On the surface, it's big, dumb, and fun; just beneath, there's an improbably complicated band at work, showing its hand only on repeated listens.

Sometimes they get stuck in gilded lyrical vagaries, but simpler subject matter serves them best.

Because every Eels disc feels like a breakup album, this overt and actual one may at first seem redundant, or worse....But this also may be his most universal work, and it's heartfelt and true

Ravishing yet famished for attention, this overachiever would be bloody irritating if she didn't demonstrate a savvy command of pop hooks.

What could have been hipster reach is multiculti grasp of the sweetest kind. [Jun 2001, p.148]

The blunt-tipped guitar chop on the title tune, glassy music boxes and slurping synths of “Give Peace a Damn,” and the more-Stones-than-country “Honky Tonk Rules” are all genuine surprises that no other legacy act is giving up.

Viva la Vida Familiar.

Everyone from Lady Gaga to Muse chips in here with perhaps the strongest, most flavorful batch of tunes to reach an AI vet, and Lambert's polymorphous vocal skills unite dancefloor strut and hard-rock pomp in a convincing glam package.

Milky Ways is a clear upgrade, with better songwriting lending structure to his adventurous genre-hopping.

Clearly, it’s also a druggy album, and the highs are high--noticeably on “L$D,” whose stunning production turns from submerged to soaring, the jiggy “Excuse Me,” and the sexy, aforementioned “Westside Highway,” which has A.L.L.A.’s only hummable hook. Despite those peaks, the overall tone is more despondent.

Their most eccentric, diverse sounding record to date.

Kiss Land plays like a more considered, better-mastered continuation of Echoes of Silence, not anything dramatically different.

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]

Lykke Li’s songwriting is strong here, but the excess of electronic manipulation sometimes resembles a bedroom experiment.

Like their last three records... [Riot Act] balances emotive bombast with a taut, sweaty hard-rock attack. [Dec 2002, p.137]

While that obsession with the "big sleep" gives Own Your Ghost a gloomy power, these cross-cultural pals might consider a less depressing repertoire next time.

Pretty much every song on this prog-pop band's sixth disc evokes moodiness via some sort of weather, event, or technological-flux metaphor. It's a suitable theme for elegantly mutable yet hummably compact songs, led by marimba as often as guitar.

As intellectual and introverted as Krell often is, he’s at his best when he and the music simply let go. What Is This Heart? delivers in the second half when nearly every song peaks with exuberant finales.

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

The record is crisply produced, with jittery, epic songs that just happen to be about getting older and maybe a little more cynical. [Nov 2007, p.125]

Snip a few of the duds and maybe Future Brown would be one of the most consistently interesting and understandably weird debuts of the year.

Boilerplate MOR.... But what Liz Phair delivers is authenticity. [Jul 2003, p.107]

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

[A] pensive disc. [Oct 2005, p.137]

Imagine if N.E.R.D... were from France and used to make house music before going soft rock. [Aug 2004, p.108]

His single, "Cannonball," will be there for you after your next breakup. [Nov 2003, p.117]

Tight, upbeat pop-punk songs reminiscent of early Elastica and late Donnas. [Jul 2004, p.110]

As It Ever Was, So It Will Be Again, feels more like a collage of sounds and styles than a coherent, considered statement.