Doves' best songs are full of life and genuinely moving, like an older, wiser Coldplay. [Apr 2005, p.113]

The two Louris/Tweedy writing collaborations stand with the best work of both. [Aug 2006, p.108]

Offers a twisted melancholy David Lynch would applaud. [May 2003, p.120]

Slug pushes against the beat like he's afraid it'll pass by before he's done, returning to the challenges of coupledom. [Oct 2003, p.114]

They’re crotch-pumping arena pimps and introverted minimalists.

Think 1993's hit "Regret," but with tougher guitars, rockier grooves and a more up vibe. [Oct/Nov 2001, p.113]

Maladroit feels like a bloodless quest to write the perfect song. [Jun/Jul 2002, p.100]

Twain's songs are never deep, but they have hooks tattooed on their skin and harmonies that glow like bar lights. [#13, p.88]

After contributing smart songs and sly vocals to Al Green’s 2008 Lay It Down, Anthony Hamilton seemed poised for a breakthrough. This isn’t it.

Cardinology lays even deeper into the language of rehabilitation, grace and renewal.

While it can tend toward the tuneless, the upside is language that differs plenty from a Jay-Z or Eminem but stands beside them in terms of power--a flow that, once you get used to it, becomes its own form. [May 2006, p.110]

He lays it on so thick, the music all but drowns in pretty surfaces. [Oct 2003, p.129]

Practically every song sounds as though we've heard it before--because, well, we have. [Sep 2003, p.122]

Unlike similar records... this has a unity of aesthetic purpose, a competitive wallop, even (kind of) a seriousness. [Mar 2004, p.127]

The songs are more blustery than ever. [Jun 2007, p.108]

Farrar revives Neil Young's habit of presenting the same songs in different styles. [#17, p.134]

No Line on the Horizon is U2’s third killer in a row--by now, it’s bizarre to remember that just 10 years ago, everybody thought they were headed toward the dinosaur band tar pits.

The end of the working day, the mark of Cain, to win, darling, we must pay--these phrases, variations on ones he's used previously, arise on his fifth studio album in seven years, until it seems his uncharacteristic prolific streak comes partly from lazy songwriting, maybe done with a set of Bruce Springsteen Lyric Magnets.

If recession-era Jeezy sounds a lot like boom-time Jeezy--describing coke cooking and the cars one gets in reward—that’s because he has always fancied himself an educator, a Learning Annex lecturer, an inspirational-desktop-calendar hustler.

Guitarist Kerry King physicalizes Araya’s emotional investment; his mad, crunched-up playing is anxiety rendered in sound.

Cheery and unassuming, Underwood is a pleasant oddity: a pop star whose central belief is her own powerlessness.

The melodic shortcomings of M!ssundaztood show that those eye-popping videos aside, she's no Madonna. [#4, p.122]

If there's a fault here, it's in the slightly hand-wringing lyrics, which, of not overwrought, are certainly pretty darned wrought. [#4, p.123]

You sense Timms has seen it all. [Oct 2004, p.130]

Traces of Joni Mitchell, PJ Harvey, Björk and Cat Power are all proudly on display in the unpredictable arrangements and off-kilter emotions.

Endearing hints of '60s pop glow faintly beneath the frictionless surfaces of Gane's loops, chirps and austerely percolating rhythms. [Sep 2008, p.84]

What keeps the songs interesting isn't his understated singing but his delectable arrangements. [Sep 2005, p.138]

Viva La Vida still manages to seem downsized compared to the band's gradiose early work. [July 2008, p.69]