Second Hand Heart is a whisker less awesome, but in the last month only Earl Sweatshirt’s album could match its acerbic brevity.

Tennant and Lowe's rueful melodies and vocals dilute the euphoria. Classic Pet Shop Boys, in other words.

Like art, Vampires is dense; like pop, it seems to float in effortlessly from some place you're sure you've been, but by some trick of déjà vu eludes your conscious brain.

Philippe Zdar handles most vocals, sneering through the propulsive dance-punk single 'Toop Toop' but failing to sustain the drones that dominate this overlong disc's second half.

With her remarkable voice—slippery, shadowy, haunted by the ghost of itself—and dolorous melodic sensibility, Gendron renders whatever she’s feeling (grief, awe, bittersweet joy) as a complex continuum. .... Utilizing a proper studio for the first time, with Dirty Three drummer Jim White and improvisational guitarist Marisa Anderson joining on several tracks, Gendron adds new layers of intuitive fluidity to her songs, while also carving out time just for herself and her fermented sorrow.

Preposterous and sensational, We Love Life grapples with nothing less than how best to prove you're alive. [Oct 2002, p.116]

Finds these thoughtful Brits exploring even more emotional territory. [Mar 2004, p.96]

If Oneida are feeling hunted or hemmed in, they haven’t gone to ground: Expensive Air is, above all else, a barreling rush over the barricades and a frenzied, defiant dash toward whatever remains of freedom on the other side. Here it comes, indeed.

Exchanging their volatile tendencies for restraint and focus, Godspeed You! Black Emperor have created another incredible work and one that finds them again evading the confines of formula--even if it happens to be their own.

Gone are the prior albums' "tasteful" (i.e., boring) slow-burners; El Camino's 38 minutes are pure thrust.

Sexistential (Young) arrives not as a nostalgia exercise or victory lap, but as proof that Robyn’s particular synthesis of pleasure, vulnerability and pop rigor remains maddeningly hard to replicate.

Dream River flows from one track to the next, with a similarity of tempo that makes it play like eight movements of one 40-minute song. But a few moments stand out.

Pompadoured George Taylor Jr. has more than enough melodic grace and pretty-boy swag to nail the sound.

There's still something small and handmade about the Thermals' music. [Sep 2006, p.112]

The aptly titled Wake Up the Nation hardly feels like a nostalgia trip; in the taut, two-minute boogie-punk number "Fast Car/Slow Traffic," Weller could be describing himself in relation to his heritage-rock peers.

ESG's DIY tracks have a raw, unfinished feel--echo-drenched vocals buried deep in the mix, jagged hen-scratch guitar, taut bass lines as infectious as mononucleosis, and reverberating layers of percussion... The group's 1981 debut single, "Moody"... is one of the funkiest songs ever recorded. [Sep 2000, p.181]

A near-masterpiece of magical sounds that are both familiar and wildly new, a stunning blend of classic Americana and classical orchestration.

Inches compiles them all, from the high-voltage shriekathon "Blackouts on Thursday" to "Hold on to Your Genre," where a churning bass line meets shimmery guitar worthy of a new-wave Edge. [Jun 2004, p.108]

The songs on The Letting Go that flirt with familiar forms... feel completely devoid of his pretentious tendencies. [Oct 2006, p.94]

UGK 4 Life is a fitting capper to this Texas duo's storied career--nothing groundbreaking, just funky, rough-hewn, celebratory tracks.

Marion's approach varies, but his surprisingly soulful songs consistently connect, a significant feat considering we only hear his voice through a Fender.

The self-production here is a bit murky, maybe, and the drums and vocals have seen sharper days. But these dudes still turn sharp corners.

They're still wildly unpredictable--and still committed to not singing in English--but the dichotomy between the adrenaline rushes and chill-out moments seems a bit more purposeful.

Thanks to its introspective depth, it's equally well suited to solitary listening, the rare mix that connects dance music's public sphere--joyous, communal, kinetic, chaotic--with a more private kind of rapture.

Far from a run-of-the-mill concert LP, Live provides a much-needed reminder of Pylon’s understated genius--not just as a live act, but as unparalleled, influential alt-rock progenitors.

Albini, drummer Todd Trainer, and bassist Bob Weston lock in together one last time—a wiry whirlwind of concision, all jokes and referents (including a wink to the late Mark E. Smith of the Fall) and honed dynamics on their leanest LP, at 28 minutes.

Like Robert Earl Keen, he has a way with a punch line and the frat-boy fans to prove it--they're gonna love 'America's Favorite Pastime,' which recounts the 1970 no-hitter Dock Ellis pitched on LSD. The rest of us will admire 'Bring 'Em Home,' a spirited call to get our troops the hell out of harm's way.

It’s a seamless, flawless mix that in Moodymann’s hands becomes a timeless capsule spinning across the galaxy to rally any generation that finds it.