Another routinely enchanting, brilliantly exceptional, standard-issue stunner from Hoboken, N.J.'s finest. [No. 150, p.62]

Autumn is as solid an effort as any in its catalog. [No. 135, p.

Where Black Up provided catchy hooks to draw you in deeper, Lese Majesty is nowhere near as fun or--despite pushing the aural envelope--interesting. [No. 111, p.61]

A cohesive and satisfying whole. [No. 114, p.59]

Calder never strains, never belts it out; she finds her sweet spot and reveals in all album long. [No. 119, p.53]

An album that is cinematic in scope and has a harmonic narrative as complex as your favorite TV show. [No. 121, p.55]

Emperor is solid, dexterously played hard rock from a band that used to crush listener skulls. [No. 141, p.59]

A bit more expansive and widescreen, a bit more fleshed out and muscular, but essentially a companion piece to their debut. [No. 120, p.55]

For now, an engaging debut. [No. 95, p.60]

Wennerstom's voice marvelously leapfrogs between piercing highs and baritone lows, and bassist Jesse Ebaugh carries "Late in the Night" like a subdued, sober and shirted Mel Schacher, though Arrow's languid pace may turn off those who like their rock a bit more rocking. [No. 85, p.55]

Heartbreak Pass is dusty, gritty and dry in all the right ways. [No. 120, p.55]

As if to remind us that they're still the weird Crocodiles, Endless Flowers's best song, the surging "My Surfing Lucifer," is preceded by a clumsy spoken-word piece (in German, of course) ... it's a sign that there's still room for Crocodiles to figure out what works and what doesn't. [No.88 p.53]

Midway through, it's already tiresome to hear the anthemic shouting and seemingly non-stop drum fills. It's a celebratory listen for sure, but one that could do with a breather that shows off this duo's skills. [No.88 p.58]

[On Spirits] Manhood yokes cosmic yearning to sublime tunecraft. [No.87, p.58]

A batch of 10 songs you really need to spend some time with to appreciate. [#59, p.97]

Not every track soars, but you have to admire the band's starry-eyed commitment to exploring the outer reaches of inner space. [No. 120, p.61]

Cho's gorgeous, ghostly piano playing takes center stage on pensive slow-burner "Open Air," and finale "Gypsum" starts as a playful piano/bass groove, pit-stops at a carnival and transforms into what is arguably the most gonzo saloon tune ever. [No.88, p.53]

Fade is a gripping down-tempo treatise on the finer and coarser points of hunkering down. [No. 95, p.61]

Only when [Earle] tries to escape his tuneful-yet-limited vocal range do the songs struggle. [#86, p.54]

Second Hand Heart weakest moments are when it's a little too familiar, though.... He more than makes up for it elsewhere. [No. 119, p.61]

More restrained and tasteful. [No. 120, p.61]

The LP's slow-building peak moment is "Violins And Tambourines," which is also dramatic and affected, no matter what Jones may actually be singing about. [No. 101, p.60]

Among the lot lie some stone-cold Pollard classics. [#55, p.76]

Repentance is a lot of fun.

Even at 42 minutes, it's hard to take iin at one sitting. But it recalls ambinet Eno and Nurse With Wound's Spiral Insana by effectively blending abrasive elements with moody atmosphere. [#56, p.101]

It gets waylaid by a few meandering ballads and overly repetitive choruses, but Hynde's still one of rock'n'roll's great singers. [No. 110, p.57]

El Camino Real will tickle most--if not all--longtime Camper Van Beethoven fans, and might even attract a few new ones. [No. 110, p.53]

Stealing Sheep could have easily made another weird art album, and it would have been great; instead, it made a weird pop album, and it's a bold step into a bigger world. [No. 119, p.61]

While Prayer For Peace is the duo's seventh studio album, their rootsy sound remains more or less unchanged and identified. [No. 143, p.59]

The record sounds big, but not too fussed-over. [No. 110, p.56]

As an exercise in shimmering, occasionally funky rock, What For? succeeds. [No. 119, p.61]

Get lost in this stuff and you won't find your way back out. [No. 109, p.52]

The Sunset Tree can be bleak, but it's also redemptive. [#68, p.104]

Given the confines of such a childlike context, these songs' emotional range is remarkably thoughtful. [#54, p.86]

