Free Energy know that what they're emulating is about bliss not meaning, and they're savvy enough to embrace pop simplicity without condescending to it.

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

It's well within the Boss' right to try and freshen up old material, especially 18 albums in, but this one lacks a through-line beyond the distracting (and occasionally straight-up embarrassing) Morello.

Cole's keen sense of injustice registers throughout 2014 Forest Hills Drive, whether slagging white artists for artistic thievery or seething over national media outlets pigeonholing black genius into sports/pop either/ors.... But the absence of "Be Free" still detracts. Unless you're the type of moviegoer who sits patiently through the end titles, feel free to duck out of "Note to Self" a bit early and head over to SoundCloud.

They make each shimmer of postnatal whimsy seem like an eternal gulag of the spotless mind. [Sep 2005, p.109]

Over 38 taut minutes, these New York kids reflect the mirror-ball gleam of primo INXS and "Emotional Rescue"–era Rolling Stones onto the lives of today's young, rich, and wasted.

Buddy Miller pares down the arrangements and Moorer relaxes, allowing her dark, sultry voice to simmer. [Mar 2008, p.106]

Showcases skittering electronics framed by grounded, dynamic percussion. [Apr 2007, p.88]

It mostly works: Shave a couple of the non-Conor tracks and it'd sit comfortably with his best.

It's such a confident display that you barely notice the English-as-a-second-language lyrics. [Nov 2003, p.117]

Strangely enough, Utah Saints have never sounded better... [Sep 2001, p.163]

At times, it's as if he's looking over Rivers Cuomo's shoulder during a chem exam. [Jul 2003, p.110]

The album works best when Black's mood swings between Technicolor dreams and depressing quotidian details.

Her enthusiasm immediately leaps from the grooves, but this debut also reveals an emotional and musical range her neo-retro peers lack.

E6 can't quite keep it up throughout, though they still sound delighted to mess with sounds both full-throttle ('You're Bored') and loungey ('My Idea of Fun').

Player Piano's handcrafted tales of loneliness and bad romance draw quiet power from Hawk's charmingly reedy vocals, while the layered synths and other scruffy keyboards evoke subliminal longings and anxieties.

Though the 16-track set achieves no sonic heights, Assbring's stirring lyrics and faint yet convincing delivery convey heartbreak gracefully. [May 2008, p.98]

To compensate for the loss of [drummer Jerry Fuchs], the band gets by with help from former Outhud/!!! alchemist Justin Vandervolgen, who mixed the album to accentuate its disco grooves (see the title track), and Zombi's Steve Moore, who added synth arpeggiations to the epic arc of "Oaxaca."

This full-length debut confirms Taylor's love for Arthur Russell's underwater electronic grooves, but these fussy, avant-prog slow jams rarely come up for air.

The toughest cuts are still the early singles. But shorty's in the process of becoming something bigger than a hot, patois-spitting grime MC. [Nov 2006, p.101]

Comes off like a less foreboding version of [Sigur Ros'] moody orchestral drift. [Oct 2006, p.94]

Scorpion is stronger when Drake stops narrating the circumstances of his own life and simply writes more of the breezy, cocksure songs that seem to come so effortlessly to him.

Despite being so joyously engulfed by Sia’s voice, the songs come over as dispossessed orphans, all a variation on that same theme of being lost and held down by overbearing powers and temptations.

By the time one gets to the final track, a head-scratching take on Pink Floyd's "Wish You Were Here," the overall effect is a decidedly uncomfortable numbness.

Minogue delivers bliss like no other (wo)man or machine.

The beats by producers Black Milk, 9th Wonder, and Havoc are strictly no-frills, but just hot enough to keep these cranky yet lovable old MCs' joints from stiffening up.

Deep cuts like "Man or Animal" are as hot as anything this side of Led Zeppelin II. [Jul 2005, p.95]

Yours Truly occasionally provides pummeling feedback rock ('It's the Weekend'), but when Lytle's lullaby vocals suggest, "You should hold my hand / While everything blows away / And we'll run to a brand-new sun," it's like Bruce Springsteen's open highway finally reached a melancholy kid from Modesto.