Enough human warmth sneaks through to make this second album exciting and affecting. [Nov 2005, p.133]

Though less dynamic, the weary mid-tempo arrangements embody the album’s crushing hopelessness, tempered only by John Neff’s elegant pedal steel.

It flows like a scrapbook rather than a novel, but it portrays them as diligent experimenters and meticulous melodists who have been liberated by embracing restrictions. [Sep 2004, p.155]

With CSS, even biting the dust is a blast. [Aug 2008, p.82]

He's a master of sweaty hyperventilation, but it's his less frenzied moments--the techno equivalent of circular breathing--that keep the party from collapse. [Apr 2009, p.59]

There are magical, creepy moments here. [Nov 2005, p.131]

For all their wriggly noise details and fragmented language, their center of gravity is in their hips. [#23, p.101]

[Moffat's] monotone is offset by colorful arrangements. [May 2003, p.114]

A hip-hop Blood On The Tracks. [#27, p.143]

Their new boss's hooks are often slicke rand less arresting than the minor-key grit they thrive on. [Jun 2006, p.142]

They're not the kind of band that ages well... [but] one hot summer is all they need. [Aug 2006, p.107]

The jumble of stuff that spills out -- from Delta blues to nineteenth-century ballads to spoken-word rambles -- is surprisingly consistent, at times transcendent, and not just for people intimately acquainted with Waits’s honeyed craziness.

A set of abrasively melodic pop songs. [May 2004, p.124]

Sounds like it's been held in a vault since her heyday. [Oct 2004, p.112]

Lord’s voice is breathy and sweet without being tiresomely innocent or fragile -- it’s Candyland by way of Troubletown.

Weird, hook-filled, and irresistible. [Nov 2004, p.146]

Youngblood's tunes are so clever it's easy to overlook the commitment to new wave it took for him to avoid wasting his love of wordplay on folk music. [Aug 2008, p.84]

Dulcet R&B hooks are spoonfuls of sugar that make De La catchy enough for a new generation of fans. [Nov 2004, p.132]

T.I. boats one of gangsta rap's most mellifluous voices and more polysyllabic lexicons, and when he combines the two, he's dazzling, hypnotic, virtuosic. [Dec 08/Jan 09, p.82]

Despite a new set of producers... this vivacious, club-friendly sophomore set merely tinkers with her old recipe. [Jan/Feb 2007, p.83]

It's all top-shelf alt-country: road-hardened, literate and dark as ever. [August 2007, p.114]

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

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]

They're old-fashioned ballads, all very tasteful, but few hooks poke through the froth. [Jun 2006, p.139]

Effortlessly surges into the stratosphere of his better work--when not slipping into new age-y monotony. [Jun 2005, p.113]

Cute but not too sugary, smart but not too brainy, [Stacy] Jones's songs practically define pop-punk. [#14, p.130]

Her voice--half dark, lazy molasses, half bourbon with a silky finish--rings with equal parts defiance and vulnerability. [May 2004, p.128]

This is virile, excited music. [Jun 2006, p.146]