All Night Long posits Buckcherry as your ultimate all-night rager soundtrack; the fist-pumping anthem-makers who are best heard on 5 a.m. IHOP runs.

It's not the conceptul masterpiece he was clearly hoping for, but there are moments of transcendence just the same. [Nov 2008, p.89]

Thunderheist is all about the quick dance-floor fix, but Isis imbues her characters with quick-witted wickedness, and producer Graham Zilla churns out Spartan synth tracks that have an undeniably funky buzz.

Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark's first album in 14 years--and first in 24 to feature the lineup that recorded the bulk of their hits--meticulously returns to the ostensibly perky sound and pensive sensibility of the Merseyside quartet's early-to-mid-'80s heyday.

Murray doesn't sound like he's going anywhere but straight home after last call. [June 2008, p.119]

A jarring, but refreshing, makeover.

Conditions of My Parole, featuring a supporting cast that includes Keenan's son Devo and ex-Mars Volta drummer Jon Theodore, reveals a more reassuring side of a singer better known for willful alienation.

To divide Hella's mind is to hack their talent in half. [May 2005, p.105]

Even without the manic singer actually up in your face, the band’s gleefully knuckle-dragging first full-length is a thrilling throwdown.

Though singer Bobby Gillespie's lyrics are still rife with anti-establishment paranoia, songs such as 'The Glory of Love' and the title track are colorful, catchy, and informed by a cautious optimism born of hard-earned perspective and a surprising maturity.

Unleashes a torrent of bloated, if occasionally lovely, romantic anthems that aspire to cosmic insight, yet settle for greeting-card corn. [Sep 2006, p.112]

Sam's Town is basically Hot Fuss with bigger, spanglier guitars and an all-round lack of restraint. [Oct 2006, p.93]

Unlistenable. [Mar 2004, p.96]

Leanness and vitality have replaced the cokey bloat of their last few studio trips. [Jun 2005, p.103]

Preparations will leave you dizzy and wondering what it all means-- which may be the point. [Nov 2007, p.124]

On album three, Keane trick out their pretty piano melodies with tasty synths ('The Lovers Are Losing'), booming rap beats ('Spiralling'), and fuzzy new-wave guitars ('You Haven’t Told Me Anything').

Bluesy single-note guitar lines compete with jagged chording, the bass thumps out counter-melodies, strained yelping dissolves into pastoral harmony. Yet it all coheres thanks to frontman Benjamin Verdoes' pop instincts and the band's jittery energy.

More Than Just a Dream steps backwards--where its predecessor was shockingly felt, this settles for something more distant, theatrical, grandiose.

The album's finest moment comes on an aching version of Ray Davies' 'I Go to Sleep' that improves on the original (and the Pretenders' cover) by rendering it as a slow-motion, piano-splashed lament.

It includes some of the most thoughtful music of Eminem's career, and some of the butt-stupidest, and while there's a lot to like about both, the album feels transitional and muddled. [Jan 2005, p.95]

The Pickups also pile on the sophomore-album enhancements here, deepening a sound that scarcely wanted for depth beforehand.

More ambitious than on past efforts, Watson slips through quiet night spaces, and like Sendak's Max, puts on his wolf suit, making mischief of one kind, then another, until Wooden Arms flares with his vibrant energy.

It features another ten songs of standard Pollard-isms--vaguely British, Robyn Hitchcock–esque vocals warped by reverb and Echoplex mazes; surrealistic, first-thought-next-thought lyrics; sudden loud crunches of lo-fi guitar; and melodies that soar but never quite achieve the permanence of his best work.

It’s disappointing, then, that this impulse of creative energy has resulted in a record that feels flat and strained.

This deceptively named British band's second album revisits the terrific uproar of its debut only briefly before jumping headlong into more expansive, proggier territory.

Beguiling, gorgeous stuff--and smartly funny, too.

Fluorescence, their fourth studio album, has an overwhelming brightness.

His second album delivers fleeting moments of bliss, like a beach bum’s opiate dreams.

Where last year's Loud had a hefty helping of unshakable singles, this album's arc, however simple--sex, love, sex, repeat--is cohesive and sweet.

The Harsh Light of Day is being sold as a Great Album, which means ubersongcraft, which means the Beatles, and keep that pedigree coming. [Oct 2000, p.173]

Tightening the screws of his delivery, he's found a bruising poetry in a flow that once seemed clumsily conversational. [Jan 2003, p.93]

Vroom Vroom is scintillating new ground for Charli, totally unlike anything she’s ever done before, and still quintessentially her in its streamlined, indomitable turbo-pop.

