Beyond often rings with the bumbling awkwardness of a band taking itself too seriously for the first time. [No. 108, p.55]

Tape Loops comes off more like a utilitarian exercise in minimalism than a proper solo album from one of the most celebrated producers of the past 20 years. [No. 126, p.58]

Numsuwankijkul recruited a new group of players for Over There That Way, and the decision pays off handsomely; this is a much more introspective, vulnerable album that benefits from a lighter touch. [No. 132, p.55]

If you're not fanatical about the racket created by unfathomable guitar noise, you'll find songs on Motion Set overly long and veering frequently toward incomprehensible. [No. 138, p.57]

Paradise still sounds like the work sf an artist turning her face back, if somewhat slowly, toward the sunlight. [No. 142, p.55]

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]

The lack of focus and discernible melodies keeps CANT from being anything more than an interesting diversion. [#81, p. 53]

[A] promising set of laptop balladry, ambient Brian Eno classicism and even an attempt at shifty electro-funk. [#73, p.85]

Despite the disparate source material, each Suitcase disc feels organic, like a "real" Guided By Voices album.... Even a casual fan will find enough gems spread among the hundred songs here to justify spending the $50 to purchase Suitcase. [#47, p.107]

Hamburg Demonstrations is the most carefully produced and executed music of his career. [No. 138, p.54]

The back half gets slower, darker and weirder--integral ingredients all. But there isn't one track here that stands out from the rest. [No. 118, p.59]

A super-catchy mix of stadium-rock bombast and punk simplicity. [No.90, p.57]

There are more than enough licks to compensate when that tendency [to sound whiny or emo-ish] gets a little overwhelming. [No.91, p.57]

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]

This is a valiant and enjoyable varied attempt, by a seriously stacked cast of contributors. [No. 113, p.61]

Hexadic too often misses the point by honing in on formlessness and esoteric explanations instead of solid consistency. [No. 117, p.61]

He pushes himself into unfamiliar, often sonically jarring new terrain. [#73, p.112]

The bulk of the album feels much more controlled, and though it's technically accomplished record--as well it might be given the lineup--there's more brain than heart in the final mix. [No. 104, p.60]

Mercury Rev has talked about reinvention and veering away from its comfort zone, which is only to be commended, but the band has really fallen flat on its face here.

The band has ripped elements from early L.A. hardcore, '90s powerviolence and screamo, and it wields this arsenal of influences to deliver big, sharp hooks. [No. 93, p.59]

Though it won't be every listener's groove, fans of baroque pop's lush overreach will find a lot to enjoy. [No. 128, p.59]

Hot Cakes isn't really trying to be funny so much as just plain fun. And it is. [No.90, p.55]

Speed rock, Gretsch guitar thunder and frontman heroics give this rockabilly cat his claws. [#54, p.102]

A must-have addition to already almost perfect catalog. [No. 110, p.55]

Espinoza and Murray return from a four-year hiatus in fine form. [No. 93, p.54]

Very clearly the work of art-school kids who use their skills for creating alluring visuals to craft equally enticing music. [No. 85, p.56]

Acoustic proves, once and for all, that BOH really is just a straight-up folk/rock band--and a pretty great one, too. [No. 107, p.53]

Most squarely accessible record to date, and easily the most pop album to come from an alumnus of Sacred Bones. [No. 114, p.61]

The most psychedelic moments on the album come during the long instrumental fades on tunes like "Silence Can Say So Much," "Cast The First Stone" and "Love Is Like A Spinning Wheel," but the middy instrumentals mix often mashes the sounds together into an indistinguishable pulsation of spacey sci-fi noise. [No. 137, p.55]

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

Red Fang soon settles into a comfortable cruising speed, with a devotion to mid-tempo exceeded only by Slayer's commitment to thrash. [No. 136, p.61]

More often the singing is submerged in the mix, making it impossible to understand the dreamy wordplay that makes Oelsner's lyrics so memorable. [No. 145, p.59]

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]

The Avett Brothers are thankfully more interested in contemporary relevance than lockstep allegiance to dusty history. [No. 104, p.52]

