All that carefulness turns out to be bloodless. [Mar 2007, p.139]

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]

The sonics beneath Buck's deadpan rhymes are too often more subdued than the dense collages he started out in the late 90s, but jazz keyboards and conga poly-rhythms keep the backing from sinking into mere soundtrack. [Nov 2007, p.146]

Proves that [You Forgot It In People] wasn’t a fluke.

But vintage doesn’t mean nostalgic. 'Dirty Old Man' is the pissed, hilarious antithesis of his wide-eyed ’70s signature 'Old Man,' and it rivals Nick Cave’s 'No Pussy Blues' (see Grinderman) as the year’s best song about a deranged, horny graybeard.

At Bloc Party’s best, music and message collide with astounding force.

A casual, mostly charming sketchbook of diffident alt-country laments. [Mar 2004, p.116]

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.

[It] sounds fantastic--partly because the production nails sample-ready '60s soul right down to the drum sound' and partly because Winehouse is one hell of an impressive singer. [Apr 2007, p.121]

An utterly original if slightly queasiness-inducing album. [Nov 2003, p.109]

Smarter, bouncier and more full of insidious electronic hooks than its predecessors. [Aug 2003, p.124]

It's art music first and pop second. [Oct 2003, p.115]

Cobra Verde embrace classic-rock posturing with all of its messy emotional overreach, wanky-yet-tasteful guitar solos and bombastic songcraft.

Kweller's skeletal songs rely mostly on his acoustic guitar, garage-y riffs and swinging, Beatlesque piano. [Apr 2004, p.130]

Somehow, amid all of this assault, the band builds some excellent tunes. [Sep 2005, p.136]

Gorgeously understated. [Nov 2006, p.138]

Pete Yorn’s songs sound so damn good, it’s easy to assume they’re not smart.

His most relentlessly aggressive album yet. [Oct 2003, p.119]

Bedingfield’s second U.S. release sticks mostly to love odes and peppy self-help bromides, which occasionally veer close to Colbie Caillat’s lake of goop. It would be irksome if not for the uniformly strong pop and R&B songcraft.

Her woodwind-like voice and lucid sensiblity are hardly weird, but Andrews pushes her toward a dreamy and daring edge. [Apr 2005, p.117]

Over the course of an entire album Twista's gift proves his curse: Uniterrupted, it can get taxing. [Mar 2004, p.129]

Dawson's as self-assured as she is sensitive. [Jun 2006, p.137]

The Dears’ breakthrough was 2004’s "No Cities Left," a post-apocalyptic expedition through emotional and political wreckage, and they’re still mining that barren landscape, trying to rebuild.

[Beans] makes music for MCs to scratch their heads to. [#15, p.120]

Urgent, atonal post-punk. [Nov 2003, p.113]

The Sparks' performances are so understated, their arrangements so mechanically soothing, that it's easy to miss Rennie's brutal, elegant twists on folk cliches. [Jul 2006, p.99]

He can go from dazzling to deadeningly dense over LP lengths, so this smaller dose is appealing. [Apr 2005, p.112]

Simple, charming and surprisingly innocent. [#17, p.143]