This EP is spacious above the obvious clutter, and its grooves more resemble that of a funk garage band, thus there's more to be filled in. The cacaphony of those detuned, clanging metallophones is a compelling listen or three.

Mercifully, there’s no banjo--the Sons of Johannesburg are the less folksy, more decidedly middle-of-the-road band that recorded last year’s tedious Wilder Mind. That doesn’t save them from falling into 100 percent of all their other tropes, like substituting frenzied, overlong crescendos with truly grandiose stadium rock.

Reality Check vacillates between Serge Gainsbourg's slutty cool and Jonathan's Richman's childlike poignance. [Apr 2008, p.106]

As a whole, though, Careless World is simply mediocre.

For such a propulsive controversy-magnet, her new album is awfully toothless and indistinct.

This is an album of magnificent segues and, no surprise given the source, beautiful female vocals. [Sep 2001, p.155]

At his best, he sounds like he's sweating it out in a kitchen with flypaper dangling from the ceiling. But on The Appeal, he could be anywhere.

This is a cold, calculated record lacking in personality, though it certainly tries to deliver something that Scott is incapable of.

In fact, throughout, older brother gets the best of his carefree little sibling. Breezier doesn't always equal better.

She cements her place as the pop figurehead for the overlooked and underappreciated teenage girl in all of us. [Jul 2007, p.94]

Last Light still follows a logical, workmanlike path, but detours into arch, twitchy guitar and languid, countrified ballads that show a poised sincerity. [Oct 2007, p.108]

Sad-eyed generalists with a knack for cinematic spookiness, they aspire to Wolf Parade's adventurousness, but often descend into lumbering, Interpol-style self-seriousness.

There is nothing new to be learned from this album burdened by crudely formed raps about his already exhaustively covered life and deeply muddled politics. ... Still, the music at times almost makes it worth it.

The highlight "It's Not Enough"... proves [Townshend] hasn't lost his knack for pop precision. [Dec 2006, p.104]

C'Mon, C'Mon makes such consensus-building sound like a virtue, imagining a world where the Dixie Chicks and Stevie Nicks and Emmylou Harris and Dr. Dre's bass player can all ride the same tour bus. [May 2002, p.118]

Songs of Experience, clicks into place more boldly than Songs of Innocence did three years ago. Tempos are alert, riffs punchy, melodies sharp. ... It’s also too bad the album’s second half gets stuck in pensive midtempo mode and never recovers.

[Kiesza] serves up is one of the most elastic albums of the 1990s, both 20 years too late and also totally in time.

It’s the spirit of community that defines Honey, a doting mixtape that cherishes the one thing that matters most to Katy B: club culture. From making it past the door to after-hours rejections, Brien’s narrative thrives musically upon teamwork.

This set of songs recaptures much of their original nonchalant magic. [Feb 2007, p.86]

By giving us the best album of his career, and subsequently re-ascending to Top 40’s mountaintop, Bieber’s answered his own question: In pop music, it’s never too late to say you’re sorry.

It’s a confusing but enjoyable record that sidesteps the rap hand-wringing and telegraphed weirdness of the drama surrounding Yachty.

Unlike 2007's self-indulgent The Third Hand, here he wisely picks his spots, chirping a few modest ditties. Four albums deep, he's found his comfort zone.

On these subtly lovelorn songs, his voice quavers with a grounded, lived-in authority. [Feb 2005, p.92]

The production retreats into his comfort zone. But it is also really just a breakup album, and a really mopey one at that.

The energetic players temper Farrar's grave persona--for all the vintage touches, this is a deceptively funky band, as the sultry 'Down to the Wire' proves.

Survivor is relentlessly inventive in its recombinations. [Jul 2001, p.126]

The album feels unfocused, and this time, Alien Ant Farm don't have a novelty hit up their sleeve. [Sep 2003, p.111]

Storm is no Shaggy-style mall-reggae move; its beats and attitude are harder and more streetwise than Beenie's 2000 Art And Life. [Oct 2002, p.116]

Golden State merely sounds like Bush--not as buffed as 1999's The Science of Things, but slicker than 1996's Razorblade Suitcase. [Dec 2001, p.152]

Tiller thinly stretches himself to 19 tracks with no added dimension. It ultimately amounts to a checklist for Broke Boys-turned-Hurt Boys, with Tiller listlessly ticking the boxes.

Lonely Avenue's two knights of music nerd-dom use their disarming pop smarts to wryly sympathize with the hapless Playgirl cover boy. The empathy and humor run throughout.

The main problem with California isn’t that the songs are bad--it’s just that there are too many (16 for some reason), and not enough ideas to fill them.