La Sera tips it bonnet to the long-gone AM-radio sound of the '60's girl groups but with ... guitar noise and snarky attitude. [#86, p.55]

The melodies are arranged with a cinematic sweep that elevates small moments of self-doubt and heartache into something bigger and more universal. [No. 108, p.53]

Kind of like the Cocteau Twins if Don Ho produced their albums. [#64, p.86]

The band's flair for drama comes to the forefront on the "be My Baby"--quoting "Algiers" and intensely epic closer "These Sticks." [No. 108, p.53]

Producer Greg Kurstin ensures a familiarly sparkly synth-pop sheen throughout. [No. 110, p.52]

Visitations doesn't produce the novel shock that greeted Clinic's debut single, but it does find new rewards within predictable parameters. [#74, p.94]

Occasionally struggling to balance style with substance, Gardner nonetheless makes Hypnophobia much more than just an exercise in sonic adventurism. [No. 120, p.55]

Yes, some of these are very stupid songs.... And like Doolittle, there are great songs here. [No. 110, p.58]

Deviations from the script are interesting but not as successful (the jangly 'Jump In The Fire,' the rockabilly 'Branded'). Luckily, they don’t detract from the main course: a heaping helping of straight-up rock ’n’ roll like only Reis can deliver.

It's when things slow down that Tare and Co.'s melodic intentions (and intensity) gets a better, clearer outing without losing their daring noisiness. [No. 108, p.58]

Conversations ain't perfect, but Woman's Hour is probably the best bet to save this esteemed subgenre, which may have peaked just a few sentences ago. [No. 112, p.61]

Nowhere near as strong and complete as Bewilderbeast, but its best moments burn just as brightly. [#57, p.81]

El-P splits the difference between old-school bruisers, cyber-punk dystopias and misanthropic noir. [No.88 p. 55]

Since it's art, the more you listen, the more you'll find here. [No. 112, p.55]

If you're sitting still through Myth Takes, you might be dead. [#75, p.90]

The trio continues mixing and mismatching, with both elements of Skulls' sound [Black Keys' rock and Radiohead's honey-eyed longing] feeling even more pronounced. [No. 85, p. 52]

Schott's new material retains some of the music-box delicacy of yore, and her breathy singing is as slender as a reed. [No. 119, p.53]

Amos delivers another set of stirring songs tempered and emboldened by years of experience. [No. 110, p.53]

More than ever, Magic Potion hears the duo transitioning from blues to blues-based. [#73, p.87]

Their combined voices are just so unfathomably, incorrigibly all-devouring. [No. 120, p.61]

Nothing here will supplant Smith's own definitive versions, but fans of the Avett Brothers, of Mayfield, and, indeed, of Smith will find plenty to love in this affectionate and unassuming album. [No. 118, p.53]

Wire needs more of the barbed wit and brute anger that has enabled the band's best post-2000 work stand up to its iconic '70s recordings. [No. 120, p.60]

During its most commercial moments, Frances ventures dangerously close to System Of A Down, without the nu-metal grandstanding or fake volatility. [#67, p.106]

It's a warped ride overall, though not without some solid moments hidden beneath the surface. [No. 96, p.54]

The whole thing is executed with a sense of starry-eyed bliss. [No. 119, p.61]

Ward's far-ranging sound transcends the room.... If only his lyrics were as fresh. [#58, p.106]

Perhacs' light touch contrasts with the often heavy-handed lyrics. [No. 108, p.59]

Only the rambunctious can appreciate the tinny, relentlessly inventive hybridization herein. [#64, p.92]

Led by mercurial crooner Stuart Staples, the current lineup’s grand balladry is more stately and slow-boiled than ever.

