While hardly the evolutionary leap forward that the band had suggested was afoot, Tonight is still, inarguably, fine for now.

The pure emotion and aggressiveness isn’t suppressed or transformed into something else, but rather just given room for some thought, allowed to open itself up and find the strange flowers within.

Though absent any truly great songs, That Lucky Old Sun is the most engaged and consistent effort from pop’s lonely genius in decades.

A record that progresses as a sequence of dislocated sounds, an expressionist's puzzlebox that comes alive when distanced from one's preconceived notion of what a Built to Spill record should sound like.

It’s not easy listening; it may in fact be a case in which one needs to add hundred-degree heat before there’s even a chance of excavating something.

Because even though Silver is not quite the taut, energetic half-hour of power that the band's promising EP had me clamoring for, it still has some pleasant surprises up its sleeve. And most importantly, it offers sporadically brilliant flickers of what I loved about this band in the first place.

Chosen Lords is... a nostalgic, fun listen for longtime fans and suitable point for new listeners to become acquainted with Aphex Twin’s twisted catalogue.

Let’s get two things about Government Commissions out of the way. The first is that the set is utterly inessential.... The second thing is that the first thing doesn’t matter.

So, no, this isn’t groundbreaking sound art, just really good dream-pop, as pleasant as this music can get without being--don’t deny the thought you indelibly harbored--cloying; that’s a space that we need bands to fill.

A fantastically pedicured amalgam of every side and thing Busdriver thinks he can effectively be.

E... rearranges his work, often to brilliant results, by first embellishing his lesser known songs and then subverting his already sparse collection of pseudo-hits.

The Brutalist Bricks, for its moments of torrential fury, sags when Leo occasionally writes outside of an exhausted but all-encompassing formula.

Those who lovingly caress their copies of Tilt have probably already jumped in its trenches, liking what there is to like, and there is much to like about this album, even if it doesn’t maintain the consistency of that masterpiece; those who find his voice annoying have already set up sniper posts across the field; everybody else is standing in the middle wondering what the fuss is about. The Drift won’t change that.

True, it is also the kind of soaring, gleefully overwrought, overproduced, folk pop that drive detractors to acts of libelous message board violence and depravity. But if "inauthentic" means commercial then it should be noted that Hazards is essentially the definition of a passion project.

While undoubtedly charming in it’s naivety, it also feels slight and transitional, filled with a sense of thin momentary distraction.

while on a different album “Healter Skelter” might have been a wonderful bridge between some of the more structured stuff Shining used to do; on Black Jazz it’s just the most weird and interesting version of the same track we’ve already sat through three times.

The Back Room is an agreeable, sturdy, and surprisingly re-playable debut, one which should probably keep any brooding college kid who’s worn out his copy of Antics happy for the coming autumn.

Nitetime Rainbows has its moments of bliss, but they aren’t as enveloping as I’d hoped; the problem here is that you wake too early from the dream.

Human Kindness is interesting and it is, in a sense, an enjoyable listen because it manifests, right in your face, an emotion not often seen in music this heavy: sheer fucking exhaustion.

Too many songs here move at a glacial pace and seem to take away from Xiu Xiu’s strength: an ear for melody, a love for dissonance, songs that go interesting places and engaging instrumentation.

I’d reject the idea that this album is laid-back in favor of saying it’s too light-hearted.

I can’t help but feel that this album wants to have it several ways, but the net result of following all those paths means it plays out only one way.

Ritzy Bryan’s choruses are as sturdy as they need to be and the songs are an improvement upon those on The Big Roar because they’re lither and punchier, packing more hairpin turns into shorter run times.

To an extent, this album is too predictable.

It is a step forward for an artist with a wealth of potential and a tremendously moving voice. Should he cease his overzealous grab for stylistic and thematic conventions--or perhaps if he simply learns to cover more ground--there’s a good chance Handsome Furs will reach a level of maturity and sophistication at which their current offering merely hints.

Magic Potion never really manages to distinguish itself as an album; there are a number of excellent songs, but even with quite a few listens I never get the idea of the thing working as a collective whole.

Eskimo Snow simply categorizes those words in a bit more careful, less adventurous fashion than Wolf and company have revealed before. While this latest release is quite literally the second side of the same coin (or recording session), it feels flatter.