Again, the results are a mutant virus of gorgeous and bland, grainy and slick. [Mar 2007, p.135]

At worst, Matsuzaki's delviery can make this manic style-juggling sound irritating where it might otherwise be captivating. [Mar 2007, p.134]

Unlike the rousing punk-, Kinks- and new-wave-colored mosaic of Parklife, this one sticks to sepia-toned, dub-nodding abstractions. [Jan/Feb 2007, p.86]

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

They're fascinated with rhythm, repetition and duplication, like early-'70s German experimental bands Neu! and Can. [Mar 2007, p.136]

There are two vastly different Mellencamps. One is a flag-waver, singing simplistic anthems like "Our Country." The other, overshadowed Mellencamp is quieter and wiser. [Mar 2007, p.136]

Joyous and limber. [Mar 2007, p.136]

This is 21st-century lounge with a Manson heart — music for unwinding, or maybe plotting crazed revenge.

Nas can still dazzle on the mic. [Jan/Feb 2007, p.87]

[A] patchy, protege-heavy collection that has little in common with its near-classic predecessor. [Jan/Feb 2007, p.85]

Because of his no-frills persona, the smallest suggestions of personality make a charismatic impact. [Jan/Feb 2007, p.89]

Stefani gets her groove back when she sticks to two essentials: sex and the Neptunes. [Jan/Feb 2007, p.88]

Despite a new set of producers... this vivacious, club-friendly sophomore set merely tinkers with her old recipe. [Jan/Feb 2007, p.83]

It's ghetto viciousness as literary exercise--an episode of The Wire with a better soundtrack. [Nov 2006, p.142]

The tearjerkers flow free on their sixth studio album. [Jan/Feb 2007, p.88]

He never quite rises to this lofty occasion, and without anything to prove other than that he can come back whenever he pleases, he reverts to gloating. [Jan/Feb 2007, p.81]

This is Love’s ultimate achievement. A band long broken up, and so majestic they’ve been relegated to history books, has been refashioned in a way that makes a fresh and startling presentation of songs as familiar as the Ten Commandments.

The jumble of stuff that spills out -- from Delta blues to nineteenth-century ballads to spoken-word rambles -- is surprisingly consistent, at times transcendent, and not just for people intimately acquainted with Waits’s honeyed craziness.

Brand New took a huge step forward in 2003 with Deja Entendu, tossing away everything predictable about emo. But the leap on their third studio album is even bigger, and gutsier too: using rock’s earthly forces to amplify the heart’s greatest loves and fears, and in the process summoning the kind of grandeur that blows minds in bedrooms and raises fists in stadiums.

A throwback to his trunk-rattling G-funk heyday.

The emotional peaks are so sharp, the wordplay so juicy, that all excesses are redeemed.

Satisfyingly sloppy.

The bullying production threatens to obliterate what’s good here: A half-dozen gentle seeker’s songs with meditative acoustic textures and lyrics advocating reasonableness among humankind, which was always Cat Stevens’s domain.

Even when he tips the sensitivity scales too much... Rice’s innate, anti-lite-FM intensity saves him.

There’s only so much even a metal fan can swallow.

blink-182 without the humor.

Her subject matter is goofier, her flow is dumbed down and her beats are staler.

The Deftones' fifth album turns the dial to "statesmen." [Dec 2006, p.172]