Kinks geeks will relish the autobiographical elements. [No. 142, p.54]

Sure, anyone who has ever listened to 14 minutes of classic-rock radio has heard a good chunk of this ... but the energy remains undeniable and infectious. [No.88 p.56]

A few demerits are warrented for pointless and distracting tempo changes in two of the album's most satisfying songs, but otherwise, the off-kilter, kichen-sink production works. [Fall 2007, p.101]

Too stylistically diverse, willfully weird and lyrically cryptic to be anything more than an acquired taste. [#68, p.101]

There's some filler in the form of ambient doodling, but JT's pop sensibilities peek through frequently enough that it's a fair trade. [No.88, p.55]

This sounds like grim stuff, but Gordon and Co. come off less dour than agitated, and even on its slower tracks, Beauty Already Beautiful has a lot of current running through it. [No. 131, p.61]

La Maison offers a glimpse into the Casadys' strange, spooky world; Noah's Ark shows them taking tentative, often intriguing steps outside of it. [#69, p.91]

While the current incarnation knows its strengths and weaknesses; Nocturnal Koreans is the latest in a late-career winning streak the band has been on since 2008’s Object 47. [No. 131, p.61]

It makes music that tips its hat to the past without sounding derivative. [No. 144, p.53]

On their fifth album, the ’Hangers burrow deep into the world of post-garage pop that feels not too far afield from Georgia indie-rock kin Pylon covering Suzi Quatro. [No. 131, p.55]

Louris' vision is still pretty much stuck in 1992. [#58, p.94]

It's a transformative, fluidly orchestrated moodscape of dappled piano figures, synthesizer washes and swelling strings, horn and bell tones. [No. 106, p.54]

The Dandys haven’t sounded this simultaneously energized and devil-may-care since the Duran Duran-polished synthpop of 2003’s Welcome To The Monkey House. [No. 131, p.52]

[The album is] somewhere between his recent acid house work as Speed Dealer Moms and his dramatic collaborations with Omar Rodriguez-Lopez and Wu-Tang acolytes Black Knights--and pretty much everything he's done to date. [No. 110, p.55]

A collection of sandblasted songs that redefines its sound and pegs Ladybug as something other than '60s pop purists. [#61, p.101]

Through the first three songs, Confessions sounds for all the world like the masterpiece John Wesley Harding has seemed unwilling to make throughout the detours and bypasses his career has taken since his magnificent 1990 debut.... Unfortunately, he has a difficult time reaching those heights again. [#47, p.97]

Five years past, you'd figure Prekop has found something beyond tenderness and cool timbres. He hasn't, and that's OK. [#67, p.110]

On Dark Light Daybreak... Now It's Overhead cuts back on its former haze to graze in cleaner pastures. [#73, p.103]

Like a good deal of Hendrix’s posthumous material, whether you dig this or not depends largely upon your expectations. [No. 129, p.54]

He dips into that well [roots/Americana] again on The Westerner, with producers Howe Gelb and Dave Way opening up the sound with layers of guitar effects that create a dark, spacey atmosphere. [No. 131, p.55]

Sure, the stories are worn and the whiskey is cut-rate, but the feeling is real. [#71, p.113]

Largely thanks to more robust production and instrumentation than was afforded last year's Pajo, 1968 proves that it isn't so much what you say, but how sweet you can make it sound. [#73, p.103]

Gangster Star features a much stronger single (the idyllic "Shine A Light"), while Jealous Machines waders a bit further into the narrative forest. [No. 144, p.59]

The problem with Answers is the grooves are slathered in all that useless skill. [#60, p.119]

While Poison Ivy's impressive design become shtick after a while, it's nevertheless adorable. [Fall 2007, p.105]

Its songs rest at the tipping point between melodic and atonal without seeming like middle-of-the-post-punk-road accords struck between dissenting intraband camps. [#68, p.106]

It isn't very clear what the Rev is trying to get across, if anything at all. But it's a lovely listen all the same. [#51, p.100]

There's no mistaking this unpredictable, lovingly tended aural scenery for anything else. [No. 144, p.53]

Despite certain songs dragging on longer than need be, Night combines classical and flighty pop quite masterfully. [#82, p.53]

Detour is a great showcase for Lauper's vocal range and prowess, but the freak factor is dishearteningly low. [No. 131, p.59]

This is a decidedly more rocking Placebo. [#50, p.102]

ProVISIONS tells a less reassuring truth than "’Sno Angel Like You," but one that’s just as true; you just never know.

The arresting gorgeous title tune here destroys everything else, of course. But the rest have a loose, jammy feel that wouldn't have been tolerable in any phase of the DP's career other than the pop one. [No. 94, p.53]

It proves quickly to be a break for the better, though, forging its unique identity on account of Tatum’s ability to turn a tune in many more ways than one. [No. 129, p.61]

The touch is lighter, with more interest in groove and atmosphere than climax. [No. 131, p.59]