These grooves shimmer brighter than anything he's done since 1999's disco-house monolith, 2Future4U. [Nov 2001, p.132]

It’s no more mixtape-like than anything else they’ve done, but Drift feels unusually scattered despite its lean runtime.

The problem bedeviling the first new Chic album since 1992’s Chic-ism is one of definition: What does Chic mean in 2018? To Rodgers and his collaborators, it means a Daft Punk album whose processed vocals and acoustic elements collide to abrasive effect; it means a tighter Maroon 5 album. Yet Adam & the Levines are nowhere in sight, nor indeed any major star with the exception of Craig David, Elton John, and Lady Gaga, the latter intoning the lyrics of an unwise remake of 1979’s “I Want Your Love” as if she were Minnie Mouse imitating Grace Jones.

Though they might always hit the sweet spots of DJDS’ first album, Stand Up and Speak’s comprehensive offerings--more substantial in structure and content than your average EDM--nod to the gilded early days of dance music across the country.

Big-name cameos... can't disguise the fact that this is one more rote chapter in the infamous Queensbridge duo's twilight. [Oct 2004, p.120]

Unfortunately, despite now working with David Bowie producer Tony Visconti, who infuses their angular, system-smashing screeds with timpani ("Good and Ready"), brass ("Shadow of the Dead"), and harmonica ("Go West"), Anti-Flag still don't possess the innate pop sensibility that's allowed Against Me! to make a mainstream move.

Sometimes, as on the Velvets-y vacuum of "Evol," the trio merely imitate instead of inhabit. But those moments are redeemed by many others that prove original thoughts aren't always necessary for a gritty good time.

Though modest, Skyscraper may prove to be an integral step in Interpol’s progression.

Though he sounds slightly out of place on the screeching "Lies X 3," standouts "We Live by the Beat" and "Kontrol Phreak" impressively blend synth-funk and neo-new-wave glamour.

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

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

On their fourth album, the Kings of Leon still rule with a messy hand, applying rough magic and blurry, slurred imagery to their swashbuckling rock.

All Delighted People documents his struggle between fealty to the here-and-now and preparing for the hereafter; accordingly, it's unwieldy, schizophrenic, and frequently devastating.

I'm With You is a much more concise record, both thematically and sonically, than 2006's double-disc Stadium Arcadium.

A prog-rock field trip that will give Diary fans something (else) to cry about. [Dec 2003, p.128]

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]

The Glass Passenger, the group's second album, chronicles McMahon's successful battle against leukemia, matching hyperemotional melodies with his tender voice on dramatic tracks.

So is Recovery a classic album? No. But is it an essential one in shaping Eminem's future? Absolutely.

Sadly, as Pit forges ahead in his campaign for world domination, his artistry is what's really being colonized.

[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]

Expectations for a crowdfunded album should be naturally tempered, and yet it’s hard to ignore that none of the songs on TLC present an engaging point of view as smoothly or with as much brass as the group’s biggest hits, “Waterfalls” or “Creep.”

Too much of the time, Evanescence get lost in the cavernous spaces carved out by their unsecret weapon.

The quintet mostly stays on message, doling out unpretentious poolside jams that recall ESG, Liquid Liquid, and the Human League.

This quasi-funky, horn-section-assisted record demonstrates that as a jazz vocalist, Ani's a fine folk singer. [Apr 2003, p.107]

The album’s blend of sonic gauze, earnest keening, electronic blooping, analog clatter, ethnic flavor, and nostalgic ’60s pop emits a rainbow glow that’s as comforting as it is comfortable.

Rae is an absorbing enough writer to keep F.I.L.A. afloat. He does a good job of sizing up an unquantifiable horror: being too embedded to relinquish one’s bloodletting past ways.

Regardless, boppers as cheeky and infectious as these sound like sacraments in the church of lo-fi fun.

Felix Stallings Jr. bounces back by sampling, quoting, and paraphrasing other people’s rubbery tunes, and showcasing them in similarly elastic settings.

The world that Worlds conjures is fantastical and defiantly cheery.

Highlights finds the former remix project paring down to less imaginative drum/guitar basics, sounding like a 5 a.m., post-Tiki party K-hole, or sex with a Cabana boy you thought for sure would blow your mind--and then just laid there like a starfish.

Over inventive arrangements that feature more live instrumentation than on any other Streets album, Skinner gives maturity a fresh coat of meaning.

While it’s no We Global or even a We the Best Forever, it’s not without its own outrageous merits.

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

It’s too long, and large parts of it are corny or forgettable, but in the context of Macklemore as a pop musician--and not a rapper--it doubles down on his strengths: well-crafted, sincere verses about his personal experiences combined with a better hook, usually provided by someone else.