Borrowing liberally and transparently from Bright Eyes, the Cure and mid-1960s chamber pop, the band sublimates familiar expressions of indie gloom with string flourishes and twink­ling piano lines, giving Olenius both a shoulder to cry on and, in soaring songs like 'Tonight I Have to Leave It,' a source of joy.

The music is as sexy as it is horny. [May 2006, p.105]

Even as they take on the album title's potentially heavy theme, two vocalists sing with wide-open smiles, and they toss in new-wave beats alongside the saloon pianos and tube-amp guitars. [Aug 2008, p.84]

One of the country highs of the year. [#15, p.121]

A pretty wild ride, but it's not always clear where they're headed. [Feb/Mar 2002, p.112]

A worthy successor to Surrender.... This is dance music that still outstrips anything else in its class. [Feb/Mar 2002, p.113]

The Documentary is like a hip-hop Jurassic Park: a big-budget homage to a place most of us thought was ancient history. [Apr 2005, p.118]

The softening of his hardcore tendencies makes for a fruitful middle ground between his threats to foes and his pleas to Allah.

She’s more geeky than queenly anyway, ­jazzily singing and breezily rapping over buoyant reggae and soul throwback beats sculpted by a guy named Adam who previously worked with American Idol finalist Elliott Yamin.

Intermittently great. [May 2005, p.117]

It's the sound of a New Yorker coming home for a breath of country air. [Nov 2005, p.130]

The quintet’s debut LP often plays like a low-budget male companion piece to Amy Winehouse’s throwback hit 'Back to Black.'

The concept is basic and brilliant: a song for every bitter month of a year of off-again/on-again romance, from splitting the record collection in January to “A token e-mail/ A drunken text/A sorry go-round of cell-phone sex” in October.

Log 22 may be Holland's greatest export since Heineken. [May 2003, p.115]

With a thick strain of the DJ humor found in the music of De La Soul and Daft Punk, Kinky know no borders, slapping Mexican norteno with techno until it sounds like neither. [Apr/May 2002, p.114]

Shambling and confessional. [May 2003, p.116]

Full of life and energy. [Sep 2004, p.138]

Perspiration trumps inspiration, as madly sawing strings and short-circuiting robot bleeps compensate for the lack of hooks. [Oct 2004, p.120]

He's never tried so actively to fuse prescriptive politics into [the] mix, and the move feels suspect. [Aug 2005, p.115]

Here, he seems more comfortable in his pasty skin. [May 2008, p.76]

What Hammond... lacks in attitude, he makes up for in old-school pop charm. [Apr 2007, p.111]

Maps... swap[s] the band's trademark dreariness for the U2-style arena-rock sweep that makes their live shows... so exciting. [Mar 2005, p.140]

But there’s a fine line between subtlety and listlessness, and while Marshall’s purr excels at postcoital melancholy or numb disaffection, other times it’s just a bore. Her blues aren’t nearly as vibrant when they’re drenched in gray.

The big-screen sweep and high-definition melodies (suggesting Weezer’s sluggish pep buoyed by the Flaming Lips’ hallucinatory orchestrations) make this “malfunctioning android”’s anthems of depression extra vivid.

Like his debut, is a coffeehouse classical-guitar-and-voice affair long on tonal beauty but short on melody and emotion. [Sep 2007, p.126]

Always dark, sometimes lovely. [Jun/Jul 2001, p.105]

Laces the Unit's thugs-to-riches formula with chunks of the Dirty South. [Aug 2004, p.143]

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

This album has some of what was missing from Home: fire, ugliness, resentment. [Jun 2006, p.135]

Less of the recent Jesus-jazz, more funk minimalism--so far so good.... But the once-and-future Prince doesn't seem to be rooting around in the rich melodies of "Raspberry Beret" or the frenetic nu-wave soul of "Uptown." [#27, p.144]

[Coldplay] have made their masterpiece. [Jun 2005, p.112]

Beneath their steel-wool guitar tone, the songs swing like a slammed door. [Nov 2005, p.137]

The two halves of OutKast seem less collaborative than ever.

