Finally: bedroom music from a guy who seems to know his way around the bedroom. [Nov 2005, p.141]

It's ghetto viciousness as literary exercise--an episode of The Wire with a better soundtrack. [Nov 2006, p.142]

The eighth volume of the erractic and fancinating Bootleg Series, exhumes his unreleased music. [Nov 2008, p.80]

Sad, pretty, funny and touching. [#14, p.137]

Putnam lays fragile vocals and haunting piano melodies over tightly wound postpunk rhythms that add immediacy to lyrics about missed opportunities and broken relationships. [Dec 2005, p.151]

From the orgiastic "We're All In Love" to the painfully mortal "Take a Good Look at My Good Looks," they're all clearly Dolls for life. [Aug 2006, p.113]

Eighties punk-funk meets '60s idealism and reefer-toking? Make way for the hipster hippies. [#27, p.134]

That it doesn't dissolve into kitsch and comedy is a tribute to Mika's gifts. [Apr 2007, p.118]

The best song on Super Taranta! is all about one <i>bad</i> party: the disappointed, outright funny 'American Wedding. [Aug 2007, p.111]

Convincingly lovely through and through. [#17, p.140]

Nas, it seems, wants his crown back. [#13, p.95]

The big surprise on the 61-year-old’s follow-up isn’t her knockout voice--it’s the sympathetic backup provided by Lynyrd Skynyrd–worshippers Drive-By Truckers (whose guitarist, Patterson Hood, produced the record). The well-selected, never-obvious covers of songs by writers from Elton John to Willie Nelson are unflinching tales of struggle and survival.

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

Sweat... is more fun, but that's the point. [Oct 2004, p.126]

YYY cram their furious music full of twists and spasmic enthusiasm, filling every second with motion. [#8. p.127]

Like a question 1970s double disc compacted into 45 brutally efficient minutes, it has the momentum of a meteor. [Aug 2006, p.108]

New Moon sounds less like a pile of outtakes than an official album released in a parallel universe.

Beyond Green’s wriggly, giggly, purring-to-screaming magnificence (as well as two smoking support vocals by young acolyte Anthony Hamilton), this is an album of intricate groove.

They’ve upped the sonic oomph a notch, leaning on the piano, violin, xylophones and perfectly mangled Pavement-style guitar mess.

A nicely loose-limbed collection. [Jun/Jul 2004, p.143]

The kind of boiling, roiling blues the Bad Seeds haven't cooked up in years. [Nov 2004, p.131]

Artfully arranged songs about planets and beasts and bittersweet harmonies recall British folk-rock combos like Fairport Convention and Pentangle without coming off as retro or twee. [Jun 2006, p.137]

Immediately transforms VHS or Beta from disco revivalists into one of rock's best new bands. [Oct 2004, p.130]

Celebrity shines brightest when the group matures enough to forget about its image and focus on the tunes. [Aug/Sep 2001, p.126]

A beautifully contained album, short in length and miniaturist in vision. [#14, p.135]

The album's plush and detailed enough to invite extensive exploration, and varied enough to not get exhausting. [Oct 2005, p.135]

Quiet pleasures, but worth seeking out. [Aug/Sep 2001, p.130]

No new fans need apply here, but those who know and love his sound will find that this self-styled career summation, a nod back to late Husker Du with computerized updates, sprouts horns with repeat listens. [Aug 2005, p.112]