Get over Herring's Shatner-like earnestness like you did with Destroyer's Kenny G moves on Kaputt and you'll unlock the furrowed brows, baggy eyes and bulging veins beneath the metronomic perfection.

Ndegeocello still swings for the same musical fences she did in '93. Here, though, she puts more shots into the seats. [Mar 2002, p.129]

She treats Americana like a wellspring of weirdness, not a retro refuge. [Sep 2002, p.134]

Bright Yellow is the soundtrack for a small town, like New york, where everybody knows too much about everybody else. [May 2003, p.112]

So rewind to indie-rock the way Mark E. Smith started it: reduced, smart, and dirty-sweet as used bubble gum. [Oct 2001, p.130]

It’s Georgia Maq’s raw-edged vocals you’ll remember, and the consistency of the musical canvas opens space for her to work. Her lyrics articulate human entanglements with a lack of sentimentality that belies how much she cares, and like Hop Along’s Frances Quinlan, she has a gift for evoking shame hand-in-hand with fury.

This Berlin-via-Manchester producer's debut EP blasts through not only genres, but the divide between the otherworldly and the physical, too.

Like all of High on Fire’s efforts, Luminiferous is an extravagance, no doubt, but it’s their most refined. And everyone can afford a few of those every now and again.

None of Collapse’s derailments are permanent, and this one only lasts a few seconds before the music puts itself back on track. If the EP leaves you wanting anything, it’s more malfunction, more frenzy, more extended deviations from the Aphex Twin playbook.

While Ty Segall may not be his opus, but it’s certainly a testament to his fruitful brain and the unparalleled output that spills forth from it--a mind on a marathon, yet to stumble.

Love Streams manages to break through the vaulted cathedral ceilings and peer above the clouds, largely eschewing the degraded, gothic textures Hecker has become so fond of in favor of more vivid, almost celestial palettes.

A multifaceted, densely layered sound. [Oct 2005, p.138]

His loosest, most inspired set yet. [Mar 2005, p.86]

Expansive yet intimate, ornate yet seductive, this is capital-A Art rock without pretense, but with tremendous heart.

Forging modern myth and cryptic missives into something as immediate and accessible as this is no small feat. Almost 25 years on, Ulver has crafted the best entry point for their catalog–a dramatic pop saga impossible to deny.

Every musical stroke is a concise yet instinctive caress.

That’s the trick of Middle of Nowhere: it never rushes to define what comes next. Instead, Musgraves lingers in the in-between, finding humor, heartbreak and a surprising amount of peace along the way.

Danger Mouse sets a consistent tone that wryly chafes against Albarn's paranoia. [Jun 2005, p.105]

Seasoned yet no less hyper--there's still plenty of shouting in unison -- the band lays down a more stable foundation for the lyrical zingers of singer-lyricist Gareth Campesinos.

While Fearless (Taylor’s Version) isn’t quite the essential listen that a brand-new record typically would be, it’s certainly a compelling revisitation, executed with the same rigor and attention given to all of Swift’s projects.

At the piano bench for the poignant ballad 'Fix' and the stunning, assured finale 'Arc,' Blackshaw makes you forget all about his guitar and your earthly cares.

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]

Mixing stately story ballads with Cee-Lo-esque uptempo jams, Back to Love presents songwriting substance as style, and although that might not be flashy, it's mighty refreshing.

It’s a testament to the extraordinary breadth of Oh No, as Lanza metamorphosizes from an intriguing curiosity to a formidable contender in contemporary electronic music.

Less deadpan and more florid than its predecessor, Now Only is heartrending in new, different ways. Sonically, the record doesn’t stray far from Mount Eerie’s elemental standard operating procedures, where meandering, nylon-strung acoustic strum or heavy metal thunder underlie Elverum’s streams of consciousness.

Pleasingly, A Love Surreal eschews the idea of calling in favors, instead laying bare Bilal's own songwriting and production prowess.

His patron saints appear to be Harry Nilsson and yacht rockers like 10cc, and rarely are either channeled with this little cheese and this much panache. He merges these influences with what's quickly become his signature guitar sound, an effortless style that can be playfully discordant. It's these dissonant bits that elevate DeMarco's easily digestible pop.

With five songs clocking in at more than seven minutes, often thanks to detours down E Street, it's a big-idea album that feels small and personable, even as it's kicking you in the shin.

Parquet Courts’ ridiculously good new album Wide Awake!, is a delirious ode to the power of collectivity thinly masquerading as a gameday anthem.

Blare Falls in the prescribed order, on shuffle, in a plane, on a train: You’ll dance, you’ll cringe, your Mom will freak out, your homies may start rumors about you--which is as it should be.

These arch Frenchmen make precision-tooled pop that somehow retains a sense of urgency and playfulness--an impressive balancing act consistently slam-dunked by effortlessly ingratiating choruses.