She's chosen a bunch of fiery roles that even she can't dull up. [Jul 2007, p.114]

Although a few tracks retain Felt Mountain's eerie beauty, Black Cherry's natural habitat is less supper club than strip club, and Goldfrapp sound right at home. [May 2003, p.119]

Somehow the emotions bleed through, raw as hell. [#17, p.132]

Gutterflower, for better or worse, is a perfectly executed encapsulation of the unexciting state of mainstream rock in 2002. [Jun/Jul 2002, p.108]

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

A daring and triumphant concoction. [#27, p.140]

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]

Overall, the tracks range from overserious and plodding to cloying and jumpy.

Movement and change remain his inspiration. [Oct 2007, p.107]

His best album since Vauxhall & I. [#27, p.140]

The Deftones' fifth album turns the dial to "statesmen." [Dec 2006, p.172]

Every white soul traditionalist from Hall & Oates to Duffy demands catchy, impactful songs, yet that’s where Thicke is thinnest.

It's the musical equivalent of George Lucas's tinkering with the Star Wars DVDs--some flaws are best left uncorrected. [Nov 2005, p.135]

As Clef drops mostly trite lines about green cards, strippers and police harassment, this strategy either succeeds brillantly--or goes haywire. [Nov 2007, p.153]

Album No. 5--their first for indie stalwart Epitaph--amps up the band’s aggro guitars, cookie-monster yells and proggy ambition.

The Thermals are the rarest of punk bands: a three-chord, three-member outfit whose clamorous drive actually resolves into a riveting, accessible worldview. [#27, p.146]

It's hard to shake the feeling that this is a collection of dope beats in search of some rhymes. [Aug 2004, p.134]

Most of the album, like the single 'Tick Tock Boom,' sticks to formula. [Nov 2007, p.150]

The best ’80s-revival funk made by white Canadian hip-hop kids since, like, ever.

Despite the metaphysical yet conversational “Knowing” and a sexed-up title track that begins with his come in her hair, she doesn’t offer enough evidence that her new love is any realer than all the others she’s exulted and struggled through in eight albums going back to 1979.

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]

Crimson's current incarnation combines the sounds of previous editions, especially the early math-rock of the mid-'70s and the deft, Talking Heads-redolent Ph.D-funk of the early '80s. [#14, p.138]

Full of the sort of twitchy New Wave pop that really gets the hipsters' hips a-shaking. [Jun/Jul 2004, p.148]

This is mostly music to zone in and out of--periodically, new sounds and rhythms croip up and coexist in rough approximation of grooves, catching the ear; other times songs drone in the background, either beatifically ot forgettable. [Nov 2007, p.146]

Retro-atmospherics guru M. Ward and grizzled guitar genius Marc Ribot leave their dusty fingerprints. Holland leaves behind a trail of her own.

With this kind of self-pity, Kid Rock was better off staying shallow. [Jan 2004, p.110]

What's missing so far... is the offbeat charisma that would make the Subways into something more than a high-school cover band that got lucky. [Apr 2006, p.118]

The music follows in the ruby-slippered footsteps of the first album. [Oct 2006, p.134]

Skeletal Lamping is a new high for this long-running yet just-peaking band.

As double albums go, it's a hell of an EP. [Mar 2006, p.114]

She offsets an assault of cheekiness with confessions so intimate, they could have been drafted during an A.A. meeting.

The good news is that practically nothing has changed. That's also the bad news. [#10, p.133]

These tunes sound like they're built out of yard-sale detritus, salvaged and held together with masking tape, chewing gum, anger and sentimentality. [Nov 2003, p.112]

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

Compared with the Pixies, this is conservative and gentlemanly. [Aug 2005, p.109]

When the Teens youthfully chime in behind sheepish disclosures, it's like they’re arguing that a baby seat in the tour van doesn’t have to slow down the ride. And quite often, they prove it too.

