps its self-importance and paucity of standout material. [Dec 2003, p.136]

His Who-tastic riffs remain belligerent and plentiful, but Pollard sounds grimmer, as if the former grade-school teacher suddenly realizes that touring in a van past age 40 isn't as much fun as he expected. [Jun/Jul 2001, p.111]

There are solid songs here... but the spliced-on attempts at gritty authenticity make every note on this record sound test-marketed. [#18, p.121]

[Brock is] adept at wringing out emotion while straddling sentimentality, but too often here, gauche studio affectations make his sap sound plain cheap. [Apr 2004, p.134]

The Coxon-less Blur seem half a band, adrift in a loopy, moody head cold. [May 2003, p.115]

The stiff, weirdly disengaged, single-note guitar solos and Kidman’s monochromatic death screams don’t make you want to keep dragging yourself through the record.

Problem is, Blood Mountain's hail of convoluted riffs and abrupt time-signature changes never settles into one of Leviathan's mammoth grooves. [Oct 2006, p.137]

His ornate, piano-driven arrangements cite a wide variety of musical sources, from indie pop to Gershwin to trip-hop and back again. [Jun/Jul 2001, p.116]

Her lustrous music can err on the side of sleepy, because she prefers atmospherics and tricky harmonies to blaring hooks. [Apr/May 2002, p.116]

So diffuse and mechanical, it sounds as if it were recorded by rebellious microchips in a German laboratory. [#13, p.103]

Case's own melodies aren't nearly as indelible as the country classics she's emulating. [#10, p.115]

In the tradition of thorny newbie bands that get scarily too big (Nirvana, Radiohead, Weezer), they’ve followed their funny, catchy debut with a less funny, less catchy second record to prove how little they trust the good times their music obviously inspires.

The results range from stupid to sexy to irresistably stupid. [Jan/Feb 2005, p.103]

Sadly, distracting overembellishments dog her sixth album. [#14, p.133]

They've all but abandoned 4/4 grooves, discarded bass as an inefficient distraction and fractured their beats into splintery beatlets that detonate in flurries. [Jun/Jul 2001, p.105]

Occasional flashes of brilliance transcend the deja-vu pastiche. [Apr 2005, p.113]

Their songiest record in more than a decade. [Jun 2006, p.145]

One of Vega's best. [Oct/Nov 2001, p.114]

Surprisingly pedestrian. [Nov 2005, p.134]

Some of her material still has an emotional earnestness that would make Bono blush. [#16, p.121]

Anyone who's enjoyed its predecessor may not find the follow-up effort entirely essential. [#12, p.145]

Bright Lights isn't a trudging soundtrack to depression; it's laced with upbeat, albeit bittersweet, songwriting. [#9, p.148]

The music's intellectualism obscures as many truths as it unveils. [Mar 2007, p.130]

It sounds half-heard no matter how many times you hear it. [Sep 2006, p.142]

What's keeping the band from achieving a unique identity are Havok's generic whine and medoicre lyrics. [#15, p.120]

Too bad most of his songs come to an end just as they're heating up. [Jun 2005, p.108]

Too often, songs drift off into a fog of vague guitar atmospherics. [Aug/Sep 2001, p.130]

The first and less snarky half of Tanglewood Numbers... is some of the liveliest music Berman has recorded. [Nov 2005, p.140]

It's always peculiar, and often a mess; it's also occasionally brilliant. [Jun 2006, p.142]

On initial listen, the album is rather monotonous, a bunch of moderately singable tunes with some noise piled up around the edges.... After the fifth or twentieth listen, however, A Ghost Is Born starts to insinuate meaning. [#27, p.132]

There are enough moments to suggest that, should they ever concentrate on, say, just 10 of their favorite styles, they could be fab. [#14, p.133]

It's not until the seventh song that voice and material converge satisfyingly. [Jul 2005, p.115]

When it works, his songs are intoxicating pop nuggets... But meandering instrumental interludes and clunky song titles are low on wink, high on wank. [May 2005, p.122]

They've... picked up the tempo, sweetened the tunes and upgraded the rhythm section. [Mar 2006, p.109]

Pretty, weird and tricky to get a handle on. [Mar 2007, p.136]

It's not as good as 1988's South of Heaven, but there's enough speaker-shredding guitar noise to make up for any vocal deficiencies. [Aug/Sep 2001, p.128]

Finally, an album that bridges the gaping chasm between hipsters and Rennaisance Faires. [Jun 2005, p.112]

Refining the spare sound of her last studio album "Uh Huh Her," she herein presents an 11-part song cycle about loss, longing and wandering bereft through the moors. [Oct 2007, p.108]

Not surprisingly, their debut tends toward brooding, bluesy rock—a worthy soundtrack for those dark, whiskey-soaked nights of the soul and the regret-filled mornings after.

Keep It Hid is guitarist and singer Dan Auerbach’s affirmation of ragged principles, self-recorded with blunt, squawky ax-picking and loving lo-fi grit. The sentiments can be snoozily familiar.

