Make no mistake, Blame It On Gravity is a guitar-pop record at heart. Other than a few twangy flourishes here and there, bassist Murry Hammond appears to be the one keeping the country faith, delivering one of his best performances on “Color Of A Lonely Heart Is Blue.”

As tasteful as it all is, you still wonder what Vetiver is bringing to this material other than reverence. [Summer 2008, p.109]

Musically, all the touchstones that made "Passover" so riveting are in place. [Summer 2008, p.96]

Daniel and Schmidt have created a peculiar album that reminds us of the majesty contained in vintage machinery.

With Four Tet, more is generally more. [Summer 2008, p.105]

Though Station only gets fully cranked twice (the Battles-esque title track, the explosive 'Youngblood'), Turncrantz’s surefooted playing will keep your interest from flagging.

The Midnight Organ Fight's bloodied-but-unbowed lyrics stand up to repeated listening even on the fastest cutes. [Summer 2008, p.106]

The fourth LP from this gritty Toronto five-piece offers a few genuine gems sprinkled among many more tracks borne out of blue-collar blood, sweat and tears.

While Scolnick hasn’t refined his oftentimes maudlin lyrical sensibilities to match his serious taste for pop hooks, his honeycombed, hopscotching vocal delivery now has some muscle to back it up.

Overall, though, Mr. Love & Justice is a collection of broken promises and lyrics that don’t live up to their potential.

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.

From The Valley To The Stars has some fine moments, but it looks awfully unflattering in the light of its less distracted and infinitely sharper predecessor. [Summer 2008, p.102]

On fourth album Saturdays=Youth, the warm synthesizers are still in play and Gonzalez’s propensity for beguiling bombast is undiminished, but by imposing structure and melodic discipline on these sprawling compositions, he’s made them even more elegant and effective.

My Bloody Underground is yet another experience of the stripe only Newcombe can sculpt. [Summer 2008, p.99]

The playful Dig!! Lazurus Dig!!! stands among his most mature albums. [Summer 2008, p.98]

Mountain Battles turns longtime engineer Steve Albini's bare-bones studio work into a virtue and spins Deal's ADD-afflicted worldview into gold. [Summer 2008, p.97]

You can only imagine the verbal bonbons Gallagher has in store for Oxford’s Foals, whose bristling, high-energy dance shtick borrows heavily from better U.K. bands--and whose members were gracing magazine covers months before the release of this underwhelming debut.

Eventually, Walk It Off reveals Tapes ‘N Tapes’ debut, 2006’s The Loon, to be both leaner and meaner.

Do It! is accessible enough to appeal to both curious indie-pop fans and avant musos without an obscurantist chip in their shoulders. [Summer 2008, p.98]

Overall, this is as disarming and wide-eyed a pop record as you’re likely to hear all year.

Hold On Now, Youngster... overflows with irony, pumping out bright indie-pop songs with titles such as “... And We Exhale And Roll Our Eyes In Unison” and “This Is How You Spell ‘HAHAHA, We Destroyed The Hopes And Dreams Of A Generation Of Faux-Romantics.’”

There's precious little invention at work on Attack And Release, and the stench of authenticity hangs heavy. [Summer 2008, p.98]

As lovely as that sounds, April loses momentum under such a reserved approach.

As a fan-pitched compilation of b-sides and one-offs, it's a winner. [Summer 2008, p.100]

Though Parc Avenue is undeniably epic, Plants And Animals take a casual approach to their sound, stuffing the songs with structural shifts rather than browbeating us with grandiose statements.

Red, Yellow And Blue is good.

Magnificent Fiend follows up the band’s self-titled 2006 debut in powerful style, fashioning a blend of hard blues, herb-smoke-encrusted rock, country-tinged folk and swinging, blue-eyed soul.

The multicultural mix and match works best on “Oh, Mojave.”... However, the Ruby Suns are less appealing when they land closer to home.

Seventh Tree is a moody, understated gem. A finer hangover record will be hard to come by in 2008.

