Their propulsive intensity busts down garage doors, stumbling only with the wrongheaded ersatz cocktail ballad. [#8, p.117]

Feverish and bruised, dense as chowder, the songs describe danger and alienation in distressed voices. [May 2004, p.128]

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

What's most frustrating about them is precisely what's most appealing: Their refusal to write traditional songs, coupled with their giggling nature-child personas, adds an air of mystery and makes for some beautifully offbeat melodies. [Nov 2005, p.131]

His new take scythes through the original, revealing growls and guitars long obscured—sometimes it’s distracting, but often it lends the songs a newfound jolt.

Despite Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga's adventurousness, it's highest points end up being the most conventional. [August 2007, p.112]

On [Takk...], the band opens up emotionally, warming up their lengthy jams to a slow burn to create intoxicating, meditative rock. [Oct 2005, p.143]

After decades, Waits's theater of musical cruelty is familiar stuff. But the old dog's tricks still have bite. [Applies to both Alice and Blood Money, Jun/Jul 2002, p.111]

This is Jay-Z's suicide note and his glowing eulogy rolled into one. [Jan 2004, p.106]

It's an "important" record... But, more crucially, it's an enduringly entrancing listen. [Apr 2006, p.123]

The most tightly hook-larded, colorfully produced, listenable Decemberists record to date. [Nov 2006, p.138]

This is one helluva piece of singer-songwriter art. [Nov 2005, p.129]

A gently involving and moving album, Yoshimi could be the negative image of Radiohead's Kid A: the sound of a rock band using electronica to make music that's inclusive and warm instead of icy and aloof. [#8, p.114]

The whiff of apocalypse is unmistakable. Yet the scent of wildflowers and lovers’ musk wins out.

Consistently compelling. [Oct 2003, p.116]

The idea is to build a monorail between Aphex Twin and Stax Records; the songwriting eventually slacks off, but Lidell's performances don't. [Aug 2005, p.111]

A giddy funhouse of a record. [Oct 2005, p.136]

Its surging orchestrations and and acoustic subtelties seem willfully out of step with current trends, taking time to reveal their unique, and very British, charms.

The Cameras mix sex and spirituality over a gorgeous bed of organs, harps and 12-part harmonies. [May 2003, p.120]

There's an exhilarating, disorienting sense of freedom tot he album, the ruse of rules being ignored. [Aug 2008, p.79]

Sensitivity in excess. [#11, p.142]

Malin convincingly wraps his tortured warble around the dust-caked tunes. [#14, p.139]

Their final album is no solemn headstone. The languid beats are hazy with heat-distortion organs and porny electric guitars; the spirit is carefree.

Staggers under the unbearable preciousness of donkey-voiced singer Colin Meloy. [Sep 2003, p.122]

In a style gentler and more richly textured than the crudely amplified minimalism of the series’ debut by Konono N°1, the songs swell in and out of expansive and hypnotic patterns, forming clouds of interwoven rhythms.

Out Of Season's usefulness as ambience almost trumps its self-importance and paucity of standout material. [Dec 2003, p.136]

Whatever style the Roots take on their eighth album, whether it’s 21st century Sly Stone ("Baby"), flute-inflected freak-folk ("Living in a New World") or epic black rock ("Game Theory"), they do better than anyone else in pop.

His Who-tastic riffs remain belligerent and plentiful, but Pollard sounds grimmer, as if the former grade-school teacher suddenly realizes that touring in a van past age 40 isn't as much fun as he expected. [Jun/Jul 2001, p.111]