Things go slightly south with wedged-in jokes, but if you overlook those interruptions there's enough fuzzed-out fun and tender, Shins-like classicism to transcend any retro trappings. [July 2008, p.100]

The Malibu-dreamin' sound evokes a band settling into their twilight years--relaxed, carefree, and ready for a sunset cocktail. [Nov 2004, p.118]

Lacking a balance between pretty and ugly, their experimental alchemy is scabrously tiring, with cacophonous fragments that never connect. [Apr 2008, p.100]

Everything is underwritten or overwrought. [Feb 2004, p.104]

Suggests a gullier Cocteau Twins. [May 2004, p.108]

A perfect album, except perfect is the wrong word for a band so dedicated to kitchen-sink oddness. [Mar 2004, p.96]

Flails along the same path as 2001's casually brutal return to formlessness, Beat Em Up. [Dec 2003, p.123]

From the albums start the band's signature "low rock" sound is evident. But impressively so are a variety of new sounds, from female backing singers to the inclusion of such non traditional Morphine elements as violin, grand piano and acoustic guitar....on many levels "The Night" is a success...

Some songs function well as singularities, particularly “New Level” and “Grandma,” which showcase a few of Ferg’s best qualities in spurts, but as a complete work, Always Strive and Prosper is a misfire that presses to be greater than the sum of its parts.

Ant perfectly underscores Ali's gruff cadence, simultaneously self-assured and stressed, with a melodic lope that scrunches soul voclas underneath loops of bluesy guitar. [Apr 2007, p.86]

The contentment Malkmus expresses here is so cozy you might feel a little corny calling it wisdom. But you wouldn't embarrass yourself too much if you called it perspective.

Though the title hints at darker turns, the album never steps out of the glare.

Fashion Week is very different from any other Death Grips album just for being so linear, and while Stefan Burnett's guttural, performance art-ish MCing is missed, their astoundingly dark and imaginative sonic palette remains intact.

To say that PRODUCT leaves you wanting more is an understatement, beginning and ending with EDM you can’t dance to, building and toppling all kinds of aural Legos in between.

McKeown's Marc Bolan-influenced rhymes and party-time shouts are always wryly slapdash, but the weaving bass line and expansive structure of 'Situation' indicate that 1990s still retain some of the members' arty ambitions.

QOTSA may be rock at the edge of the abyss, but Heart On vaults right over, taking flight on an updraft of woozy audacity and shuddering riffs.

Four albums in, this nourish duo are still unwavering in their approach: Chilly, disturbing lyrics emerge from a dense fog of blissful Spector harmonies and squalling Jesus and Mary Chain surf and strings. Only now, those lyrics are more bizarre.

Weirdly calm yet supremely uneasy, On the Ones and Threes fluctuates constantly from folk to psychedelia to grunge, often in a single song.

At its best, Nobody reveals Beal as an old soul deploying the genre of old soul, not so much as an exercise in nostalgia as a surge protector to best contain his electroshock persona.

Unlike on his first two albums, González twists the volume knob up just enough here to sonically divert Vestiges & Claws from its predecessors (or bedroom pop pioneers Nick Drake and Elliott Smith).

Extraordinarily irrational and willfully convoluted, Jhelli Beam is avant-rap as quantum physics. Hopefully, his choir gets it.

When they stay focused and sweet (as on the sparingly orchestral 'Berlin Heart'), they soar. But when Lightburn adds spoken-word bits and überwanky guitar solos ('Lights Off'), ending with an 11-minute, church-inspired requiem ('Saviour'), you may be ready to follow his former band members out the door.

The failure to evoke anything specific is what gives Silver Eye its aloof, Bond-theme posture, but in another light, it’s alienating.

[His] most consistently entertaining album since 1999's 69 Love Songs. [Dec 2006, p.96]

Structural issues aside, the strength of the material on The London Session is enough to place the Queen back on track to relevance, after a number of less-inspired efforts had all but sapped her career momentum.

Never transcends the level of a cheeky bumper sticker. [Aug 2006, p.82]

In a narcotized haze of lounge blues, New Orleans jazz, gauzy retro soul, and understated guitar pop, he has made the most compelling record of his career.

But it's with his jarring mix of the banal and the brutal ("I will always be nicer to the cat / Than I will be to you") that Stewart shows his outrageous brilliance.

At 57, Smith can still find the ecstatic in the everyday, and she's no longer adrift in the mandolin wind. [May 2004, p.109]

Rutili still crafts a tuneful funeral dirge with the best of them. [Feb 2004, p.104]

Unfortunately, Coombes seems to have the glam era's fuzzy-brained approach to pop songwriting nailed a bit too well. [Apr 2003, p.106]

The production is muddy, the sentiments vague. [June 2003, p.105]

Singer-songwriters Becky Stark (of Lavender Diamond), Inara George (of the Bird and the Bee), and Eleni Mandell convene for this relaxed, deceptively sophisticated gem of an album.

