It's nicely done, but the relentless cheerfulness grates. [Nov 2003, p.122]

[Has] a relaxed good humor and a genuine feel for the pulse of Western swing. [Apr 2006, p.114]

Midway through, this becomes the record it should have been all along: a gentle, autumnal meditation on the problems of becoming a badly drawn grown-up. [Nov 2006, p.136]

The album splits the difference between smart and smarty-pants: The articulate arrangements occasionally overdo the left-field instrumentation, and Richard Edwards’s empathetic short-story tales flirt with fussiness.

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

It's hard to listen to the rest of Britney without imagining what the album would have sounded like had [the Neptunes] produced the whole thing. [#4, p.121]

The band turns [Kris Roe's] melodic remembrances into energized, youthful pop anthems, like a less-frivolous Blink-182. [#15, p.120]

This is a band reborn and ready to soar. [Oct/Nov 2001, p.103]

Mostly, though, this psychodrama feels both overplayed and underwritten. [August 2007 p.110]

It's not quite as thrillingly risky as the Deftones' White Pony, but it deserves the collegiate adulation it will likely receive. [Oct/Nov 2001, p.107]

These gothed-out Chicago yeomen relish a catoonishly dark lyric and if they eke new inspiration out of anything on their sixth studio album--which bounds along, as though bunny-powered, on a pop-punk beat--it's war. [July 2008, p.70]

For the tunnel-visioned Zeppelin fan, there's enough vintage Plant here to hold interest. [#8, p.121]

Rejected Unknown proves why those fans are so devoted. [Oct/Nov 2001, p.106]

Mascis sticks to his bombastic Dino formula on this record, but he still impresses with anthemic rockers, mellower jams and bluesy numbers that allow his Neil Young-inspired ax to shine. [#11, p.136]

30STM manage a high-minded space opera of epic scope befitting prog-rock prototypes Rush. [#9, p.142]

Where they once spun enveloping hood verite, here they just list gangsta signifiers without building a world from them. [Aug 2004, p.136]

The songs themselves don't amount to much... but they're basically an excuse for Ejstes's gloriously lysergic arrangements anyway. [Sep 2005, p.133]

The duo fight back with song after song full of cutting takedowns and brotherly wisdom--they get petty, they get mean, but aided by Arcade Fire orchestrator Owen Pallett, they turn their bitchfests into grandiose melodrama.

Throughout the album, haunted-saloon piano and reverb-choked guitar conjure a murky, wobbly misaligned version of old R&B.

Snoop sounds great without saying anything he hasn't already said many times... Which is a testament to his abilities, but it's a bit disappointing, too. [Sep 2004, p.132]

The band covers this cerebral terrain with renewed vigor, thanks to a sudden fondness for antique synthesizers and battery-powered drum machines. [Feb/Mar 2002, p.112]

Without goth glamour or Fall Out Boy self-flagellation, Voices gets mired in a modern-rock middle. [Mar 2006, p.113]

Dido should let her socks go unsorted for a while; genuine sorrow sounds good on her.

Rimes's gigantic soprano never flags, yet remains best in ballads. [#11, p.140]

If Dido had a thing for madrigals and a suite of neuroses, she might sound this interesting. [#9, p.146]

Around the midway point, just as APC seem handcuffed to despair, they remember that a good protest song should stir the spirit rather than sink it. [Dec 2004, p.140]

A prince's share of his royal talent survives. [Aug 2004, p.136]

A radiant collection of pure pop songs. [#10, p.125]

Though the drones drift into Enya-like ambience on "Slip Away" more often, as on "Pieces and Parts" and the keening "Broken," Anderson dresses up her hard-won koans of personal wisdom just enough to make them alluring. [Aug/Sep 2001, p.120]

An album that begins as a me-against-the-world celebration of self ends as a somber plea for emotional wholeness. [Dec 2006, p.173]

Dan Bejar is in "If it ain't broke, don't fix it" mode: He's made an album that sounds nearly identical to the one before it. [Apr 2008, p.78]

It presumably adds up to Something Important, but good luck deciphering what. [Jul 2006, p.103]

Walking on a Dream initially sounds as familiar as montage music in an HBO midday movie, but it will haunt your dreams.

Her solo debut... spruces up a vintage style--'80s SoCal new wave--with lyrical twists. [#8, p.126]

It's almost as much fun as 1981! [May 2003, p.114]

At several points... the duo belatedly attempts to revivie its peak period formula, but... it's as old-fashioned as a Lollapalooza 1992 T-shirt. Fortunately, Jourgenson and Barker's new ideas are better. [#14, p.140]

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

Endearing hints of '60s pop glow faintly beneath the frictionless surfaces of Gane's loops, chirps and austerely percolating rhythms. [Sep 2008, p.84]

Much of Voyage to India is a soporific swath of happy-hour wallpaper. [#11, p.127]

Over 45 minutes, it feels monotonous and preposterously self-pitying, but in controlled doses, it bests all the rest of the U.K.'s current wave of post-Coldplay bedwetters. [Jun 2006, p.145]

Important? No. Remarkable? Not really. [Sep 2003, p.118]

Lerche originals... aren't starry-eyed vintage exercises. They're just swell new tunes. [Apr 2006, p.114]

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]

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

Despite the occasional misstep... it's a welcome album to anyone who wishes the past 15 years never happened to Run-D.M.C.'s legacy. [Nov 2005, p.139]

When he’s in command, Barzelay seldom feels the need to be so subtle. But don’t sweat the details and many of the tracks will fall into place eventually.