Arcade Fire's tightest and tersest album since 2004's Funeral is by far its least ambitious, and the band is cool to riff on this. [No. 145, p.53]

When the melodies are too thin to support their own emotional weight, all the string quartets in the world can't rescue them, and I find myself missing that old pulsing bass, those swirling drums and the sheer fabulousness that made the original versions so liberating. [No. 93, p.61]

It is, for the most part, a distant shadow of former glories. [No. 98, p.56]

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

Occasionally a bright guitar line or luminous touch of piano floats out of the mix to deliver a hint of sunshine, but mostly the band does a skillful job of supporting Nathan Willett's anguished vocals. [No. 97, p.54]

Bras finds the Knoxville, Tenn., trio scaling back the noise in favor of tuneful, even sweet performances. [No. 103, p.60]

Disjointed, yes, but Early Birds is a fascinating document all the same. [No.89, p.57]

The first Wheat album that'll make you cringe through four or five listens before you can tolerate its artificial sweetness. [#61, p.111]

Mostly, the remix collection works in this vein, mutating the originals by further accentuating the brooding atmosphere and driving the beat harder. [No. 94, p.61]

Though it's but a collection of outtakes and rarities, June 2009 plays like much more than just that, making for a fitting precursor to Causers' light, breezy textures and the grooving forest-lounge of this year's Underneath the Pine.

The songwriting is flat-footed, with few moments that break from the homogeneous stupor. [No.87 p.54]

Good Graces falls just a tad flat. [No. 102, p.59]

Think a minimalist A Tribe Called Quest. [#60, p.110]

Doesn't quite reach greatness, but it grows and changes with every listen... [#46, p.92]

Listening to this breakup-on-tape is captivating. [#64, p.98]

Hagerty’s Howling Hex, which plows the radically different but equally worked-over field of nerd-rock whimsy on Earth Junk, starts promisingly, with a spooky clutter of hooting keyboards and echo-soaked vocals.

Try to listen to a whole [Azure Ray] album and time stands still, not out of boredom, just deja vu. [No.91, p.52]

Classical/new-age strains mash against underlying funk beats with this record's favorite motif being sophisticated Europop twisted around throbbing rhythms sourced from sound sample slices, giving it a feel that falls somewhere between Mike Patton's Lovage, Peeping Tom and the pseudo-highbrow commercials that Chanel and Lindor use to hawk fragrance and milk chocolate. [No. 112, p.55]

Continue to blame "hipsters" for cultural ruination but can't find any to shame because they stopped wearing white belts a long time ago. [No. 148, p.53]

Sounds like it was put together using spit, eyelash glue and sequins that fell off David Johansen's costumes all those years ago. [#64, p.90]

Many cover choices are deft... though others like the Best Coast's bouncy take on Nicks' "Rhiannon" and Karen Elson's on-the-nose "Gold Dust Woman" are less revelatory. [No.91 p.61]

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

The pop tunes are as good as any that Folds has written.... The "Concerto" tries too hard to be Gershwin or Richard Rogers, but lacks the flow of "Rhapsody In Blue" or the drama of "Slaughter On 10th Avenue." [No. 124, p.57]

If a smokestack tenor spewing a cloud of menagerie is your kind of daydream, the faulty superhero came through once again. [No. 132, p.51]

Harrowing electronic soundscapes set the scene like a Cronenberg film with sputtering, stuttering drum machines, droning organs, witchy background coos and Stewart vocals. [No. 106, p.61]

There's some buzzing and belling on "Puzzle," some crimped cracking that doubles as new wave, but for the most part, it's California dreaming at its dumbest.

