Gleefully impurist and highly addictive. [Sep 2004, p.122]

Their jabs cut and the beats burn. [Nov 2004, p.118]

His single, "Cannonball," will be there for you after your next breakup. [Nov 2003, p.117]

[It] documents Stevens' transformation from unremarkable folkie Jesus freak to unorthodox Christian mega-talent. [Dec 2006, p.101]

This is not the story of lost faith that these thematic bookends seem to augur, but rather just a bunch of really good songs that have relatively little to do with each other.

Dive is a pretty and sturdily crafted collection of techno maybe-memories-- hypnagogic pop for a very discerning Ikea shopper.

Skillful if occasionally rickety, Lightning showcases a confident, evolving voice.

The Center Won’t Hold is a real-time examination of the fraying that takes its toll on peoples’ insides and outer shells during times both good and bad. Agitations about screen-borne life and unpleasant urges bounce off grander existential horrors; there’s no digging out of them, this record bellows, but thrashing around and attempting to find others to share the burdens will at least stave off malaise.

Run Fast is certainly more benevolent and interesting than the myopic records most people make post-40 about their changing place in the world.

In the hands of dapper producer Mark Ronson, the glibly sloppy, lo-fi brats are almost sculpted into garage-punk sophistication, adding extended psychedelic guitar lines, fleshed-out percussion, even retro-soul sax.

Unsurprisingly buoyant. [Oct 2005, p.137]

He sounds as if he's just seen his own specter in the mirror, but no worries--records don't get much more alive than this.

The surprise here is less that an album about emerging, stronger, from sorrow’s all-encompassing shroud somehow goes down like a goblet of spiked sunshine. The surprise lies more in how much more emotional power the guitarwork—fluid, generous, measured—brings to bear, how much weight it carries this time.

A soulful strut, abetted by a backing singer who's a ringer for Sam Cooke, plus subtle psychedelic touches demonstrate why they 
don't call it classic rock for nothing.

Armor is Bachmann's most vigorous post-Archers of Loaf full-length since 2003's Red Devil Dawn.

Equal parts faithful-but-twisted boom bap and avant-indie rock, the album drips with elbow grease. [Mar 2007, p.91]

Lazaretto's experimentation sounds ambivalent, its songs fractured and distracted.

The pervasive sense on Visions is of a young woman carefully pushing out of her own introversion, which makes the moments where she sings from the gut instead of the throat ("Circumambient"), or strives for human-on-human sensuality ("Skin"), all the more thrilling.

Emerald City may be his most unsettling work yet. [Aug 2007, p. 110]

The Bay Area band increase their stylistic range, with flashes of psychedelia, and creatively druggy overtones to balnce out the epic pummeling. [Oct 2007, p.104]

Gather, Form & Fly extends Megafaun’s back-porch mad science into unexpectedly epic realms, including straight blues and even pure pop, embellished with skronky, experimental sound effects.

The Dirty Projectors' best album by a mile holds that balance, all magnificent wobble, no collapse.

It’s a lot to take in, especially from a band formerly so minimalistic, but musically, it holds together.

There’s a feeling of forward momentum to the entire album but we might not like where it’s headed.

Banisters is far from the flashiest or most radio-friendly album Del Ray has produced, but rarely have fans gotten such crystalline, autobiographical work from the guarded star, who appeared to revel in the cool distance of her early albums. Now, she feels more present, and much closer to her music.

Consistent with his acclaimed “New History Warfare” series, it captures a human arpeggiator reconstituting post-minimalism, jazz, and metal in growling, moaning pieces with far more syncopated parts--percussion, bass, melody, harmony--than one guy recording without overdubs should rightfully account for.

Hello, Mimi Sparhawk, who sings lead on five of these 11 songs instead of her usual one or two, and it is glorious to behold.

Gigaton has a little something for everyone. It’s a complex, dynamic album full of earnest emotion and subtle humor. Its form factor recalls both 1996’s No Code and 1998’s Yield.