Despite frontman Rhett Miller's nice-guy tendencies, Old 97's are way more fun when he gives in to his bitchy side--which is large and in charge on The Grand Theatre, runaway-train backbeats and all.

Journeymen that they are, though, McCaughey (Young Fresh Fellows) and Wynn (ex-Dream Syndicate) understand the poignant vindication in being remembered at all.

The songs are powerfully wiry and declamatory.

Dear All Tomorrow's Parties: Book this band immediately and meet your future.

Carter Tanton -- of the now-defunct Tulsa and still-thriving Lower Dens -- style-jumps so restlessly that his second solo disc sometimes feels like a multi-artist playlist rather than a one-man show.

They burden their appealing, childlike take on Brechtian cabaret's cold raunch with so much lush production... that it's as though Palmer is being drowned by a gallon jug of overpriced perfume. [Jun 2006, p.79]

With his unnerving falsetto, Nikolaj Manuel Vonsild, frontman for this mesmerizing Denmark quartet, suggests an exotic creature who's fallen to earth, while his bandmates fashion a deliciously minimal version of synth pop that evokes Low-era Bowie.

A few late-album glow-stick groovers abruptly shift the vibe to rave-era bliss, but until then, turn off your mind and float downstream.

It won't satisfy hook-hungry Jewel fans, but Learn to Sing wears Hersh's experience like a custom-tailored hair shirt. [Feb 2007, p.84]

Vig both sweetens and strengthens Against Me!'s attack without sacrificing the band's innate Raggedy Andy appeal.

Suck It blends the deliberateness of that record with the fleet-footedness of their still-stunning 2006 debut Whatever You Say I Am, That's What I'm Not and follow-up My Favourite Worst Nightmare.

If anything, 7 Days acts as the inverse of The Chronic, wherein a famous hip-hop producer introduced the world to an up-and-coming MC weaned on P-Funk and George Duke; now, it's a pop-cultural hip-hop icon giving a bit of shine to an adept indie producer who can elicit all strains of funk in this 21st-century Zone of Zero Funkativity. It's not the dank, but breathe deep anyway.

Taken together, Cold Dark Place affirms the band’s pursuit of technically ambitious rock with high production value, while continuing to disrupt traditional notions of genre and song structure.

The results don’t resemble the King’s hits nearly as much as Prince’s demos.

The band's latest is sublimely elegant and more maturely conceived.

Behind all the ridonkulous disses and boasts, Missy sounds a bit unsure of herself. [Jul 2005, p.97]

And while 'Sleepwalking' can't help but sink into the somnambulism its title promises, R&C also get ambitious, abandoning lathery fantasia for something a little earthier. [Apr 2001, p.163]

As a current-events commentator, Gray's got better beats than The New York Times and funnier lyrics than Fox News.

80 minutes of dank, chopped-up percussion and blitzed hard-drive scree. [Apr 2004, p.94]

Beautifully arranged and produced yet feels like something on display behind milky glass. [Jul 2004, p.112]

They never let math get in the way of a good time. [Apr 2008, p.96]

Peanut Butter is far more self-aware, and that leads to music with greater resonance and variety.

With Jonathan Meiburg's luxuriant, lachrymose croon topping the slow-cresting violins of this tasteful rock ensemble, The Golden Archipelago will surely satisfy listeners in need of a melodramatic nap.

Leo has now produced more Pharmacists records while we've been at war than not, and in a world that still needs Fugazi's oppositional fire, The Brutalist Bricks' Dischordant burn is welcome.

The melodies and rhythmic accents here hang together as decent hooks, if not poppy ones.

Amadou and Mariam were wise to forgo a full-on return-to-roots move: They're no kind of traditionalists, let alone folkies, and if their songs lovingly reimagine Bamako, cosmopolitan Paris is their spiritual, as well as their physical, home.

Their follow-up finds a better balance, albeit one that teeters toward a straight party groove. [Oct 2006, p.104]

Slime Flu has its charms, acting as an energetic reminder of insider-y, turn-of-the-century New York hip-hop long gone: sample-laden, ignorant, and wealth-obsessed.

Another Day isn’t quite as good as the best Fucked Up records; that bar is just a little too high. But it’s still a Fucked Up record.

Like most extreme acts, this trash-talking MC's strengths are best showcased in wham-bam singles. To sustain interest between fourth-album climaxes, the Berlin-based sleaze queen collaborates with London's Simian Mobile Disco.

With so many legacy-artist posthumous sets, it’s hard to avoid a certain level of brain mush. The final stretches often feel like pointlessly processed outtakes of alternate takes of fake takes of imaginary takes. It’s like extracurricular archaeology, and it’s often not very fun. But even when you’re working up a sweat with your shovel, Funky Nothingness rewards the strain.

