Idealism shows off plenty of blaring synth riffs. [Jun 2007, p.92]

It sounds awesome. [Jul 2007, p.102]

A stylishly sweaty summer party. [Jul 2007, p.102]

Their biggest asset, though, is singer Hayley Williams, an 18-year-old siren with a killer fashion sense and an undeniable knack for writing contemplative love songs.

Ridiculously entertaining. [Jul 2007, p.98]

[It] should have been the new Fall album. [Jun 2007, p.96]

Maybe this is what living in France does to you. [Jun 2007, p.92]

[It] scales back the Weimar guignol of 2003's The Golden Age of Grotesque in favor of classic industrial and glam. [Jul 2007, p.98]

Scattered. [Jul 2007, p.95]

Dear infuses the snapping, beeping compositions of his second album with a sincere yearn, broadening the genre in the process. [Jul 2007, p.96]

Bettencourt's howling power-glam riffs pair well enough with Farrell's alley-cat wail. [Jun 2007, p.95]

Of course, the main attraction remains his bristling, zigzag guitar licks, which still astound nearly 40 years on. [Jun 2007, p.96]

High drama of the blunt, uncliched sort unheard since the Afghan Whigs' '90s heyday. [Jun 2007, p.94]

Rock that's both fist-pumping and forward-looking. [Jun 2007, p.90]

[Wheat's] most rousing collection. [Jun 2007, p.97]

Zoom in on this overproduced second album, dripping with newly emboldened lyrical pretensions, and you'll find cracks in the enjoyable cliches. [Jun 2007, p.91]

The only misstep is frontman Adam Levine's raunchy lyrics. [Jun 2007, p.94]

While the Used honestly want to move away from their time-tested sound, the experiments come off as unfocused and confused. [May 2007, p.90]

Miracle Fortress' jubilant indie pop effortlessly integrates cuddly mammalian coos, cottony guitar fuzz, and gentle falsetto choruses.

The Horrors are too shackled by kitsch to scare life into such creaky punk posturing. [Jun 2007, p.94]

The songs are actually strong enough to hold the weight of the over-the-top arrangements. [Jun 2007, p.96]

A near-perfect album by a band that seems, finally, to have found their identity. [Jun 2007, p.89]

The music privileges texture over catchiness. [Jun 2007, p.97]

A subtle hallucinatory pastiche. [Jun 2007, p.92]

At its best ("Great Wide Open"), Tales recalls Foo Fighters' wimpier singles, but for the most part, it's just a reminder of why even Dave Grohl turns up the screaming now and then.

The pub stompers are as rowdy as ever, but they're balanced here by laid-back ruminations on romance. [Jun 2007, p.91]

Even with the occasional middling moments, it's hard to deny the band's clever, boisterous spirit. [May 2007, p.86]

Her vision is worth the price of submission. [Jun 2007, p.90]

[It] succeeds best when it shakes off the doldrums. [Jun 2007, p.92]

Even when Electrelane ditch the cheer completely, they inspire more smiles than growls. [Jun 2007, p.92]

Prekop's crew have mastered a more intricate approach, seasoning their gently introspective tales of "distracted and lazy" lovers with stronger ingredients. [Jun 2007, p.95]

The strongest [tracks]... get to Smith's best impulse: a willingness to find the innocence in life. [May 2007, p.94]

There's enough promise here to rattle more cages soon. [Jun 2007, p.94]

He falls into mawkishness far too often. [Jun 2007, p.93]

The veteran group's dizzying flows remain flawless. [Jun 2007, p.90]

An easy album to enjoy. [Jun 2007, p.93]

The songs are about love and sex, but a hint of nihilism still lingers in Wolf's melodramatic vibrato. [May 2007, p.91]

Trading obscure metaphors for assertive personae, Amos sings with a remarkably forceful focus. [Jun 2007, p.92]

[BRMC] have never sounded more self-assured. [May 2007, p.84]

Even the production on Beyond sounds plucked from the trio's Bug heyday. [May 2007, p.85]

Quieter and more uniform in sound than the wilfully eclectic Let It Die, the new album emphasizes her sumptuous vocals and ear for a handsome melody. [May 2007, p.85]

Valedictorian frequently collides with bracing beauty, sometimes of the of the conventional sort, but more often like nothing else before it. [May 2007, p.85]

Skirting the emotional depths that marked his past work, Callahan's new persona feels almost shallow. [May 2007, p.84]

Patti Smith misplaces her fearless edge. [May 2007, p.90]

The harder the music hammers, the flatter the lyrics get. The more the band holds back, the stronger the songs become. Consequently, there's half of a great album here. [May 2007, p.83]

The moody effects and oblique lyrical affectations quickly wear thin. [May 2007, p.88]

Oyamada fuses a bristling spectrum of textures and rhythms. [May 2007, p.84]

The vibe here is mellow, unremarkable, and a touch contrived. [May 2007, p.85]

You'll immediately recognize the masterful melodies and rock'n'roll sentiment, for better and worse. [May 2007, p.86]

The Best Damn Thing rarely takes itself too seriously. [May 2007, p.89]

A sweaty, first-take orgy that sometimes suggests Tom Waits fronting the Stones, only clumsier. [May 2007, p.84]

The songs drag in the middle, choruses become interchangeable, and too many tracks end with the same electronic stuttering. [May 2007, p.84]

The hooks are stronger, the production richer, and the scale grander. [May 2007, p.84]

