Even the production on Beyond sounds plucked from the trio's Bug heyday. [May 2007, p.85]

Japandroids fans will be happy to know that Near to the Wild Heart of Life is a Japandroids album, pushed to 11 even in the quiet moments: towering riffs played on maxed-out amps, drums hit with due diligence, big whoa-oh harmonies, passionate, evocative rock n’ roll songwriting about girls and alcohol.

These Brits--featuring two members of Mclusky, a great band that died in 2005--spit fiery, trebly guitar­rock venom with such lusty glee that following them to hell actually sounds inviting.

Hval continues to cleverly connect, and explicitly comment on, matters of sex and politics on her third album.

With his SAT-acing vocabulary, Bird still rocks some of the best rhymes in the game, cobbling together his own foreign language from arcane terms.

Confirms [Molina] as one of underground pop's most beautifully odd voices. [Jun 2006, p.83]

Reversing their gradual progression toward gentler, grander grooves, the Pornographers' sixth album is both their liveliest since their first and their most immediate.

A supremely dainty-assed achievement that jerks real tears. [Oct 2002, p.111]

Mix[es] xylophones, spaghetti-Western trumpets, and quirky trick guitars to sweeping effect. [Jun 2003, p.109]

While the novelty factor alone makes it worth the download time, it works as a cohesive album long after the initial shock wears off. [Apr 2004, p.91]

'Houseclouds' is dance pop of hit-worthy catchiness and the taut, pounding 'Freak Out' puts to shame most contemporary psych outfits. [Sep 2007, p.133]

On Chromatica, she seems too afraid or to removed from the Koons-loving side of herself to get too bizarre or to let the production dominate, two of Artpop’s best qualities. ... Chromatica functions as both stopgap escapism and yet another portrait of someone among us who’s trying to patch together her identity again.

We’re supposed to admire the fact that 30 years after their debut album, they haven’t moved an inch closer to definability.

The results are simultaneously raw and symphonic, always ascending higher while on the verge of total collapse.

Call it the happy aftermath of a midlife crisis. U2 is relaxing, reasserting some beliefs critics love to shove back in their face--most importantly, that uplifing art is not necessarily dumb. [12/2000, p.233]

This reunion packs no shortage of vintage wank--knotty, largely instrumental songs that surge together and drift apart with a proggy, loose-limbed precision.

Greenspan turns the pathos of 2004's Last Exit into nearly intolerable bathos, with the beats now noticeably dragging. [Oct 2006, p.98]

My Dinosaur Life, on which the band strikes a radio-ready balance between mayhem and melody, may well trigger their long-awaited breakthrough.

Testimony brings rap's raw nerve detail to the sturdy slow jam, nullifying the need for nods to R&B of the "rap and bullshit" variety.

Red Mile is thus far Crack Cloud’s ultimate rock odyssey—a combination of epic poem-leaning lyrics with spacious, anthemic compositions that recall everyone from Gary Numan and early ‘80s David Bowie to Broken Social Scene. .... A disarmingly earnest exercise in philosophizing, its dense meta-ness more outlined with every listen.

Its sense of self-awareness, internal editing and transitional sonic wanderlust remains as compelling as ever.

Project is prime second-tier Polly, opening melodic and textural doors unlike much else you’ll hear in 2016, and it amounts to a lean, compulsively listenable 41 minutes that makes a conscientious effort to do something larger with her gifts.

It takes a minute for the standouts here to stand out, but it's an enjoyable wait.

Forward, it’s enticing--but in reverse, it’s sublime.

This isn’t quite your weird uncle’s Wolf Eyes, capable of clearing a den and ending the party in 30 seconds flat--but it’s a Wolf Eyes that’s still capable of scaring off half the guests. The other half will find a lot to love here.

His best in more than 30 years, he teams up with members of Ladybug Transistor, Teenage Fanclub, and others for songs heavy on rememberance but energized with chin-up horns and strings that'll sound fresh to fans of the Decemberists and Arcade Fire. [Apr 2008, p.92]

They deepen their sound past lo-fi into something redolent of actual studio polish.

The album represents an impressive development upon what is already one of the most compelling sounds in rap.