The missing links between club night, rock show and 2001-style cosmic experience, these boys are still worth digging. [Mar 2005, p.138]

Like the previous Brazilian Girls records, New York City is a lounge-y pileup of bossa rhythms and Old World romantic ache, girded by slithery push-button funk throb—at once refined and happily trashy.

A record that encourages global consciousness shouldn't sound so isolated and chilly. [Aug 2005, p.110]

Though there’s slick, occasionally dynamite production from the likes of the Runners and Scott Storch, the lyrics rarely rise above defensive boasting (“One Hit Wonder”), frigid sex raps (“What It Is [Strike a Pose]”) and rote autobiography (“College”).

[Moss'] raw, husky delivery [is] able to turn even throwaway lines like "I swam to the bottom of the sea for you/I climbed to the top of the trees for you" into high drama. [Apr 2006, p.111]

It has at least seven killer tracks. [Jul 2006, p.101]

The only thing missing is a killer pop hit to follow "Get the Pary Started." [Nov 2003, p.120]

The album merely washes pleasantly past, tickling the ear and delivering a few hummable refrains. There's nothing here to lift listeners the way White Ladder did. [#12, p.143]

They've toughened up considerably. [#12, p.154]

A conceptual bacchanal of sweat-drenched lust. [Oct/Nov 2001, p.104]

Though their restraint can be alienating, Steely Dan sound hungry, relevant and full of ideas. [#17, p.147]

Maas translates this superclub-oriented sound -- all tectonic bass and whooshing stero-panned effects -- into home-friendly music. [Apr/May 2002, p.115]

Bursts with neat production touches. [#4, p.116]

The arrangements are lean but wonderfully evocative... while Chapman's lyrics remain memorable and affecting. [Oct 2005, p.136]

They've grown noticeably more centered and serious-minded--and maturity was the last thing that needed to happen to them. [Jul 2006, p.99]

[Lopez's] wry lyrics and melodic flights lend the disc unexpectedly sharp, stirring edges. [Nov 2005, p.141]

Certified would be pretty great if it weren't for one huge mistake: his suite of god-awful sex jams. [Nov 2005, p.131]

This follow-up isn't as clever or as caustic [As 2000's Life'll Kill Ya], but at least Zevon's now smiling as he goes his twisted way. [Jun/Jul 2002, p.116]

Unfortunately, the songs on Title TK are mostly half-written train wrecks. [Jun/Jul 2002, p.103]

At 62, Reed apparently has indulged in the drug that rejuvenated Bob Dylan's career: enjoying himself. [Apr 2004, p.135]

Sheik's sparklingly clear voice and subtly tricky guitar shifts transcend the pop-rock melodies. [#10, p.126]

Wordman Lillian Berlin murmurs more than he declaims and prefers to share vocals with members of a shifting communal entity dubbed the “Living Things Choir,” and if that fuzzes up the lyrics, well, like most bands, Living Things are more into emotions than ideas anyway.

His songwriting isn't a strength, and his ballads often drown in their own inanity. [Apr 2004, p.132]

This collection seems less pointlessly abstract than 1999's similarly staffed Cobra and Phases. [Aug/Sep 2001, p.130]

If the comfy, mostly acoustic, fiddle-inflected tunes are pure Nashville craft, the lyrics speak bluntly about personal dislocation and loneliness. [May 2004, p.119]

An enthusiastic album full of masterful strokes and electrifying intensity. [#23, p.98]

The album's final third is useless... Fortunately, the rest is bracing permutations of the lopsided, much-sampled post-disco rhythms that helped define NYC art-funk 25 years ago. [Oct 2006, p.135]

It occasionally feels slack, especially compared to old faves like “Wildcat” or their bootleg hip-hop remixes.

Elevator has the zing of classic pop--and its sureness too. [May 2005, p.115]