Nice, sure, but whatever happened to naughty. [Jun 2006, p.82]

The cool sound of hot days, fragrant smoke, and FM radio at ear-splitting volume. [Jun 2006, p.77]

They've returned to the frantic music of original heroes Gang of Four, banging out songs that vibrate with exactly the tense energy they'd mislaid. [Jun 2006, p.83]

Pink showcases every sound Boris can make.

These Brits deconstruct bombast via bombastic guitar riffs. [Jun 2005, p.108]

High-energy electro eccentricity. [Jun 2006, p.80]

Smith sounds less joyful than usual, unable to reconcile religious faith with everyday hope. [Jun 2006, p.79]

Equal parts bang and whimper. [Jun 2006, p.81]

Holland swings far afield from folk and country on her third album, matching her hornlike voice to cool-jazz rhythms. [Jul 2006, p.84]

More danceable (and vulgar) than previous releases.

Overreaches. [Jul 2006, p.88]

You'll find [it] either icky or inspirational. [Jul 2006, p.83]

There are interesting moments... but too often they're smothered in a formless buzz of guitar, samples, voilin, harmonica--you name it. [Jul 2006, p.87]

One of [the year's] most heartfelt albums. [Jun 2006, p.80]

Her insights plumb poetic shallows. [Jun 2006, p.81]

Instead of the poppy makeover many anticipated, the Mobb's seventh album is a curious blend of gunz-money anthems, G-Unit-ized sex romps, and visions of the great beyond.

They seem to be having fun. [Jun 2006, p.79]

Essentially a synthesis of the various phases of the band's career. [Jul 2006, p.85]

With his knack for extracting humor from the mundane, Skinner’s the perfect poet for this snooze of a topic.

[Springsteen's] loosest, most vigorous album in two decades. [Jun 2006, p.84]

The combination of titanic chunk-chunk riffs, sleek lead guitar, and radio-ready harmonizing comes across as heroic. [Jun 2006, p.82]

Recall[s] his greatest '90s-electronica work. [May 2006, p.91]

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]

Musically, A Blessing and a Curse is the Truckers' least complicated album. [May 2006, p.93]

Brilliantly unhinged rock spiked with R&B and power pop. [Jun 2006, p.80]

Sure, emo bands cry over their myriad problems all the time, many of which are delivered either as mopey confessionals or with Gerard Way-ian gothenticity, but rarely are they so post-apocalyptic.

Few bands this side of Wilco float along so easily on little more than diagonally rendered elegiac noises and severe anxiety disorder. [Mar 2006, p.95]

You in Reverse... rejects the pithy pop of their 1999 breakthrough, Keep It Like a Secret, for spacey, stretchy tracks that emphasize their unique, virtuosic musicianship.

Calexico have abandoned much of the jazzy, mariachi-infused Americana pulses that characterized their former sound.

Feels like rock that Beavis would play if Homme were his pal.

Uneven but fascinating. [May 2006, p.92]

The static beats of... Scott Storch and Trackmasters do little to freshen up his sound. [Jun 2006, p.78]

Unlike many rockers who cherish childlike ideals only to fall prey to amateurism or whimsy, Ze is aware that kids are both complex in their inventions and earnest in their intentions. [May 2006, p.93]

Both jarring and hypnotic. [May 2006, p.91]

Sometimes [his] acoustic finger-plucking moves past half-angst into something boozier, but his solo debut is boxed wine at best. [May 2006, p.91]

At War is gnarlier and a bit less tuneful than the group's previous two CDs. But the arrangements, and Dave Fridmann's signature blend of clarity and overmodulation, remain intricately weird. [Apr 2006, p.89]

[A] potentially polarizing mash note.

Rocks with a woozy pothead-punk swagger. [May 2006, p.91]

Rich-guy gripes, Ying Yang booty boasts, and label-politics rundowns don't wear nearly as well as his amicable down-homey side. [Apr 2006, p.91]

Even when you're not sure where they're going, you can't wait to see what happens when they get there. [Aug 2006, p.86]

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.

Toning down his oddball style and ramping up his storytelling, he drops a pusher’s odyssey as developed and cinematic as any Scorsese joint.

[He] still knows how to make palpitating street anthems. [May 2006, p.91]

More corny than convincing. [May 2006, p.91]

A stark, erratic, and perversely back-loaded collection. [Mar 2006, p.96]

Kraut-rock drones run together into one long, thudding hum. [Mar 2006, p.95]

He tries hepcat jazz-piano bop and balladry with pitiful results. [May 2006, p.91]

[They] spruce up their cutesy indie pop with grander melodies, gigglier choruses, and a wider variety of sounds. [Apr 2006, p.91]

It's like being trapped in the dressing room at Express for an hour. [Apr 2006, p.91]

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

Prince’s main weakness is the urge to display his own mind-boggling talent.

His most accessible [album] yet, crammed with melodic Brit punk played at maximum speed. [Nov 2006, p.97]

The beats are so simplistic that their minimalist repetition occasionally teeters over into redundancy.

