Control is the finger-pointing punk record of the year. [#54, p.101]

Pollard's songcraft remains intact regardless of presentation. [No. 130, p.61]

Even at their most obvious, the Buzzcocks can smoke the young guns. [#58, p.83]

For the most part, Excuses plays like a companion piece to 1998's Out Of Tune--chock full of the lethargic pedal steel and Topanga Canyon-rock cornerstones that make [Neil] Halstead's songs so powerful. However... Excuses leaves room for more delicate moments and patient ballads... [#47, p.108]

His deft handling of the pop-song idiom makes even these smaller-scale songs soar. [#64, p.89]

The pair rips through a hard-rockin' 11-song set without messing much beyond the four-minute mark of any track. [No. 93, p.56]

The new/old Psychedelic Swamp LP of today fuses the best of both worlds. [No. 128, p.51]

Sure, it's a mess. But it's a brilliant, manically theatrical mess, true to Welles' self-destructive spirit. [No. 95, p.57]

Credit sludgemeister Alan Moulder's mixing with fashioning this trio's graceless clamor into a pop blasterpiece (though the high-gloss context occasionally suggests a randier, more cacophonous No Doubt). [#59, p.111]

With each layer adding something to the stew when time on their own endeavors allowed, Nevermen is a successful and forward-thinking act of sonic maximalism. [No. 128, p.52]

A looser, more causal and countrified LP than a formal Heartbreakers release, these longtime friends use Mudcrutch to have some fun, jam out and exude a little bit of that old-fashioned Laurel Canyon psyche-twang sound. [No. 132, p.57]

At it's best, the record finds her swapping the heavy-handed concepts that've largely driven her work to date for the irrefutable impact of raw lyricism. [No. 93, p.56]

Remarkably, the shifts in tone and mood only serve Guero in the end. [#67, p.85]

Their best record since reuniting. [#68, p.95]

The Foo sextet has made its hardest, yet most curvaceous and warm-blooded record to date. [No. 148, p.54]

Unexpected exits drop like hailstones throughout the Athenian psych/pop institution's 13-track 13th album. [No. 103, p.55]

An album that’s rewarding--and pleasantly intelligent--from start to finish. [No. 128, p.53]

If the fanboys and motorheads are equally turned off by it in places, you get the sense the Puppets themselves--who sound happier and more comfortable here than they have in years--would be perversely pleased. [No. 98, p.58]

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 most enjoyable weird record of its career. [No. 101, p.52]

She's inverting the musicians' aging curve, each album more challenging and less easily digestible than the last. [No. 103, p.58]

Some artists stimulate your brain, others tickle your senses. Matmos does both. [#50, p.101]

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

No matter the song or guest, it always sounds like the Melvins, and that's a good thing. [No. 98, p.58]

Golightly brings out rock'n'roll's original transgressive spirit. [#60, p.98]

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

It's sharply focused--and sonically beautiful--but also abstract, with an open-ended feeling to the swooping voices and lyrical ambiguities. [No. 145, p.51]

It's not so much airily psychedelic as totally stoned. [#69, p.99]