The melodies and arrangements take center stage, and they're consistently stunning. [Winter 2008, p.97]

While Cox’s narratives make little sense (much of the time, he’s not even singing so much as wailing wordlessly), the music is surprisingly accessible.

Nada Surf took it to The Next Level with 2003's near-flawless "Let Go" and has followed it up with two amazing, richly rewarding efforts. [Winter 2008, p.110]

Aside from the awkwardly grungy 'The Score,' these are good songs well-played, with Walla handling everything except for drums.

It’s a simple collection of typically melody-rich songs for piano, bass and drums (Jackson is backed by JJB alums Graham Maby and Dave Houghton) that occasionally swings (“The Uptown Train”) and sometimes lurches like the good old days (“King Pleasure Time”).

Aside from a handful of tunes, little here is all that memorable, namely because the hooks can’t see their way clear of the repetitive, robotic arrangements.

Marshall’s second album of covers, mostly continues the cleaned-up, virtually lobotomized aesthetic of 2006’s unfortunately heralded "The Greatest."

That they've played themselves out of a tight corner is an impressive feat in and of itself. [Winter 2008, p.99]

The Whigs occassionally hit on moments of poignancy, but most of their time is spent reinventing the classic-rock wheel in a rather self-aware fashion. [Winter 2008, p.114]

The Evening Descends is a dizzying, carefully crafted ride; it spins, but never out of control. [Winter 2008, p.102]

Whether Merritt's return to lo-fi will fly at Lincoln Center remains to be seen, but his melodic mastery is never in question. [Winter 2008, p.108]

Angels just rocks. [Winter 2008, p.108]

This album, like its predecessor, is stunning. [Fall 2007, p.91]

Krug's non-stop croaking yells get old quickly, and the few highlights are hardly worth sitiing through an hour of Renaissance Faire-y meandering. [Fall 2007, p.108]

Cease To Begin is a fine, fitting return to familiar ground. [Fall 2007, p.91]

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]

The fact that Comicopera is a masterpiece proves it all right nicely. [Fall 2007, p.113]

The band manages to harness the immediacy of being a three-piece without sacrificing sonic depth or complexity.

New Seasons is a reverb-drenched, genre-hopping gem, the culmination of a 10-year, eight-album journey that promises to bear even more riches farther down the road.

There's much more to this band and album than the throwback aesthetic. [Fall 2007, p.98]

Tunng has taken one analog-age lesson very much to heart by making Good Arrows nice and short; it's 11 songs clock in at 43 minutes, and only one is an outright dud. [Fall 2007, p.108]

By maintaining his intimacy while armed with a full palette of colors, Beam sets himself far apart from the rest of the hush-and-shush crowd. [Fall 2007, p.98]

The more he pushes these various personas, the less sense we expect him to make and the more rewarding he becomes. [Fall 2007, p.90]

For all his anger, the most convincing songs on Washington Square Serenade are about love, devotion, messing up and simply wanting to be heard. [Fall 2007, p.93]

Not Stars’ best, and far from their worst, but an album’s worth of the usual string-laden drama-pop seems a thin substitute for what today’s kids are seeking.

Gonzalez is a romantic at heart, given to an array of lyrical possibilities even as his music ripples with the taut simplicity of someone strumming alone in his bedroom. [Fall 2007, p.96]

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

Matt Pond PA shows it can rock out tastefully. [Fall 2007, p.102]

Magik Markers' simulations are dutiful, but they lack even a hint of the revolutionary spirit, menacing explosiveness, creativity, musicianship, savvy, wit, humor, heart or charm oif their heroes [Sonic Youth]. [Fall 2007, p.101]

The members of The Cave Singers seem intent on scraping away their previous bands' noise and bluster to find a music that's no less nervy and riveting. [Fall 2007, p.92]

The LP is an unpredictable and often euphoric collection with plenty to, well, love. [Fall 2007, p.90]

This heady mix of stratospheric rockers and inventive, smart and slyly revolutionary lyrics yields Les Savy Fav's best album yet. [Fall 2007, p.101]

The Western Lands offers more bang for your buck. [Fall 2007, p.96]

Ultimately, only a churlish, dead-eyed cynic would refuse to be moved by this inspired mix of riotous noise and feel-good vibetasticness. [Fall 2007, p.93]

For much of Happiness, Bays slurs his way through the best music Hot Hot Heat has ever made.

