The music on their third album, Mind Control, shows a broader vocabulary of anachronism.

Though Will Yip has already spawned a modern alt-rock empire from the modest Philly suburb of Conshohocken, Time & Space is the album that’s been waiting for him all his life.

Whether he’s teasing out the darkest parts of America’s history with an acoustic guitar, or allowing a genteel tremolo to ring as a meditation on modernization, it’s easy to get caught up in the disorienting, psychedelic drift of past becoming present. It’s even easier to just relax and float downstream.

More danceable (and vulgar) than previous releases.

Thanks to its polyrhythms and rich instrumental textures, The Animal Spirits is as likely to appeal to fans of experimental rock music (especially electro-tribal searchers like Animal Collective, Gang Gang Dance, Fuck Buttons, or Dan Deacon) as it is to those who regularly spend evenings at the club.

Hyde and Smith prove they still have the Midas touch.

With Cash gone and Willie spent, hopes hang on Hag to deliver classic country, musically and poetically. And he doesn't disappoint.

The albums ten tracks flow into each other as if conjured by the most sublime after-hours DJ. Atmospheric beatless expanses cascade unpredictably into crashing hi-hats just a track later, and it’s the most laid-back direct challenge to the banal 4/4 thump dominating dance floors since Japanese transplant DJ Sprinkles’ 2009 landmark intellectual deep house revival, Midtown 120 Blues.

She's always juxtaposed the cruel and the kind, and here, the baroque arrangements are even more complex and her voice even prettier, with both only underlining the dark currents running through her songs.

The songs often end up miles away from where they started, but the characters and melodies persist.

Doesn't sound as raw as they probably wanted it to. [Oct 2004, p.120]

Nas' heart is in the right place but his mind is somewhere else entirely. [March 2003, p.119]

Even with its sonic detours -- the slightly nutty percussion, a lot of general yelling -- the record feels a bit monochromatic, like a just-fun-enough surrey ride whose background keeps repeating.

Slow burners like "Dying Slowly" and "Sweet Release" smolder like Chesterfields in the rain. [Sep 2001, p.164]

It's a Wonderful Life comes off like a Magical Soft Mystery Bulletin. Yet, those iridescent orchestrations seem to be covering for the underdeveloped dirges that dominate the album. [Oct 2001, p.127]

For all its grim honesty, Whitmore's fifth album also boasts a survivor's tenacity.

Krug clearly takes Sunset Rubdown every bit as seriously as his day job.

On WIXIW, everything is in its right place.

This transcendent debut is the real stoner rock. [Aug 2005, p.103]

Tanglewood roars back to life with a massive band, a detailed sound, and a voice that sounds ravaged but right. [Oct 2005, p.142]

Like most free jazz, it's music of the moment, a work of granular epiphanies that accrete, finally, into a magnificent whole.

Though Bonfires' pacing is erratic, the band keeps winsome romance close.

High-energy electro eccentricity. [Jun 2006, p.80]

A conduit for sound at its most expressive potential, No Home of the Mind squeezes all it can from the five-person form into something warm and full and unprecedented.

The production is as overwrought as the antiwar themes. [Apr 2007, p.88]

While Gore is far from impenetrable, it’s still evident that Deftones are the most interesting and esoteric thing the radio-festival circuit might dare touch.

Lotus and his fellow former collaborator Kamasi Washington turn up again here to add to the downcast din, but their inclusion only highlights Bruner’s dispositional shift.

In lesser hands, all this weight could feel leaden. But Miguel remains a craftsman, and leisure gets its due.