Blueprint reminds us that retro hip-hop is always better when it remembers laughter. [Dec 2003, p.128]

The guest cast's presence never infringes on the album's overcast beauty. [March 2003, p.120]

The most eloquent artistic response yet to the World Trade Center tragedy. [Sep 2002, p.130]

They sound like they're too busy tearing their limbs off and hitting one another over the head with them to think about what the songs actually mean. [Apr 2003, p.102]

Where Turn Into’s multilayered arrangements sometimes felt scrunched, Everybody Works blossoms.

Up-tempo and uplifting, this largely self-produced record blurs distinctions between accessibility and avant-gardism.

Dylan's voice does the same things it does for so many of his own songs: pries open unfamiliar seams of feeling inside phrases long abandoned to cliché. It helps that this may be the best-produced album of his career.

[A] sensational debut--she’s evolving into an artist serious pop listeners can commit to.

[Out My Feelings (In My Past)] is not the bright and exalted counterpoint you might expect--it’s still grim, but Boosie turns his focus outward.

With guitars that ring and roar and percussion that gushes and thunders, they finally turn theirlyrical perculiarities into a legitimate churn of ideas, rather than a posturing diversion. [Feb 2008, p.92]

Even though we’ve spent 10 songs becoming accustomed to Chloë’s milieu, Tillman upends that comfort on the 11th song. Ultimately, Chloë and the Next 20th Century signifies something larger. Father John Misty will always be interesting.

The vocals can still dilate your pupils, but her melodies (on "Ruler," "The Package Is Wrapped") deserve equal attention, as Stern bids to become one of the few finger-tappers who's also a songwriter.

Collins and Bejar, who sent ideas for Labyrinthitis back and forth Postal-Service-style from their respective homes in Galiano Island and Vancouver, craft compelling songs that deserve respect in their own right. They go beyond pure pastiche by tying everything together with arrangements and lyrics that are charming in equal measure.

It can feel both more possible, and yet further out of reach.

Like his peers and predecessors, he utilized vocals to elevate his shuddering half-time low-end above mere physical and intellectual impact--and into the listener’s emotional realm. One listen into Stott’s roomy fourth LP, Too Many Voices, and it’s clear that’s exactly what he’s going for.

Though it runs just 33 minutes, Tourist in this Town feels like a road trip movie, a scrapbook of mixed emotions compiled from postcard-sized travel diary entries.

Years of gradually opening up their minimalism have imbued Low with the wisdom to make every new layer count. [Feb 2005, p.91]

Echoes is a profound listen that, despite its veneer of cynicism, oozes pain and crisis.

He’s not shaking those defining qualities on Light Verse. Instead, that distinctive voice is a foundation for towering songs, an album that grows and blooms with epic crescendos (“Yellow Jacket”), slow-burn earworm hooks (“Anyone’s Game”), and tongue-in-cheek, Shakespearean clown wisdom (“Nobody’s perfect or as dumb as their luck”).

A far more thoughtful album than the glossy and disconnected Magna Carta Holy Grail, it’s a 36-minute confessional that attempts to bring JAY-Z’s narrative full circle.

Despite Rooty's many delights, it feels like Basement Jaxx didn't really know how to top Remedy. [Aug 2001, p.127]

A series of six-minute tracks that set some sort of richly (or ripely?) spastic texture-beats against ethereal drone-shimmers. [Aug 2001, p.136]

In timbre and voice alike, the new LP is startlingly, richly fulsome, commingling the mysticism of Smithsonian Folkways LPs, IDM’s furrowed futurism, and the free-fall questing of Laurie Spiegel’s 1980 landmark, The Expanding Universe.

From beginning to end, LP4 is remarkably expansive. Not louder, necessarily – just deeper, messier and quite willing to tolerate discomfort. Middle age has never felt, or sounded, like a more beautiful bummer.

Slowdive has outdone itself on its fifth full-length, Everything Is Alive, which elevates its pre-breakup work in ways that feel nearly unimaginable. Indeed, Slowdive in 2023 is capable of writing both the hands-down most affecting song of its career (“Andalucia Plays”) as well as its most in-your-face (“The Slab”), while also incorporating modular synths as foundational elements in its creative process for the first time (they’re the first notes you hear on opener “Shanty”).

He's struggling to reconcile the unease of his past with the confusion of his present, but Doris proves that Earl's future is secure.

Ultimately, Fearless Movement bolsters Washington’s prowess as a jazz bandleader engaged in cultural and musical curation. Rather than transforming the actual language of composition or harmony or improvisation, he stacks his influences and relationships to form an ensemble sound that is monumental, and thoroughly his own. In or out of jazz, that means so much.

A confident and assured debut proving that home address aside, he fits squarely into the Black Hippy aesthetic.

As halting, spare, and downbeat as its predecessor was giddy, verbose, and, okay, downbeat. [Jul 2001, p.125]

From the lyrics to the beats, the pleasure of Piñata is in the details.

Vampire Weekend have made a truely fresh, fun, and smart record. [Feb 2008, p.91]

Even more than on FLOTUS, the vocal effects and electronic textures of This (Is What I Wanted to Tell You) create a fractured and sometimes staggeringly beautiful sonic environment for his songwriting, which is as strong as ever here.

