If you liked Embrace, You'll like Fever. If you're looking for something novel, you might have better luck at a bookstore. [Spring/Summer 2010, p.107]

After 25 years, The Melvins are still showing rock's terrible pretenders how it's done.

Not much has changed; it's just been both fortified and demented, buzzsaw harsh and woozily intergalactic.

Like all good things—especially good byes—it comes to an end. And with that, Mr. Murphy goes out on top.

The aptly titled Brothers isn't just another Black Keys album; it's the musical product of a cohesive symbiotic partnership. [Spring/Summer 2010, p.103]

Thankfully, none of Lidell's guests do much to blunt his funky trajectory. [Spring/Summer 2010, p.108]

The updated duo offers lollipop anthems that do not fit airy reverberations and methodical nuance of '90s era Hi Tek. Luckily, the suporting cast offers diversity to the sometimes misguided and underwhelming album. [Spring/Summer 2010, p.110]

The problem with any attempt at sleazy blues metal is that you’re somewhat doomed by comparison to everything Led Zep has ever done. But Mssrs. Plant and Page might even flinch at the ferociously unrepentant scuzz of “Blue Blood Blues” and “Hustle and Cuss,” with its spooky Hammond and heaving dynamics.

While not as in-your-face or sinister as the last LPs, Latin packs a punch nevertheless. [Spring/Summer 2010, p.107]

Here's to Taking It Easy rests in the lines between love and heartache, celebration and mourning-and all of it is draped in a muted, silo-high production that cuts the hard edges off the record's darker moments.

For this blissfully weirdo fourth outing, the sisters Casady freakishly but joyfully plunder the odder bits of medieval folk, drum and bass, Western saloon and Mitteleuropa gothic elements.

While combining rock with rap always risks awkwardness, Francis' poetry supersedes Li(f)e's musical missteps. [Spring/Summer 2010, p.108]

Bolstered by Webb's shoegazing sense of melody, Nothing Hurts pushes over and above the static possibilities of lo-fi. [Spring/Summer 2010, p.110]

Craig Finn's lyrics house the crass beauty of a worn-down dweller of the turning century, making this album a movie I'd pay 10 bucks to see.

Still vital at age 53, he's delivered another cantankerously great Fall album in Your Future, Our Clutter, a bristling suite of relatively spacious, always unpredictable songs clammy with mutant distortions that are never less than electrified.

Mid-tempo balladry and redundant choruses sap all the percussive vigor from this former song factory.

Diamond Eyes does not disappoint when it comes to strong, powerful and unexpected material.

It aims to summit purple mountains's majesties with Titanic-sized tracks, such as "Change Of Time," "Rattling Locks" and "Another New World," and they are only sporadically successful. [Spring/Summer 2010, p.108]

Minus The Bear is still boasting its trademark funkadelic rock grooves meshed with electro-pop quirk, but now with a smoother and more linear structure. [Spring/Summer 2010, p.108]

It's an album the way a band would do it, meticulously mixed together by two of Germany's best electronic producers. A little bit tanz, a little bit rock and roll.

Continue to muse, and this strange, wonderfully unexpected work of art becomes one of the most mature (and stirring) narratives on intimacy, fidelity, and hesitant honesty heard in a long while.

Though Hutz might be out of whack, this album is surely no loser.

While some songs may become tedious, like the lengthy "Hannibal," the album as a whole is a great addition to the Caribou discography.

All Days Are Nights: Songs for Lulu is Wainwright's most personal album since Poses. He makes pain sound beautiful.

Although not without its missteps ("Future from the '80s" brought to you by vocoder choruses), La La Land finds the plateaus to be nearly as interesting as the peaks.

Pulsating with synths and guitars and buttressed by determined stomp, Trans Am’s latest robotic brain-fry is a study in sudden sound.

Sometimes Petkovic’s confessional urgency takes its toll, but those hooked by ferocious rock riffage might be too stoned to hear the lyrics anyway. It’s all in the title: Petkovic’s love letter to his hopeful future is a loud one. Mission accomplished.

True Love is at times haunting and ecstatic, memorializing Erickson's long history while swaggering into a shaggy kind of hope.