The mini-classic of ultramelodic singer/songwriter pop that he's always hinted at. [Oct 2006, p.99]

His grinding blues buitar/aggro piano and her Bonham-bashing coalesce in a sound as heavy as his soul. [Apr 2006, p.91]

[Love Is All frontwoman Josephine Olausson's] aim is true on the Swedish quintet's third full-length, a fizzy, exhilarating hybrid of bubblegum pop and bratty punk.

Wit's End is even more hushed and sluggish than 2009's Catacombs, leaving lighter Dylanesque fare for depressive Leonard Cohen depths.

Beauty Behind the Madness is front-loaded with fresh directions for the Weeknd that achieve the impossible: make it sound like he’s actually enjoying himself.

Ideal Lives is an uneven record, at times frustratingly so, but it is also the sound of a band finding out just what they are capable of, and falling in love with it.

Working in Tennessee glides along on its Bakersfield groove with the greatest of ease, despite the album's title.

The occasionally somewhat disturbing words he pens for that medium knock around on the page with the same ease that they roll out of his mouth.

His characters feel like individuals, not archetypes. [Sep 2004, p.114]

That’s Storyteller as a whole: expertly arranged, dense without overwhelming the force of its captain.

Harper sounds most engaged on the disc's loudest, least melodic cuts: "Clearly Severely" is a furious, TV on the Radio–style soul-punk blast.

[Aesop Rock's voice] Paired with the Long Island rapper's abstract, self-aware lyrics, it makes None Shall Pass a challenging, rewarding head trip. [Sep 2007, p.122]

The Art of Hustle is about more than misleading filters, though: it’s a thorough testament to how and why Gotti has carried the banner for Memphis since 2005: “Law,” featuring E-40, is superbly ageless.

Flavorless chamber pop. [Jan 2006, p.91]

Warning of nightmarish rural invaders in 'The Rifle' and vowing to keep her eyes open on the showstopping sea chantey title track, Diane seems destined for grander endeavors.

Voices flaunts the duo's expanded range.

Bronsonland is a place you enjoy spending time in or you don't, and that does not seem likely to change anytime soon.

And yet, despite such growing pains, Clark's penchant for restless, exploratory tangents ensures that Blak and Blu hits like a ton of bricks.

With nods to synth pop, electro, and funk, Sweden's Little Dragon fill their second album with bleeping keyboards and jazzy arpeggios, recalling both Howard Jones and Saint Etienne. But what sets Machine Dreams apart is frontwoman Yukimi Nagano's alternately yelping and cooing voice.

Andy Cabic's balmy folk songs pull from pert shades of doo-wop 'Everyday') and Latin syncopation ('Strictly Rule'). But his whispery voice can take on a Donovan-like sultriness, making a song such as 'Sister' far sexier than a song named 'Sister' should be.

The rare hip-hop debut that does justice to its buzz. [Apr 2003, p.104]

A relaxed, even graceful affair. [Dec 2003, p.123]

Despite their wintry chill-out origins, Nordic keyboard pair Svein Berge and Torbjorn Brundtland create smooth, sunny sounds perfect for roller-skating on rainbows.

Both halves are gripping, but Heim's unplugged conceit--which spotlights vocalist Jonsi Birgisson's high, ghostly howls--showcases the band's eerie pull. [Dec 2007, p.125]

Rough in all the right places but pleasurably smooth in others, Held in Splendor is less like the kitschy t-shirt quilt you made to remember your high school clubs and teams, and more like the perfect old blankets your grandmother used to sew: oversized, musty, and familiar even when you haven't worn them in years.

Produced by Sigur Ros' Kjartan Sveinsson, Arnalds embellishes her debut's spare guitar-voice template with discreet overdubs, including brass and strings, enhancing breathtaking tunes like "Surrender" (which features Bjork adding a swirling countermelody). For those who consider Joanna Newsom too mainstream.

The lack of a hefty, definable, or easily digestible pop overhaul here means that Little Red probably won’t hit America as hard as even its predecessor did. But it does feel like the natural progression of an artist whose narrative is so wholly and convincingly embedded in club life.

Fever Daydream is a surprisingly assured debut that, at the very least, evokes electronic music of the past and present.

Along with four new Pretenders, she's crafted a statement that's stripped bare and dangerous, just like Hynde herself, who abandons much of her haughty cool to expose some long-concealed wounds as painful as the ones that Janis Joplin unfurled on "Pearl."

The record’s biggest flaw might be that it stacks the stunning “Sun” and “Lights” as its first two tracks, setting a challenge to which the nine remaining ones can’t quite rise.

An exciting, impassioned, fuzzed-up, and smartly sticky album that plants a flag for some great forgotten sounds and practically screams promise for better glory days to come.

For its all its pleasures, Hard II Love isn’t strong enough to convince you he’s decided to stick to a lane.

Though they fit snugly inside their vintage genes, the Kings manage to make room for a surprising amount of heart. [Mar 2005, p.85]

Far snuggles between her previous efforts, linking the heady sweep of 2003's "Soviet Kitsch" to the roundabout pop treats of "Begin to Hope."