Stuff this simple can turn into art that's fantastic or a fantastic disaster. Coachwhips walk the line masterfully. [Feb 2005, p.91]

The best bits are when the band’s own drummer Dale Crover picks up the bass for a third of the album’s 12 tracks.

This is Ross at his least cohesive and most clueless since his 2006 debut, Port of Miami.

10,000 Hz Legend offers heavier arrangements, starker contrasts between soft folky orchestrations and hard prog-rock noise, more guest stars, fewer pretty tunes, and several gigabytes of robo-speak. [Jul 2001, p.126]

A snappier comeback than 1998's Foundation. [Sep 2004, p.120]

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

Add some beatboxing courtesy of Tom Waits (!), and you have an occasionally forced, yet boldly magnetic change of pace. [May 2008, p.94]

It wants to achieve what other singles artists (Demi Lovato, Justin Bieber) do with hits-and-filler records that boast enough of the former to justify the existence of the latter. Instead, Miike Snow’s got the filler but only half-failed attempts at hits.

While the similarly mystical/mewling Joanna Newsom seems adrift in fantasy, Tiny Vipers finds wonder in being rooted firmly to the terra.

Playing like 12 unmastered seven-inches varying wildly in style and volume levels, Nothing Fits vacillates between feral Wire putter, psych-addled Wipers soar, and bleary No Age blur.

Rather than give us a full album of "The Strokes Misremember the '80s," the band falls back repeatedly on self-imitation.

Showcases vocals more boldly than Melody A.M. [Aug 2005, p.98]

The self-deprecation still rings hollow, but the hooks never do. [Jul 2003, p.110]

Almost every musical style imaginable is crushed into this three-and-a-half minute, something-for-everyone product... But No Doubt's newfound introspection is a tad hard to swallow-

At just under a half-hour (a runtime probably inspired by the days when vinyl records could only contain about 40 minutes of music), Lysandre is a frustrating listen.

Judging from the spirited but wildly inconsistent material on this trilogy's first two entries, a little quality control would've helped, perhaps funneling the best of the three albums into one solid offering.

Featuring 10 tracks of gooey, dislocated goodness, its gravity-free atmospherics are just right for soundtracking summer moon treks, intergalactic windsurfing, and asteroid volleyball. Down to earth it is not: These deep but compact space jams can't get much higher.

The efficiency of his drollness has grown uncanny, in fact, and the creepiness of its perfection is part of the fun.

Green Day’s 13th studio album set sees them step outside of their comfort zone, experimenting with a range of new sounds and styles. However, this leads to mixed results.

The record is so one-note it makes its predecessor sound like an entire season at the London Philharmonic.

Innocence Reaches is lighter than last year’s appropriately titled Aureate Gloom, but it’s less fun than it thinks it is, and in pursuing a more “current,” electronic-inspired sound, it’s lost the psychedelic charms of a better post-peak Of Montreal album like, say, 2013’s lousy with sylvianbriar.

Despite a slew of tasty melodies... [it] feels a bit choked and cautious. [Oct 2006, p.102]

What gets stultifying over the course of 38 minutes can be invigorating in small, pep-talk size bursts.

Imperfect Harmonies plays as if Frank Zappa had lived to experience the glories of the Crystal Method, Ozzfest, George W. Bush, and Final Fantasy X.

Modeselektor sprinkle the Flying Lotus–style funk sparingly, melting their Teutonic cool just enough to reveal a previously missing musical link: soulfulness.

It's a winning rethink, salvaging the best bits of a musical style that's too easily missed. [Apr 2008, p.100]

Masters of the Burial lacks the character to be more than the sum of its lovely parts: fiddles, regret, and a pretty voice.

Unlike Beck during his purple-paisley "Midnite Vultures" phase, Damian Kulash employs a soul-freak falsetto that's sincerely accurate, and with the help of Lips producer David Fridmann, he and his power-pop pals master the Okie pranksters' baroque whirls.