They vacillate between flotational devices and skull-crushers. [Apr 2006, p.91]

The skeletal guitars, stylized strings, and rhythmic clatter are enough of a flashlight under the chin to spook up these campfire tales. [Mar 2006, p.95]

[Fox Confessor] shows that for all her versatility, she has a singular vision when it comes to her own music. And Lordy, it is dark. [Mar 2006, p.92]

[They] up the theater-major quotient. [Apr 2006, p.91]

The racing tempos and Christian Hjelm's paranoid-sounding yelp push the songs to occasionally exhilarating heights, but beware the inevitable comedown. [Aug 2006, p.78]

Hawthorne Heights shun nuance altogether. Quiet equals depth; loud equals catharsis. And never the twain shall meet. [Mar 2006, p.94]

While Vitalic may add little to electronic music or its various subgenres, he interweaves effortlessly their prevailing styles into complex arrangements that are neither kinked-up innovation nor neutered homage.

Rife with acid-burn guitars, levee-breaking drums, and vocals that recall Peter Gabriel at his wooziest. [Feb 2006, p.87]

Blunt and bratty, emotionally pubescent. [Mar 2006, p.93]

Romance is zippier and tighter than previous beer cries. [Mar 2006, p.95]

Hooky, spare, and lush all at once. [Mar 2006, p.95]

DJ Babu's soulful, pyrotechnic turntablism straddles the indie-mainstream divide. [Apr 2006, p.91]

Here they fe-fi-fo-fum with the exacting crankiness of carny punks who've seen it all. [Mar 2006, p.95]

Until they ditch folksy archaisms... maybe it's best for 'em young indie-blues fellers... [to] work on the good ol'-fashioned songwriting. [Mar 2006, p.95]

Producer Mick Jones does his best to juice up these almost-songs. [Jan 2006, p.91]

Hoffer preserves [Trevor] Horn's professional sheen but not his swinging charm, leaving us with all bathwater and no baby. [Feb 2006, p.86]

Has moments of cheese-ball grace. [Mar 2006, p.95]

Unerringly lovely, but best when the drums heat up. [Feb 2006, p.87]

By staying on his uniquely off-kilter game, he's become an unlikely career artist. [Mar 2006, p.95]

An eclectic vanguard sound. [Jul 2006, p.88]

[He] has a goofy sense of humor and an excellent feel for the dance floor but virtually no knack for song form. [Sep 2006, p.114]

It's so London-specific that it almost requires an England-to-English translation for us Yanks. [Feb 2006, p.92]

After only a few spins, The Greatest sounds like another [masterpiece]. [Feb 2006, p.84]

It's weird how this spiral of genial melodic plaints can sound so weak and self-pitying when it's sung by a pushy dude and not a smart, empathetic woman with a voice. [Feb 2006, p.87]

Twisted, quirky pop gems. [Feb 2006, p.86]

The frail bodyslams on the band's debut album throb and stagger as if throbbing and staggering were against the grain. [Feb 2006, p.88]

Gut-wrenching, foot-stomping punk. [Feb 2006, p.87]

P.O.D. too often fall back on vanilla "bang boogie." [Feb 2006, p.85]

It's too tepid to be offensive. [Feb 2006, p.87]

Like your favorite dive bar, it feels uncomfortably familiar. [Feb 2006, p.87]

Nix the emo sea-chantey stuff and these two CDs... would be pretty excellent. [Mar 2006, p.95]

Their gutsy spirit, while not "soul" exactly, does allow the band to dodge flippant dismissals of poseurhood. [Jan 2005, p.90]

These pop dirges are comforting until they get preachy about sins and healing. [Jan 2005, p.91]

First Impressions may not be the best Strokes album, but damn if it doesn't feel like the last. [Jan 2006, p.88]

Too often, Blige's voice doesn't get the space it needs to cut loose with emotion. [Feb 2006, p.85]

Cut Mr. Hansen up, and he reassembles nicely, but weirdly enough, it's tough to out-Beck Beck. [Jan 2006, p.92]

[A] more toned-down, at times strikingly sincere, follow-up. [Dec 2005, p.104]

An impressive balancing act that name-checks Ween and cracks wise about Stevie Wonder's vision while spinning bighearted melodies and harmonies over quirky beatscapes. [Jan 2005, p.89]

For what it's worth, Hypnotize is the project's better half. [Dec 2005, p.102]

The best bummer-country band of this sucky century. [Dec 2005, p.107]

His agile attack still lacks Jigga's precision, 50's swagger, or Kanye's cocky confessionalism. [Jan 2006, p.92]

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

With its surges and dips, Confessions mimics the rising/falling action of, say, a DJ set, a hit of Ecstasy, or Madonna's own career. [Dec 2005, p.106]

Not since Grateful Dead's Europe '72 has there been a live double album in which intimacy and expansiveness, guitar mess and piano reflection commingle this sweetly. [Dec 2005, p.107]

Instead of updating psych garage folk, they allow its corpus to fester in skronky breakdowns, churning feedback, and... a wicked spirit-medium session. [Jan 2006, p.91]