The music follows in the ruby-slippered footsteps of the first album. [Oct 2006, p.134]

Skeletal Lamping is a new high for this long-running yet just-peaking band.

As double albums go, it's a hell of an EP. [Mar 2006, p.114]

She offsets an assault of cheekiness with confessions so intimate, they could have been drafted during an A.A. meeting.

The good news is that practically nothing has changed. That's also the bad news. [#10, p.133]

These tunes sound like they're built out of yard-sale detritus, salvaged and held together with masking tape, chewing gum, anger and sentimentality. [Nov 2003, p.112]

Important? No. Remarkable? Not really. [Sep 2003, p.118]

Compared with the Pixies, this is conservative and gentlemanly. [Aug 2005, p.109]

When the Teens youthfully chime in behind sheepish disclosures, it's like they’re arguing that a baby seat in the tour van doesn’t have to slow down the ride. And quite often, they prove it too.

The missing links between club night, rock show and 2001-style cosmic experience, these boys are still worth digging. [Mar 2005, p.138]

Like the previous Brazilian Girls records, New York City is a lounge-y pileup of bossa rhythms and Old World romantic ache, girded by slithery push-button funk throb—at once refined and happily trashy.

A record that encourages global consciousness shouldn't sound so isolated and chilly. [Aug 2005, p.110]

Though there’s slick, occasionally dynamite production from the likes of the Runners and Scott Storch, the lyrics rarely rise above defensive boasting (“One Hit Wonder”), frigid sex raps (“What It Is [Strike a Pose]”) and rote autobiography (“College”).

[Moss'] raw, husky delivery [is] able to turn even throwaway lines like "I swam to the bottom of the sea for you/I climbed to the top of the trees for you" into high drama. [Apr 2006, p.111]

It has at least seven killer tracks. [Jul 2006, p.101]

The only thing missing is a killer pop hit to follow "Get the Pary Started." [Nov 2003, p.120]

The album merely washes pleasantly past, tickling the ear and delivering a few hummable refrains. There's nothing here to lift listeners the way White Ladder did. [#12, p.143]

They've toughened up considerably. [#12, p.154]

A conceptual bacchanal of sweat-drenched lust. [Oct/Nov 2001, p.104]

Though their restraint can be alienating, Steely Dan sound hungry, relevant and full of ideas. [#17, p.147]

Maas translates this superclub-oriented sound -- all tectonic bass and whooshing stero-panned effects -- into home-friendly music. [Apr/May 2002, p.115]

Bursts with neat production touches. [#4, p.116]

The arrangements are lean but wonderfully evocative... while Chapman's lyrics remain memorable and affecting. [Oct 2005, p.136]

They've grown noticeably more centered and serious-minded--and maturity was the last thing that needed to happen to them. [Jul 2006, p.99]

[Lopez's] wry lyrics and melodic flights lend the disc unexpectedly sharp, stirring edges. [Nov 2005, p.141]

Certified would be pretty great if it weren't for one huge mistake: his suite of god-awful sex jams. [Nov 2005, p.131]

This follow-up isn't as clever or as caustic [As 2000's Life'll Kill Ya], but at least Zevon's now smiling as he goes his twisted way. [Jun/Jul 2002, p.116]

Unfortunately, the songs on Title TK are mostly half-written train wrecks. [Jun/Jul 2002, p.103]