It runs longer than an hour, and no matter how much you liked the Smiths you probably don't hav ethe patience for that much Gene. [#56, p.89]

Sounding like mid-period R.E.M. isn't the noblest of ambitions, but it somehow seems to work. [#69, p.98]

To make the perfect album, we suppose, that elusive thing that the beauteous hooks on "The Light of F=Day" and "Met Your Match" certainly makes strides toward. [#86, p.53]

They sound much heavier and quite unburdened by commercial notions. [No. 145, p.61]

Bossy's reformation seems based in penning the dullest platitudes imaginable. [No. 112, p.59]

Most disappointing about PersonA is that it oscillates between gutsy and lazy. [No. 131, p.51]

It helps that the androgynous vocals carry a hook here and there.... Otherwise, it's hard to pull any other redeeming qualities out of Galore. [No. 106, p.59]

It’s easily their biggest-sounding: a bright, trebly, disco-poppin’ melody feast bursting with keyboards, harmonies, Tinkertoy production flourishes and chorus after towering chorus of fizzy, whiz-bang pop goodness. [No. 132, p.57]

The mixed-bag effect of White Knight reaches its best moments on Runt's partnership with R&B shouter Bettye LaVette on the salty soul of "Naked & Afraid," and his teaming with Nine Inch Nails' film composition team Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross on the crushing, cinematic "Deaf Ears." [No. 143, p.61]

Trentemoller's flawless ear for melancholy, melodicism and atmospheric drama gives Fixion the feel of a soundtrack to a gothic/cyberpunk indie film and provides further evidence of its creator's electropop mastery. [No. 135, p.61]

Rogue Wave's fifth album features a handful of its best tunes yet. [No.99, p.59]

The duo's intoxicating sense of endless sonic possibility remains, but the many lovely moments rarely amount to memorable songs, and several shout-outs to its still-enchanting debut fells like cruel teases. [No. 112, 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]

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]

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

Every song here is perfect, glimmering pop gem--and the lyrics are often brilliant--but they're played with a measured precision and lack of dynamic range that makes it hard to differentiate one from the other as the LP unfolds. [No. 112, p.52]

The Hartnolls sound more relaxed and at ease than they did on their last album. [#51, p.105]

His artistic sophistication and derring-do has reached a new (and, frankly, unexpected) level of maturity. [No. 115, p.56]

Pushing his backing band (featuring Willie Nelson’s kids Lukas and Micah Nelson on guitars and vocals) into a stomping Crazy Horse vibe, Young provides the album’s frills with his keening voice and bracing guitar. [No. 133, p.60]

The album holds up better than most dustbin acquisitions reissue labels make, but it's not without its limitations - namely, in the way it mixes and matches aesthetics. [No. 81, p. 59]

Merging synth orchestration and genuine strings ins't new, but [Marc] bianchi pushes the form toward and organic/technological inevitable. [#52, p.89]

The one-man band does pretty well for himself in finding a place for his songs between sonic textures. [#51, p.117]

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

Much of Synthesized sounds like a rather bland concentrate of whatever musical style Holkenborg has chosen to upgrade. [No.94, p.56]

The album, recorded mostly in one or two takes, reaches a deft balance of Simone's rich jazz settings and Xiu Xiu's avant-garde expulsions. [No. 105, p.61]

The superficial snarl and by-the-numbers rawk in the middle on tracks like "Haste The Taste" and "Teenage Disease" never find equal footing with the album's inspired bookends. [No. 96, p.53]

Like Oskar, Otto luxuriates in tiny, clicking blip-beats with a sense of sythn orchestration. [#68, p.102]

For the most part, he succeeds. [No. 97, p.60]

"No Future V" and "Stable Boy" benefit from amping up the electricity and volume, which makes S+@dium Rock a solid TMLT companion piece but not a primary choice. [No. 134, p.61]

Engaging and alluring as this fresh coat of cool on an easily recognizable sonic vehicle maybe, Better Nature nonetheless remains an album destined to placate--not trip out--fans. [No. 125, p.61]

Even when the beat's bopping and the synths are grooving, we're still singing along to songs about jerks throwing themselves a pity party. But hey, it's still a party. [No. 124, p.61]

He sparkles on his own. [No. 93, p.53]

Rod and Gab's fifth album is bereft of personality. [No. 110, p.59]

It's a smooth-sounding work you can easily imagine serving as the soundtrack at your favorite hip urban restaurant or retail establishment. [No. 139, p.61]

The duo is only revisiting what made Death From Above faves 13 years ago without realizing how poorly it has aged. [No. 146, p.55]

On Banks, he takes a decent pass at pop. [No. 93, p.54]

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

The S4 seems very confident in getting away from itself and making music not burdened by influence, but propelled by it. [#58, p.106]