Cool It Down, is less of a step forward, or in any meaningful direction, and more of a twirl in place. It’s a pleasant and polished listen, more palatable than its predecessor, with glimpses of the band’s top gear. But fans anticipating some return to the frenzy of “Tick,” “Man” or “Pin” will keep waiting.

Nicer than Pulp, less sappy than Coldplay, Elbow excel at meticulous orchestral pop that doesn't take itself too seriously.

They maintain a slow, directionless drift that weights their third record with the dread of what’s beyond the sky.

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.

It’s the band’s brightest, most animated album. The sound is crisp, every layer discernible, lacking the blurs and reverberations that constitute traditional rock production and instead drawing from the rhythmic separations that characterize ‘80s pop and freestyle.

A sci-fi tint shifts the perspective from Atlas Sound's usual layered introspection: Inner space now has become outer space.

The narrative structure of nighttime reveries can often feel unsettling, but throughout Slowdive, the band use foggy images and slippery transitions as a soothing sort of déjà vu--you feel like you’ve been here before, even though you obviously haven’t.

On Caution, she is still doing it better than most of her students, and sounds more comfortable than she has in quite a while.

Against all odds, this is a lyrics record, deliberate where you expect it to be insane (or inane), a smart listen in the tradition of Largely Incomprehensible Lyrics That Nonetheless Sound as If They Had Actual Time and Multiple Drafts Put Into Them.

[Frontman Miles] Kurosky finally has the audio toys to jazz up his Technicolor sandbox... [Oct 2001, p.134]

Compton doesn’t need to exist, but it does, and that it’s actually pretty good and fresh in a year brimming with vibrant, relevant young voices, says something.

What makes Human Performance a narrowly great record is that it bucks narrative. It’s not their most sensitive record or politically astute or least dissonant but all of these things--their most convincing performance as humans to date.

PB&J casually swap instruments and styles while carefully nuturing their ever-delicate tunes. [Mar 2007, p.88]

The most roundly captivating pop album released so far this year, indie or not. It’s a record to wear out through Labor Day, if not longer.

Dynamics or structure are not a major concern; these songs sound happy to just get the ignition working.

Piteous Gate is a porous, sensual record, revealing and alluring in ways that other albums aren’t.

In small doses these acoustic dirges and country-rock laments--played at tempos that make Crazy Horse sound like Slayer--pass by indistinctly, but over time, the slow-blooming guitar solos and age-old folkie melodies of tracks like 'Bowery' and 'Trouble in Mind' reveal their sturdy, dignified strengths.

In trying to transcend dance music, he’s actually made its purest form: an album that’s a listening experience.

Slave Ambient feels like a more back-alley Byrds filtered through a gauzier Spacemen 3 lens.

Each trek follows a similar path: a tumultuous hike through sludgy quagmires and craggy doom, culminating in a melancholic, melodramatic guitar solo. This repetitive pattern accordingly obfuscates the LP’s overarching dynamic arc, although the record’s not without its surprises.

While Earle's brawny attack might seem ill-suited to Van Zandt's wistful angst, he does his idol justice on this vibrant covers set, delivering supersonic bluegrass and starry-eyed ballads with the same thoughtful finesse.

Like Joni Mitchell’s spare 1976 masterpiece Hejira, Not Even Happiness is a lonesome travel album par excellence: a document of transience and half-formed inspiration, reveling in riddles and paradox rather than firm conclusions.

Too often on tape, though, the album sags under its own weight.

Throughout the record, words are just pathways through which the melody travels from one sweep to the next, but nothing really comes into focus except an almost free-floating regret and confusion.

[Eitzel's] best album of closing-time kvetch since 1993's Mercury. [Dec 2004, p.124]

This is a record that creates tension from the cryptic and release from the inexplicable. [Jul 2003, p.105]

What we’re left with is a stylistically stimulating album that further fleshes and mellows out the band’s peppy, preppy sound, shading it towards country music and acoustic stoner-rock--the sort of thing you might hear at, say, an impromptu Earth Day concert in a park.

Minekawa doesn't just get by on riding kitschy gimmicks and trends: anything but bubblegum pop or cute rock, her latest, Maxi On, is a deliberate, understated effort that works below the surface with fragile electronic arrangements and delicate noise collages.

Point is at once less sprawling and less insular than Cornelius' earlier work. [Feb 2002, p.110]

They elaborate on the love/disappointment/death themes of Peggy Lee's "Is That All There Is?" while merging the sensibilities of the Velvet Underground and Vitamin C. [June 2001, p.153]

Singer/songwriter Will Sheff gives overkill a good name on Okkervil River's fourth album. [Sep 2007, p.136]

Sauna opens with the hissing and crackling of a steam room, and things get Benji-er from there.

Overgrown's biggest fault is lack of quality control; it's an uneven listen, with peaks like "Retrograde" segueing into the quotidian piano recital of "DLM," with an undistinguished back half that doesn't linger in the mind afterward.

The album is stunningly crafted; their influences (Joy Division's mystic menace, Siouxsie Sioux's gothic howls) are proudly worn on blackened sleeves, but rather than dance around such matters, they dance with them.

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