CHVRCHES' debut is at its best on its revenge tunes.

Simply enjoy the band's increasingly deep groove, its rich crosscutting of violin and accordion melodies and its mastery of both Gypsycore trash and lilting Euro-reggae. [Aug 2007, p.106]

This Montreal orchestral rock combo's previous efforts were lush and woozy, like a half-remembered dream, but Roaring Night is the stuff of nightmares.

A dark, tense record, but one still crackling with life. [Sep 2004, p.114]

Sometimes trance-inducing, sometimes wildly dynamic, the album is a sumptuous, woozy feast that proudly dances on the lines between nirvana and reality.

Boldly, My Krazy Life is in the vein of Kendrick Lamar's good kid, m.A.A.d city, with a developed, knotty and, ultimately, deeply moral narrative.

This album should be met on its own terms; it’s willing to do the same for you.

For such crackling peaks, there are also times where it seems Blake has found himself at the forefront of a heady new genre, trap-schmaltz. ... Despite those shortcomings, Assume Form stands as Blake’s most coherent statement to date. The Spartan singer-songwriter tropes of his debut, the half-baked collabs of Overgrown, and the overlong The Colour in Anything fall away to reveal a more dynamic Blake.

Sure, emo bands cry over their myriad problems all the time, many of which are delivered either as mopey confessionals or with Gerard Way-ian gothenticity, but rarely are they so post-apocalyptic.

Thw Quin twins' new-wave pop hooks are stroonger than ever. [Aug 2007, p.109]

Milking the quiet-LOUD dynamic a drop more, this four-song EP's title track morphs a gentle guitar bath into a fuzz-pedal masterpiece.

An ambitious but interior new sound. On i,i, Bon Iver’s expanding universe feels at once new and familiar. ... Vernon is still the dominant creative force, but on i,i, he steps confidently into the role of curator and conductor (an approach he may have adopted from his work with Kanye West). The result of this collective energy is an album that’s both frank and easygoing, reveling in the magic of close personal relationships.

His third album mostly shelves the wit and sui generis style-clash. [Jun 2005, p.108]

Haunting. [Dec 2006, p.98]

A rousing, enjoyable pastiche from start to finish, Thirteen Tales is an awful lot of fun...

The Von Bondies' calling card is the urgency of [Jason] Stollsteimer's voice as it sands down the shop-worn chord progressions. [Mar 2004, p.92]

Her latest musical effort, More Issues Than Vogue is proudly campy (that cover art) and deeply poignant.

Let's just put it this way: Throw All of a Sudden on while playing GameCube, and you'll have the most dramatic LEGO Star Wars experience imaginable. [Mar 2007, p.94]

Despite the Dap Kings versatility--they were more hushed and drowsier backing Charles Bradley on last year's Victim of Love--and Jones' indefatigability, there aren't many new ideas here. That's not the point, though. The point is that music from another time can still thrill us in this one because of its practically tyrannical insistence on bliss.

If there's a method to this madness, you definitely won't find it here. [Nov 2005, p.101]

Dirty Sprite 2 is a tremendous compendium of everything you want from a Future album in 2015.

Galactic struggle to accompany all these signifying voices, sometimes resorting to hard, strident rhythms that don't really augment the performances.

[He] gets back to the sweetly twisted folk rock that he does so well. [Nov 2006, p.100]

Libraries seems huge, a cathedral of the grandiose emotional desperation that Phil Spector and Brian Wilson once framed so dramatically.

Start Here does a great job of cataloging the highs and lows of early milestones: first kisses, first breakups, leaving home for the first time.

Even if your knowledge of Turkish is zilch, you can’t help feeling these 10 songs deeply. Verily, Garip is sonic alchemy.

Night Thoughts honors Suede’s longstanding place in Brit-rock history as theatrical brooders with a penchant for pop and post-punk, while also celebrating the five-piece’s growth by supplying listeners with another round of swirling dance ballads (the gloomy, arena-filling “Outsiders” and the twinkling “No Tomorrow”) and operatic, Dog Man Star-ry ruminations (“Tightrope”).

On Halsey’s 13-track oeuvre, they present a masterclass in songwriting and production overflowing with a seductive industrial canvas as well as noise-rock, punk choruses, and fuzzed-out guitars.