The real orchestration is in Beam's voice, a sigh so angelic it masks the religious turmoil within. [Oct 2007, p.106]

We have You Surrounded is a terrific accessible hard-rock album deserving more than cult attention. [Apr 2008, p.94]

The joyous problem: All the repitition, all the sunshine, all the sound can get tiring. But the same goes for anything that releases endorphins this ecstatically. [Oct 2008, p.122]

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.

An emo album that you don't have to be 17 to actually enjoy. [Sep 2006, p.100]

Get over Herring's Shatner-like earnestness like you did with Destroyer's Kenny G moves on Kaputt and you'll unlock the furrowed brows, baggy eyes and bulging veins beneath the metronomic perfection.

On her Dum Dum debut, assisted by Blondie and Go-Go's producer Richard Gottehrer, she cages contagious odes to husband-Crocodiles singer Brandon Welchez (as well as anxious ruminations on losing him) in metallic distortion.

Like any (sorta) self-titled mid-career album, this one functions best as a thrilling overview of what OPN is capable of, from the sample-driven soundscapes of his earlier releases (“Answering Machine”) to the ominous, cinematic thrall of the Uncut Gems soundtrack (“Shifting”). Oneohtrix Point Never’s music has never sounded like it’s angling to get played on radio stations. With Magic Oneohtrix Point Never, he creates his own instead.

In the way the tunes crash and throb, much of the album could be the "Milkshake" follow-up Kelis never got around to recording. [Jun 2006, p.84]

Sucker is just an exceptionally good pop album.

Asobi Seksu do something My Bloody Valentine can't--leave Shields behind.

Alex G continues to find the sensitivity in rough edges, and offers uneven poetry for our own relentlessly uneven lives. ... An overarching commitment to juxtaposition and bricolage that’s palpable throughout the tracklist. In their brevity and slapdash composition, they feel like essential components of the Alex G m.o. It’s that m.o. that holds House of Sugar together, even as it rejects a single unified concept or “story.”

2's developments in subtlety and humor.

Harry’s House reinforces Styles’ signature sensitivity in an authentic way and shows he’s more than earned his place as one of music’s most innovative artists. More importantly, he reminds us that he’s a pop star playing by his own rules—and he’s here for the long haul.

Their most fascinating record to date, and possibly their best as well.

Harvey is the strange case for whom a return to straight guitar-bass-drums is risky--it might be mistaken for mere rock. But she has no mere in her. [12/2000, p.215]

The record is not a disappointment, it's a progression.

The mini-classic of ultramelodic singer/songwriter pop that he's always hinted at. [Oct 2006, p.99]

[Kiesza] serves up is one of the most elastic albums of the 1990s, both 20 years too late and also totally in time.

"Indie rock" has long since ceased to be either "indie" or "rock," of course, but Surfing Strange signifies on both counts, just when we desperately needed a refresher on the fundamentals.

With a tangle of voices and viewpoints, both songs [“First Letter from St. Sean” and “A Better Sun”] write beyond Boucher’s near-exhaustive projections-of-self to see things from with a larger, more insightful point-of-view.

Abraham's broken-glass belloiw is often matched with folk-siren backup vocals that disorient more than they soothe. Multi-tracks thicken and slur the guitar riffs, heightening both the tension and complexity. [Nov 2008, p.102]

The album presses pause on Holter and her band at an uncomfortable moment of transience--when their relationship to these years-old songs is clearly comfortable but also mildly antagonistic. However, they still manage to bring out the richest valences of Holter’s pristine and eccentric songs, and more than ever before, communicate her incredible skill as a passionate, intuitive, and controlled performer.

He's still way too fond of show-tune orchestration, and then there's the tossed-off corny stuff, but the orneriness of Newman's now-64-year-old wit makes George Carlin seem like Dane Cook. [Sep 2008, p.120]

A blatant 180 degree shift from the confines of his wretched comfort zone, Redemption is full of creative risks that pay off in spades.

Gibbard mostly dispenses with his trademark jitters, leaning into Death Cab's tuneful guitar-band thrum with a confidence that eventually sells Codes and Keys' moments of 
eager-beaver optimism.

This is the album that Justin Timberlake is too famous to make in 2013, its musical scope and track lengths modest, its sexual appetite and commercial ambition immodest, its star willing to offer up whatever cheesy line, vocal acrobatic, pop hook or funk groove or electro flourish that it takes to keep you listening.

As concept and program, Sullivan's best album to date boasts every curtain call and lighting effect designed to flatter its star.