Minekawa doesn't just get by on riding kitschy gimmicks and trends: anything but bubblegum pop or cute rock, her latest, Maxi On, is a deliberate, understated effort that works below the surface with fragile electronic arrangements and delicate noise collages.

Point is at once less sprawling and less insular than Cornelius' earlier work. [Feb 2002, p.110]

They elaborate on the love/disappointment/death themes of Peggy Lee's "Is That All There Is?" while merging the sensibilities of the Velvet Underground and Vitamin C. [June 2001, p.153]

Singer/songwriter Will Sheff gives overkill a good name on Okkervil River's fourth album. [Sep 2007, p.136]

Sauna opens with the hissing and crackling of a steam room, and things get Benji-er from there.

Overgrown's biggest fault is lack of quality control; it's an uneven listen, with peaks like "Retrograde" segueing into the quotidian piano recital of "DLM," with an undistinguished back half that doesn't linger in the mind afterward.

The album is stunningly crafted; their influences (Joy Division's mystic menace, Siouxsie Sioux's gothic howls) are proudly worn on blackened sleeves, but rather than dance around such matters, they dance with them.

The songs are about love and sex, but a hint of nihilism still lingers in Wolf's melodramatic vibrato. [May 2007, p.91]

[Springsteen's] loosest, most vigorous album in two decades. [Jun 2006, p.84]

While there are mistakes and bum notes — and the group's enthusiasm about recording for the BBC had pretty clearly waned by the later sessions--the gorgeous harmonies from those legendary young larynxes sound as glorious as ever.

On his debut album, he shoots for the stratosphere and lavishly scores.

She might be Hank’s granddaughter, but Holly Williams doesn’t let the lovesick blues get her down on this twangy-yet-smooth sophomore effort.

This is a record that sounds like it could be performed in living rooms, in department store foyers, on mall stages, at any moment, anywhere. The songwriting stands strong enough that the context of the music matters less and less, and the instrumentation becomes secondary to the tonal and lyrical moves--chamber music for the microdosing set.

Final statement Funeral Mariachi is a showcase of their lush, accessible side while remaining as peculiar as ever.

Goes for basic sun-dappled guitar pop. [Nov 2004, p.118]

Bun combines swagger with substance without losing a step. [June 2008, p.104]

Love letters, brief smiles, a touch on the arm, friends, and pets abound; throughout, Russell poignantly captures and echoes life's ephemeral delights.

Think of this impressive, 25-song double-CD compilation as Singles Going Screaming -- a testament to a Canadian punk institution.

Hot Thoughts sounds like Spoon and Dave Fridmann’s idea of a futuristic, guitarless record, which is to say it’s full immaculately constructed rock songs arranged on layers and layers of synthesizers and studio fireworks.

A soul-drenched, horn-inflected labor of lust. [Jul 2007, p.100]

For the first half of the album, this tested formula works as well as ever.... Moone runs out of flavor, however, when the Apples trade colorful and ebullient for derivative and listless.

This time around, the band square their artier tendencies with their sweet tooth for classic psych-rock. [Aug 2002, p.110]

Not many of the expansive, leisurely songs on Asleep In The Back stick in the memory once they've ended, but they swoon nicely. [Mar 2002, p.127]

Processed guitars and keyboards, wordless 
vocals, and muted beats blend into a pastel wash of sound, as shifting patterns hint at familiar styles without assuming a clear shape.

For listeners coming into the album without knowledge of its overarching concept, PROTO is also full of pop-forward compositions that are striking in their own right. ... For a record about the development of machine cognition, PROTO is remarkably human at every turn.

This Philly-born belter sounds like a direct reaction against the Auto-Tune era, with Sullivan turning her pain into a performance worthy of a vintage Apollo headlining gig.

As a whole, Elephant in the Room lands somewhere between concept piece and exhibition, balancing an array of new and familiar styles. ... Seven years after his breakthrough, he remains one of the best writers in the game—but rather than a big fish in a small pond, he’s only showing room for growth.

Ripped is about three- or four-minute songcraft--never the highlight of their resume. [Jul 2006, p.88]