Like much of Francis' most compelling work, the album is a mediation on a muse. [Fall 2007, p.96]

The only misteps are when Oakley Hall drifts into more straight-forward terrain. [Fall 2007, p.106]

For the first time, they’ve refined that obsession into something listeners can sink their teeth into.

Other than the crowd noise, you’d have a tough time distinguishing the two albums. This is a good thing, as applying studio sheen to the Black Lips’ primitive mix of acid-damaged psychedelia and beer-fueled garage rock would be akin to putting lipstick on an orangutan.

Over the course of 10 albums, Joe Henry’s music has grown increasingly rich, complex and difficult.

Overall, Going Way Out is much like Heavy Trash’s self-titled 2005 debut, as the duo continues to find ample inspiration from the past.

We Are Him arguably surpasses his work with his old band merely by simplifying things a bit. [Fall 2007, p.90]

While longtime fans may lament the paucity of instamatic anthems, 'All The Old Showstoppers' and 'Unguided' reveal their charms with each new verse. [Fall 2007, p.106]

Andorra is, to use a phrase not heard much anymore, all killer, no filler.

Mentor Tormentor may be Earlmart's best album. But it still falls short of greatness, hamstrung by songwriting and production moves that have clearly become the band's comfort zone. [Fall 2007, p.93]

It's full of loose sing-alongs, drunken chants and spooky ballads; of apocalypse, synicism and Satanism; of a jaded worldview that joyfully sees everything as --in the words of the opening track--"Dark dark dark." [Fall 2007, p.102]

Unfortunately, on the rest of War Stories, Lavelle plays it safe by sticking close to poppy electro-dance tunes.

The Broken String easily takes its place alongside those classics [Wilco’s Being There and Ben Folds Five’s self-titled debut].

With a few exceptions, the rest of Goodbye remains little more than background music destined for life in service to candle boutiques and Saturn commercials. [Summer 2007, p.106]

Don’t fetch the gurney just yet. Seems Buffalo Tom still has a few good ones left in ’em.

Elegantly crafted and darkly mischievous.

Baby 81 finds BRMC back in control of the street corner, cigarette squints and rock'n'roll swagger intact. [Summer 2007, p.90]

The results are everything you'd expect from the guys responsible for Pulp's This Is Hardcore, Air's Moon Safari and Beck's Sea Change. [#75, p.98]

A sinister, slinky catwalk with sharper melodic angles and a propulsive, post-punk groove. [#75, p.99]

It's not everyone's glass of absinthe, but Adventures will find a happy reception among listeners who want an occasional hallucination to go with their usual woozy drunkenness. [#75, p.94]

There's always a surplus of good humor to carry us past the rough patches. [#75, p.98]

I can't help but think we've all been here before. [#75, p.102]

Apocrypha feels of a piece with Eggs, though without as many layers or as heightened a sense of playfulness. [#75, p.91]

What the album lacks in diversity and lyrical depth it more than makes up for with Technicolor-daydream choruses. [#75, p.98]

A delightful surprise. [#75, p.99]

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

As is the risk with such serious-minded albums, a few songs err on the side of heavy-handedness... but Arcade Fire's raw passion and heartfelt ambition remain intact. [#75, p.90]

[It] sounds like the album Whiteman has been waiting to make his whole life. [#75, p.99]

Security brings new elements to the mix without compromising Antibalas' fundamental power. [#75, p.94]

A masterpiece that flows brilliantly. [#75, p.97]

Pleasant if unspectacular. [#74, p.96]

Strength In Numbers makes you wonder if you ever really liked this band at all. [#75, p.94]

It's a tossup as to how much of Conn's shtick is a put-on, but when the music's this good, that's a moot question. [#75, p.94]

Sounds like somebody has exited the coffeehouse with a strong jolt of caffeine. [#74, p.101]