The result is one of Cave's hardest-rocking records, but also one of his funniest. [Apr 2007, p.86]

Oberst's countryish genre studies have deepened with a very adult loneliness. [Apr 2007, p.89]

Amedeo Pace's wailing, overemotive tenor invites the mess of Blonde Radiohead jokes the band will inevitably receive. [Apr 2007, p.86]

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]

[It] threads seductive, chiming melodies through robotic, New Order-style rhythms. [May 2007, p.90]

Happily, his killer solo debut offers more of the same. [Apr 2007, p.87]

It's like an alt-rock adaptation of a John Cheever anthology. [Apr 2007, p.87]

This LP sounds too close to unfocused jamming. [Apr 2007, p.95]

[They] downplay the hip-hop boom-bap... in favor of busy pop jams that mirror the overstimulation of 21st-century life. [Apr 2007, p.93]

The Twilight Sad walk a fine line between drippy sentimentality and rough-edged realism. [May 2007, p.91]

There are awkward attempts at the strutting pomp rock of Queen, the pop reggae of the Police, and the wardrobe of the Strokes. [Apr 2007, p.86]

There are no real highlights among these soggy minimalist jams. [Apr 2007, p.87]

With such sharp detail, Kaiser Chiefs have elevated themselves from a singles band to a group that's capable of both having a laugh and making a focused statement about life's less gleeful side. [Apr 2007, p.92]

The gripping Strangelet strives for a tricky balance of darkness of light... and mostly succeeds, thanks to the raw charisma of Phillips' hangover vocals. [Apr 2007, p.94]

There are a few clunky dance tracks... but it's Madden's search for love in the L.A. wasteland that gives Revival a certain charm. [Mar 2007, p.86]

Sometimes he veers too close to his source material and surrenders to sap... but mostly this U.K.-chart-topping magpie makes good with bountiful tunes and Broadway vocal dazzle that could slay even the High School Musical crowd. [May 2007, p.88]

Despite fairly rote lyrics, Buck's ferocious flow can turn even the most cliched hood yarn into a fire-and-brimstone sermon. [Apr 2007, p.97]

The product of a joyously short attention span. [Jul 2007, p.92]

Over and over, these songs reveal how a wisecracking record geek can still achieve rapture. [Mar 2007, p.98]

While Brock's pop instincts have never been more refined, his jitteriness has never run more rampant. [Apr 2007, p.85]

The production is as overwrought as the antiwar themes. [Apr 2007, p.88]

If 2004's killer Shake the Sheets was Leo's Give 'Em Enough Rope... Living With The Living is his London Calling, an hour-long Rolodexing of sounds and visions. [Mar 2007, p.94]

You've heard these overheated tales of wild girls and outlaw boys many times before. [Mar 2007, p.97]

This stream-of-consciousness head trip blends tricky, delicious melodies and slippery lyrics, yet never lapses into annoyingly smug artiness. [Mar 2007, p.88]

Equal parts faithful-but-twisted boom bap and avant-indie rock, the album drips with elbow grease. [Mar 2007, p.91]

Call it Everything About The Girl. [Mar 2007, p.99]

His slumbery Jonathan Richman-meets-Beck vocals make every song a potential slacker lullaby. [Mar 2007, p.97]

Showcases skittering electronics framed by grounded, dynamic percussion. [Apr 2007, p.88]

Somehow, these constant flourishes enhance, rather than obscure, the disc's plentiful catchy bits, giving Person Pitch a resonant, off-kilter charm. [Apr 2007, p.93]

Though Dilla's rapping is never more than competent, Ruff Draft is still a platform for the versatility of his eccentric genius. [Apr 2007, p.88]

While all that harmony is good for revving your sugar motor, no conflict means no relief, just repeated shots of childlike cheer with no chaser. [Mar 2007, p.94]

John Agnello's knob-twiddling is spot-on. [Mar 2007, p.98]

Western Xterminator ventures further from the '90s opiate-blues legacy of Trux, sounding more exploratory than RTX's debut. [Mar 2007, p.98]

These young Scotsmen have grime to spare, along with a belief in rock's power to rescue them from it. [Mar 2007, p.99]

Trades Parachutes-era wistfulness for Kid A-style gloom. [Mar 2007, p.88]

Like most of these top-shelf indie-pop tunes, ["101"] is cause for hoping Julian Casablancas loosens his songwriting grip on the next Strokes album. [Mar 2007, p.94]

Myth Takes juxtaposes tribal post-punk with crooked attempts at actual pop, giving their epic groove-riders a booty-stimulating boost. [Mar 2007, p.86]

Occup[ies] a hushed netherworld between classical minimalists like Erik Satie and Timbaland (without the beats). [Mar 2007, p.86]

Neither a timid repeat nor a knee-jerk departure, the bigger, bolder Neon Bible better captures what Arcade Fire achieve live. [Mar 2007, p.85]

An excellent collection of space folk and ramshackle Tropicalia that matches the wild-eyed absurdism... of his band's better output. [Apr 2007, p.94]

It's a sober cruise down the white line between timelessness and nostalgia. [May 2007, p.90]

Whiteman recombines mambo, Americana, and mesmerizing BSS-style rock with infectiously rambling results. [Mar 2007, p.88]

Both a big relief and a mild disappointment. [Mar 2007, p.90]

Too often [Woomble] is an impotent voice struggling to cut through the clutter. [Apr 2007, p.88]

Longer on nuance than hook. [Mar 2007, p.98]