A thrilling, frustrating souvenir of a band whirling out of control. [Sep 2004, p.130]

Its attempts at a more ethereal sound crash up against Common's cumbersome intellectualizing. [#13, p.91]

There are some surprising misfires here... but also some unexpected treats. [Dec 2003, p.147]

Full of clever wordplay one moment, kind of pretentious the next. [Oct 2005, p.134]

Lyrically, Nashville... is about as insightful as a Hee Haw rerun. But... his warm, reedy voice gives comfort where his words can't. [Apr 2005, p.125]

[It] sounds as if she's happy to give the people what they want: escapism and nostalgia. [Dec 2005, p.152]

Less lugubrious and more melodic than [Bright Lights], but the improvement is marginal. [Oct 2004, p.119]

Though less indebted to the Smiths... these tidally anthemic doom-ditties still manage to sound more dire. [Oct 2006, p.135]

It’s hard to listen to Already Free without thinking: Visine. Need Visine. That’s how redolent of pot-smoke-and-jam-band mud fields this music is.

No More suffers from a relentless sense of goth gloom that's as claustrophobic as a church confessional. [Jun/Jul 2001, p.107]

At its best, the echo-chamber soup of flute trills, infinitely cascading drums and fuzz-ball stoner riffs does seep into your head and expand the contents. But the jams often drift when Ejstes wants them to glide; his singing, all in Swedish, is a touch whiny; and his ear for melody can be painfully flat.

Nas can still dazzle on the mic. [Jan/Feb 2007, p.87]

This is the least austere record they've ever made, and the fresh air helps their odd, raw narratives flourish. [#8, p.122]

So goofy and heartfelt it's endearing. [Apr 2006, p.114]

They're after something different here--it's just not as good as what they've left behind. [Apr 2006, p.110]

Hot Chip's relentless stylistic hopscotch... ends up in an intricate muddle that fully engages neither hips nor heart. [Jun 2006, p.138]

This Is Not A Test lacks feeling--besides beats, what else what does she care about? [Jan 2004, p.102]

Neither for the faint of heart, nor for those allergic to pretentiousness. [Jan/Feb 2005, p.103]

Problem is, [her] words are rarely about anything but her own dexterity. [Oct 2004, p.122]

The band replicates the surface effect of Otis Redding ballads, New Orleans jams and Motown pop-soul down to the last tambourine rattle, but their material rarely goes deeper than nostalgic genre exercises--which means it never satisfies like the real thing.

All of this might be more satisfying if the group's lyrics were strong enough to turn caricatures into characters. [Sep 2003, p.116]

For an album almost four years in the making, it's frustratingly half-finished, like a series of preliminary sketches. [#27, p.142]

Some sublime songs prevail over the adornments.

Not much happens, which seems to be the point. [Jan/Feb 2006, p.96]

Concept or not, American Idiot is still decent fodder for a mosh pit, a luagh and a sob session. [Nov 2004, p.136]

May demand close listening compared to the boisterous immediacy of most dance efforts, but it proves utterly entrancing. [#10, p.120]

The group's unreconstructed P-funk would sound tired were it not so irresistibly spry. [May 2006, p.105]

Recalls the Beta Band with the "wacky" knob mercifully turned down, and the wild musical eclecticism tempered by an endearing warmth and a wealth of gorgeous melodies. [#11, p.126]

Simon wasn't born to sing over drum & bass. [Jun 2006, p.148]

The mood is so uniformly droopy it seems to be affecting Wainwright's drowsier-than-ever vocals. [Jan/Feb 2005, p.113]

Non-devotees may prove tougher to convince, but nothing here overstays its welcome -- and Phish fans once again have a reason to live. [Jun/Jul 2002, p.102]

Crimson features enough syrupy string swells, maudlin piano filigrees and layers of production sparkle... to choke an army of purists. But these credibility-destroying effects only enhance the pure pop kick. [Jul 2005, p.114]

Unrushed, spacious, and duller than a four-hour hayride. [Mar 2004, p.130]

Lively and ingenious combinations of glockenspiel, theremin, tuba, accordion, strings and mariachi horns promise more emotional depth than Nick Urata's world-weary tenor warble delivers. [May 2008, p.75]

At worst, Matsuzaki's delviery can make this manic style-juggling sound irritating where it might otherwise be captivating. [Mar 2007, p.134]

Sits squarely in the middle of B&S's comfort zone: never bad but rarely inspiring. [Mar 2006, p.109]

MMW start with some dirty grooves, then add DJs, horn sections and singers for dissonance and disruptions. [Apr/May 2002, p.115]

This set bogs down when the band flaunts its slow-chug technique at the expense of hooks and jokes. [#27, p.139]

The offhand charm isn't enough. [Sep 2003, p.123]

The second half drops off badly--the band seem to think that the tonic for a weak lyric is to slow the tempo to a crawl. [Nov 2005, p.130]

Sounds routine, obscure without much mystery. [Apr 2005, p.124]

The Lillywhite songs are mostly improved here. [#8, p.119]

These songs don't rock; they squirm, shuffle and skulk. [#23, p.111]

Weakened by a slew of club-oriented pieces that drown its personality in repetitive grooves. [Apr/May 2002, p.113]

At his best, Berman used to refract sage-with-guitar tropes into dryly perverse insights; but this time he's just smothering them in weird phrases. [July 2008, p.76]