The hopelessness that loomed over his prior work gives way to a sort of circumspect hope on The Horizon Just Laughed, a new sense of things working out or having the chance to, and that’s victory enough.

Is it essential? Absolutely. With only a guitar or piano, and a voice that is developing into one of the most expressive in rock, Marshall crafts deeply textured explorations of heartache, terror, longing, dismay, and emotions I'm pretty sure I've not found yet.... Rock will see few finer releases this year.

Dub dropouts and freestyle toasts monkey with the beat; the rap on 'Magnificent Seven' yields to 'Armagideon Time,' then returns for more. Many people probably danced. [Nov 2008, p.89]

In flashing back, Cox smears just the right amount of Vaseline on the lens. [Mar 2008, p.96]

Mainly they noodle through indeterminate world-music jams that’d feel equally ignorable at mud festivals and at ethnic restaurants.

It's a techno album, straight up. [Aug 2005, p.98]

Embryonic finds these wild-eyed Okies sounding even more adventurous and less eager to please than at any time since 1997's four-CD experimental sonic goof, "Zaireeka."

Here is another deeply considered collection of top-shelf beats and uncompromising-though-still-pop-enough raps that justifies the fairly awful personalities driving it, which, depending on your tolerance for wounded narcissism and a complete lack of insight, is either fascinating or frustrating.

Even though The Glowing Man offers a satisfying, substantial conclusion to the Swans discography, listeners shouldn’t expect a now-or-never, paradigm-shifting opus.

An eclectic vanguard sound. [Jul 2006, p.88]

The band's interplay has grown both more varied and intuitive.

Thee Oh Sees are always the same but different, drifting through genres before twisting them out of shape, from the bubblegum of Castlemania to the metal-tinged Floating Coffin. On A Weird Exists, they do this more successfully than ever before. [Sep 2016, p.80]

Where Cox's Atlas Sound output is scattered and eclectic, Microcastle, Deerhunter's third album, is focused and consistent.

Tweedy's influence shows primarily on the two songs he wrote, especially the stoic title-track ballad. Yet the album's best moment belongs solely to Staples--a spare version of Randy Newman's "Losing You" that might well stand as definitive.

There are flashes of Yankee's shimmer on Ghost, but the album is more elusive, more disjointed. [Jul 2004, p.103]

Though they may take several listens to reveal their beauty, the payoff for your patience and attention is substantial.

Vibrates like youth itself.

A Deeper Understanding feels like the ideal War on Drugs album--the one where the songs are the strongest and the instruments the most uniquely cathartic, and with a mist that gives it all an alluringly blinding sheen.

What first makes the record baffling is also what makes it fascinating, as the band toes the line between experimentation and self-sabotage. They wring maximum potential from bizarre ideas.

Rainbow is a document of Kesha coming into her own, blossoming into the artist she’s always truly wanted to become.

These eight tracks are big, bold, dynamic, and show a particular mastery of modular synthesis.

Though Villains is a perfectly solid, occasionally bloated QOTSA album, it’s the first to really feel like a missed opportunity.

With his unassuming voice--like a more agreeable Lou Reed--and spare folk-rock tunes, he's got a gift for importing cosmic subjects like mortality ('Demon Days') and transcendence ('If It Rains') into vivid everyday vignettes, minus any cheesy melodrama.

The Jane's Addiction album Jane's Addiction should have made last year. [Jun 2004, p.108]

Proof that simple pleasures always beat academic detachment. [March 2002, p.137]

Rich in minor-key melancholia, twangy reverb, and retro keyboards. [Apr 2003, p.108]

Nightmare Ending may not be Cooper's most cohesive record, but it's a perfect representation of the indie-rock generation's most diverse ambient musician.

It's initially unnerving to witness indie's most celebrated airy faeries butch it up, but the result ultimately satisfies their what-the-hell-do-we-do-next dilemma better than any record since Ágætis byrjun.