The songs on The Repulsion Box sound like they were banged out in the underlit kitchen of a crumbling Appalachian cabin. [#69, p.108]

The Orb's relentless, yet somehow unaggressive dance beats have a timeless quality that endures beyond any specific electronic trends, and its muse remains undamaged by time and space. [No. 122, p.59]

Bonar sings with a bright pop voice that creates a startling contrast to her dark, disturbing tales. [No. 134, p.55]

On first listen, For The Season is pleasantly trippy. Listen closely, however, and it seems rather patchy. [#70, p.100]

A better-than-average Sonic Youth album. [#64, p.106]

While the song remains beautifully, remarkably, the same, it's getting harder to like. [#55, p.72]

The five tracks never end far from where they begin, but they're also forever shifting. [No. 103, p.53]

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]

There's something undeniably mechanical about Room On Fire. [#61, p.107]

Take it all in, and you'll be carried away. [No. 111, p.59]

What elevates Meridian above the throngs of similar abstract, mod-synth ambient records are the same sensibilities that carried albums like Dreamless Sleep, even if the tools are different this time around. Tracks that, for the most part, sound formless--never careless. [No. 121, p.53]

So Pitted is constantly poking and prodding at its audience with a wicked glee and demented smile. [No. 128, p.61]

Most of these 10 songs in 40 minutes are lovely, peaking on one of her sexiest tunes, crunchy wedding toast "Love U 4ever." [No. 111, p.51]

Love This Giant fitfully achieves its aim of unlikely, unearthly pop. [No.91 p.56]

[Neko] Case misses Carrier, and it her. [No. 102, p.55]

Like a modern-day Nina Simone, Cherry slips from light and soulful to insistent and forceful on this wild hybrid of an album. [No.88, p.53]

If you want to hear him reconciling the roots of his music with a future he hasn't found yet, this is the next fearless step into the future. [No. 159, p.61]

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]

A wonderful rumination on late nights, leaving home and self-medicating. [No.92 p.54]

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

It's a wonderful-sounding record, too, lushly textured... and one that demands to be played at full volume. [No.85 p.61]

Could be a Tortoise record with vocals. [#57, p.81]

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]

File with the rest of your King Khan records under "readily accessible." [No. 148, p.59]

Even second-tier tunes (by comparison)--like the silly "I Love Kangaroos"--are indelible. [No. 150, p.54]

Overseas hits all the soft spots of longtime fans, while cohering easily into a new and striking whole. [No. 100, p.57]

Some will call this regression, but longtime fans will likely call it focused and celebrate the return to form represented on The Lucky Ones.

Gelb's voice remains sweet as sandpaper, setting a tone that's elegiac, lyrical and lovingly enigmatic. [No. 104, p.55]