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.