Producer Desmond Child trips up the Meatman by valuing metal flash over the altruism of want-you-need-you humanity.

Even if the high-minded concepts prove elusive, no worries. [Nov 2006, p.138]

Once Again sets out to rebuild the dramatic storytelling and redemptive power of soul music on a hip-hop foundation.

They've created the Sgt. Pepper of screamo.

This orderly collection of messy leftovers suits his disheveled talents. [Nov 2006, p.137]

Midway through, this becomes the record it should have been all along: a gentle, autumnal meditation on the problems of becoming a badly drawn grown-up. [Nov 2006, p.136]

An album that begins as a me-against-the-world celebration of self ends as a somber plea for emotional wholeness. [Dec 2006, p.173]

Scabrous, overdriven spallter-punk. [Nov 2006, p.136]

Trademark G-Unit, pakced with a few thunderous club jams and too little else. [Oct 2006, p.128]

The scholarship is too obvious at times... But at their streamlined best... it's like Britpop's glory years never waned. [Oct 2006, p.137]

Assured but tame. [Nov 2006, p.139]

It is very good.

[Finn] tells better stories than anyone else in music these days. [Oct 2006, p.131]

Though less indebted to the Smiths... these tidally anthemic doom-ditties still manage to sound more dire. [Oct 2006, p.135]

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

No distinct personality emerges. [Oct 2006, p.132]

Denser and more scuzzed-up than Fallen, the album amps everything up to gloriously epic, over-the-top proportions. [Oct 2006, p.129]

A retread of a retread. [Nov 2006, p.148]

The melodies are well-shaped and the lyrics twist their knives elegantly. [Dec 2006, p.174]

Gorgeously understated. [Nov 2006, p.138]

The only emotion here is the hothouse loneliness of an overintellectualized mind. [Nov 2006, p.154]

It's hard to catch much buzz off fun that sounds so much like work. [Dec 2006, p.170]

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

His desire for gravitas, though, is dragged down by his lack of imagination. [Nov 2006, p.153]

Proves they can do just fine without the foggy-hollow reverb they've always used to make their meandering sound mysterious. [Oct 2006, p.139]

McCabe is bearable, even fun. But he oversings like a guy who's mistaken a North Dakota rock club for Madison Square Garden. [Oct 2006, p.142]

Distraught longtime fans can take comfort in the gothic ire of the Banner-fronted, Hurricane Katrina–lamenting “Seein’ Thangs” and the ambling blues-hop storytelling of Phonte Coleman on “Backstage Girl,” but little else can be salvaged from the wreckage of Shadow’s abruptly imploding talent.

A rare case of one step back, two steps forward. [Nov 2006, p.144]