Takes Cursive back to their chickenscratch days. [Sep 2005, p.144]

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

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

Beautiful but strangely unhinged. [Jul 2006, p.100]

There are no future standards, but no sugary returns to childhood, either. [May 2004, p.124]

The only emotion here is the hothouse loneliness of an overintellectualized mind. [Nov 2006, p.154]

Feels like an episode of her growing-pains TV show Moesha. [Aug 2004, p.130]

Impressive at times... The problem isn't style--it's substance. Mraz's songwriting chops leave plenty to be desired. [Aug 2005, p.114]

Even at its weepiest, his music, thankfully, stays vivacious. [Apr 2006, p.116]

That's both the best and the worst thing about this album: The music is much more eloquent than the lyrics. [May 2003, p.112]

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

A rather polite album... but it's also comprehensively gorgeous. [#27, p.138]

In striving for Zen-like purity, the songs often end up eerily blank. [Jul 2005, p.122]

The surprise is that the realist rage of material they had barely thought about in years feels so right in the age of Dubya. [#23, p.106]

What makes this album slightly dry is its gorgeous conservatism. [Apr 2005, p.118]

Those in search of a gloriously moronic keg-party soundtrack will wet themselves with pleasure. [Apr/May 2002, p.112]

As hipsters, the Yorkshire quartet are still total non-starters, but [North] sees producer Brendan O'Brien honing their gonzo essence to more sizeable effect. [Nov 2004, p.138]

The mellow rethink helps Cook get over his sweaty ’90s heyday, and his buddies sound equally liberated.

Often, it's too much of a good thing. [Sep 2005, p.137]

Reborn, the track leads off the sardonic sextet’s fifth album of apocalyptic buffoonery shot through with metal, new wave and disco, all of it hilarious, none of it a joke.

Bounce may sound flat in a few years, but by then its job--to see another million people, and rock them all--will be done. [#11, p.128]

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

Less scary but more melodic, Korn guns for hits, not street cred. [Mar 2006, p.113]

Mya gets lost on Moodring. [#18, p.128]

The pulse underscoring the album keeps it hopping when the songs meander. [Nov 2004, p.142]

The band occasionally lapse into easy irony and cheap spite. [Mar 2006, p.110]

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

Their grooves can sometimes roll on as if unattended -- which is fine for living-room techno, but not for the pop songs they're trying to emulate. [Jun/Jul 2001, p.114]

The beat-programming is crystalline, the feeling is frozen, the soul is northern if it's there at all. [Sep 2005, p.136]

Successful imitation requires a kind of talent, too. [#9, p.156]

Unexpectedly clean-cut... the time-signature shifts and feedback swirls that earned them minor adulation are sidelined in favor of pushy, arena-sized choruses. [Mar 2005, p.136]

These songs are pleasant, stripped-down and also a little limp. [Oct 2003, p.124]

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]

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

Kayne West once again saves his friend from the NAACP lecture circuit with soul-snapping beats that effectively turn the headliner into a guest star on his own album. [Aug 2007, p. 110]

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]

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]

A dazzlingly rhythmic junkyard. [Jun 2006, p.142]

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

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]

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

Severe... it's hard rock rigorously stripped of frivolity and glamour. [Oct 2004, p.128]

The tearjerkers flow free on their sixth studio album. [Jan/Feb 2007, p.88]

Her story-songs about crushes gone wrong and nerdy social skills are like late-night IMs set to coffeehouse guitars. [Mar 2008, p.100]

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

Though Moorer's lyrics sometimes slide from smart to schmaltzy, her superb singing ensures that every tune on Miss Fortune is incandescent. [#10, p.122]

Mostly, Ten is The LL Cool J Show -- a reliable sitcom, now in its tenth season, detailing the bachelorhood of a brawny loverman. [#12, p.146]

Producer Guy Sigsworth (Seal, Björk, Madonna) adds a touch of Eurodisco to her infatuation-junkie rambles.

[McCoy's] delivery is laudably cool for a Warped Tour MC. But it’s gunk on the gears of this dancing machine.

Though its sound is still cloudy and distant, the group takes tentative steps toward Everything But The Girl territory. [Aug/Sep 2001, p.123]

A couple of great amped-up stormers... and a lot of nearly identical songs. [Jun/Jul 2004, p.145]

Fervent and fierce, with a half-earned world-weariness that can recall Johnny Rotten himself, the Dresden Dolls mean to make goth theatrically smart. Quite often, they do. [July 2008, p.71]