The most original spin on indie-pop in years. [Dec 2003, p.140]

Oye's single-minded thematic focus and velveteen baritone hold everything together. [#14, p.142]

Tapes 'n Tapes take not just their frazzled vocals but also their low-fi mixes, fuzzed-out guitars, semi-sequitur lyrics, falsetto refrains and general air of nearly falling apart from campus kings Pavement. [Aug 2006, p.114]

The riffs blast as if it's 1971 all over again. [Jun 2006, p.148]

Out Hud don't write songs, they whip up grooves: streamlined throbs and pulses, transmitted live from Saturday night at the coolest club in town. [May 2005, p.123]

Most of their songs gallop by in a minute or two, erupting with new beats the moment they start to itch. [Apr 2008, p.83]

A 38-minute meditation on how not to build on a hook. [Jun/Jul 2001, p.114]

There's a lot of passion and red corpuscles surging just outside the music's clean, primary-colored lines. [Apr 2006, p.112]

The loudest record [Hersh] has ever made, and even if few individual compositions leap out of the general roar, it sounds fantastic. [Apr 2005, p.116]

WFTD occasionally give in to the urge to crank up the fuzz and play straight-up indie rock, but the narrower each song's scope is, the more it feels like it should go on forever. [Oct 2004, p.131]

Westerberg delivers a hook, an idea and a subtle emotion on nearly every track. [Jun/Jul 2002, p.116]

With so many hip people in the studio, it's no wonder Echoes sounds like such a party. [Nov 2003, p.119]

An inevitable return to their punk-meets-dance-rock basics, featuring their sexy, trademark battery of geometric riffs, careening bass and shrapnel noise. [Jun/Jul 2002, p.108]

The quartet throws itself into these vintage gestures with so much verve and dumb-fun exuberance that the songs, even with their simplistic, catchphrase lyrics, are hard to resist.

Sometimes they're tossing salad, with predictably sappy songs about sainted all-stars Willie Mays and Jackie Robinson, yet theyre funny throwing chin music at cult figures Fernando Valenzuela and Harvey Haddix. [Sep 2008, p.76]

If this is soul, it's soul for 21st-century sociopaths. [Apr 2008, p.77]

Swells with grace and intrigue. [May 2005, p.116]

[Hammond's] "Crown Vic"... fits snugly among these relaxed, happily run-down blues. [#14, p.136]

While Costa is almost too glamorous for her own good, she flaunts that old-school splendor that generates apt comparisons to early Lenny Kravitz. [Jun/Jul 2001, p.107]

The best songs have concise melodies and a likeable punch. The worst just sound like sketches, riffs a more traditionally ambitious group would have discarded. [#8, p.116]

Jadakiss' flow is impeccable throughout. [Sep 2004, p.137]

OH (Ohio) ends with a straight-faced rendition of the hokey country standard 'I Believe in You,' with lyrical mush about dogs and babies, but Wagner sings it like he wants to believe every word.

While their protest cries tilt feebly into goofball psychedelic funk, a lush poignancy bubbles up on the more ruminative tracks. [May 2006, p.110]

Scabrous, overdriven spallter-punk. [Nov 2006, p.136]

While Ten New Songs is not an attempt to break new ground, its sophistication and unassuming depth are almost worth the decade-long wait. [Oct/Nov 2001, p.103]

Dry and straightforward disco-soul. [Jul 2005, p.116]

If the vocal tracks sound irredeemably icky... the instrumentals are as dreamily engaging as ever. [#23, p.100]

The 2005 AIDS-related death of Extra Golden cofounder Otieno Jagwasi shades the follow-up to last year’s rough yet lovable "Ok-Oyot System."