A gorgeously euphonic skull-crusher.

Here the whole sum is less than its individual parts: individual tracks display real quality, but the album fails to cohere.

Don’t be put off by the glossy patina; there’s a lot to hear on this record, as repeated listening makes plain.

A nasty, dense and confrontational mess.

You get the impression that the artist is truly a giving soul, even if his gift is in the form of an emotionally wrenching, uncomfortably confessional record.

“Everybody’s Song” features the melodic discipline, barely contained anguish and cryptic lyrical finger-wagging that marked the last few Posies records. “Just Stand Back” (“I’m gonna turn on you so fast”) is a hateful little bon-bon that could stand tall on a Sugar record. And yet, The Great Destroyer remains too rickety and pristine to be anyone’s baby but Low’s.

Have you ever fallen asleep during the X-Files’ opening credits, then awoken to a Volkswagen commercial? Have you ever wanted to?

Wilderness has a few disposable songs: the second half in particular drags on a little bit as different tracks become pretty much indistinguishable. However, the downtime and background amidst moments of appeal channels the spirit of ’70s AM radio pretty accurately.

Superwolf contains some of [Oldham's] most startling work yet.

JG manages to both make fun and have fun, their music more goofy than cynical.

It's hard to believe at first listen, but they've got nuance.

School of the Flower easily ranks as Ben Chasny's best work thus far.

The fact that the middle of the album is easier to swallow than the beginning is not an indication of any real improvement, but a sign that you become habituated, or at least desensitized, to its utter lack of creativity or soul.

Like many of their retro-rock peers, however, the band struggles to find a personal identity that transcends imitation and homage; the result is an album that, while excellent at moments, often falls victim to its own stylistic incertitude.

A solid, if not predictable emo-tronic excursion.

When MF Doom takes the time to plot and scheme it, no idea is too outlandish, no beat too unorthodox, and much of MMâ?¦Food? is the work of a master chef cooking up some marvelous shit. However, masters get held to a higher standard.

Oldham's music, while drawing on familiar influences ' Neil Young and the Grateful Dead are immediately apparent ' is diverse enough that it feels far fresher than a by-the-numbers retread.

The compatibility between the browbeating belligerence of hardcore and the glitzkrieg of techno’s bare repetition is undeniable – and much more enjoyable than it reads on paper.

Psapp's music is so beautifully complex that upon first listen it might seem a bit haphazard or amateurish -- with all its bells, whistles, whizzes and whirrs -- but after repeated listens, the oddities take on a precise purpose and fit perfectly within the melodic structure.

The Bad Seeds have not made a record this ambitious, well, ever, and the results are rewarding, thoughtful and challenging.

It’s undeniably pleasurable, but dangerously close to being superficial and meaningless.

Von is, in a sense, an ultrasound view of the unborn Sigur Rós - it’s almost fetal, an abstracted and vague representation of what would come later.

On the whole Basement is noisy and rough, and often sounds more like the best record Heatmiser never made than the next Elliott Smith album.

If Dents and Shells stands apart from Buckner's oeuvre in any way, it's in the prominence and evenhandedness of its instrumental arrangements.

This isn’t so much the first AMC record in awhile as the sturdiest, most bottom-heavy Eitzel record in awhile.

A messy, disappointing record that would be a miss from any artist, but from an artist of Mos Def’s talents, it’s a minor disaster.

While not really better or worse than their previous albums, Summer in Abaddon is at least pretty good -- more of exactly what fans wanted.

Unfortunately, the observational heart of the disc's best rhymes are obscured by manicured eccentricity and musical dilettantism.