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]

It’s a steadfast assault, whether he’s brooding over dust in the wind ('If Today Was Your Last Day') or idealizing a girl (“She ain’t no Cinderella when she gettin’ undressed/’Cause she rocks it like the naughty Wicked Witch of the West").

McNew adds his own hybrid theory, wittily merging classic and iconoclastic by exploring his influences. [May 2003, p.116]

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

[She] displays the true grit of a younger Bonnie Raitt.

Muscularly arranged with bongolated beats, psychedelic swamp guitars, boogie-woogie pine top and snowballing chorus hooks, Just Us Kids approximates a certain literate strain of early-'80s album rock.

This return to murky obscurantism, thankfully, comes with a return to guitar noise. [Jun 2005, p.115]

The tunes are basically chants and the drumming is more straight-ahead than "tribal" and when the vibraphone trips in after 40 seconds of 'The Ballad of Butter Bean,' you may not bust a gut laughing, but you'll probably grin. [June 2008, p.75]

When the singer’s overfamiliarity with certain material risks turning him nonchalant, Dan Nimmer’s barrelhouse piano picks up the slack; just when you’re ready to give up on an uninspired Hank Williams cover, some New Orleans parade funk kicks in.

[Holland] has been rather mistakenly compared to Billie Holiday; she’s more like Jeff Buckley covering Nina Simone, turning a very modern ear toward yesterday.

Their debut throbs like the Strokes with cross-eyed parents, their songs gritty and economical, their drummer nasty in all the best places. [Aug 2003, p.126]

In place of the band's distinctive head-banging limberness, there's a strange hybrid: a new sort of hard-rock soul, slightly lumbering in spite of its virtuosity. [Sep 2006, p.136]

This wistful, road-trip nostalgia-pop is the sound of alt-rock after the gold rush. [#14, p.141]

Chinese Democracy's non-existence is so well-known and ingrained, the source of so many jokes, that its actual existence can only be a letdown. That is until you hear it. Then, somewhat astonishingly, 5,475 days, at least $13 million, fourteen studios, twenty or so musicians (including five guitarists and a harpist) seems just about right.

The Furnaces play with a whimsical charm, so the band seems more like an arts-and-crafts project than an occupation. [Nov 2003, p.113]

The two halves of OutKast seem less collaborative than ever.

Singer-guitarist Eric Earley accesses the haunted Americana Wilco nailed on "Yankee Hotel Foxtrot," with big nods to mid-'60s Bob Dylan, early-'70s Neil Young and the country Grateful Dead. [Oct 2008, p.78]

Doughty’s fourth and best solo album gives up two keepers: the semi-absurdist 'More Bacon Than the Pan Can Handle,' with Stephanie Bischoff’s guest vocals sexier for sure than any synth weirdness Soul Coughing ever confabulated, and the mournfully understated Iraq opener, 'Fort Hood.'

Their second album is equally charming and more consistent. [Nov 2003, p.120]

Stone’s voice is remarkably authentic, and the atmosphere she conjures is smoky and sleazy, pure mid-’60s Detroit.

[A] ceaselessly grim set. [Apr 2007, p.118]

Beneath the sweetest of the album's retro harmonies, though, lurk harsh synths and dark thoughts. [Oct 2003, p.128]

Turns out there's a functioning soul beneath the smirk. [Apr 2007, p.115]

An album of languid grooves and slowly descending melodies. [#16, p.117]

Consistently compelling. [Oct 2003, p.116]

Every instrument here distorts, giving tearjerkers like 'I’ll Dream Alone' complementary grit.

There’s an exhilarating and ruthless intensity here, mingling the grimness of country murder ballads with the simplicity of girl-group pop.

Although their guitar-drums set-up is reminiscent of the White Stripes, the Animals are more interested in the wake-and-bake vibe of haggard hippie bands like Love and the Jefferson Airplane.