Both intoxicating and deliciously unmemorable. [Oct 2003, p.113]

Roni Size and Reprazent come back so fast and furious on In the Mode that their record sounds less like a jungle reinvention than a call to arms. [Nov. 2000, p.207]

The third album from New Jersey's Steel Train is a textbook example of how to use splashy arrangements and high-octane performances to enhance tepid material.

Lyrically, he's back to his old tricks--shitting on haters, shouting out himself, somehow rhyming "orange" and having "diamonds like kablooie."

While he played the easygoing, likeable mope that rattled through life on Never Hungover Again, Cody is more daring and complex document, bled through with cynicism and exhaustion.

What makes this music special is what Smith does with all that stylized sparseness, transforming it into something alive and dynamic instead of merely sleepy.

Lotta Sea Lice is strange, occasionally awkward, and easy to love. Like a good buddy movie, it’s a little sentimental, and possessed of a deeper wisdom than its goofy premise initially lets on.

The songs on this album may well become standards for fans at a certain place in life, but they definitely raise the standards for Into It. Over It.--as well as for anyone who actually still thinks emo needs help being revived.

Pressure Machine is, in totality, a commendable and genuinely surprising big swing, which mostly connects. It’s a project that proves The Killers won’t yet settle for festival-headlining rock legacy status.

On Frog Boiling in Water, DIIV have once again shrewdly adapted, pivoting away from the chonky riffs of Deceiver and delivering the most tense, subtle, and cerebral music of their whole career.

Warm, soulful, occasionally political, Wright was a private-press gem who deserved more.

A subtle hallucinatory pastiche. [Jun 2007, p.92]

Much of 4 feels like beautifully baroque soundtrack music desperately seeking a movie about a rainy afternoon.

With Father, Son, Holy Ghost's exquisite, beyond-indie melodies, arrangements, and musicianship (the playful "Magic," the elegant "Just a Song," the fiery "Die"), he [Christopher Owens] and bassist-producer JR White flirt with perfection.

It’s hard to say if Homme and Pop are better served by the nine-track length or not. Post Pop Depression doesn’t feel particularly tight or focused, but neither dude is conceptual enough to really justify a larger sprawl.

Tucker and Tividad have discovered their indie-pop Neverland, and a fanciful, free-flowing sound to suit it.

Alright's sparkly high-life beats... all gleam with upmarket panache. But strong medicine always requires a little sugar. [Feb 2007, p.82]

Banhart brings the peace and love, but not the understanding. [Sep 2005, p.104]

Smart, left-field parodies such as 'Hardcore Gentlemen,' which sends up early-'90s horrorcore, prove that Tanya Morgan may go hard in pursuit of rap dreams, but they haven't lost their infectious sense of humor.

Frightened Rabbit's best material rivals brothers-in-brood the National and Arcade Fire, and even their B-level stuff is better than that of most acts working in this vein. But unlike those leading lights, these guys don't have the pop instincts to throw in the occasional punk scrappers, chamber-folk interludes, or disco rave-up to keep things from getting monotonous.

Functioning adults that they are, Dillinger Escape Plan have realized that tightly wound precision left to its own devices is about as much fun as orgasm denial. Welcoming the pleasures of melody's slow release, they've retained their desire to rage and contort.

For the first time in years, Pearl Jam are seizing the moment rather than wallowing in it.

With songs this hooky, it's impossible not to enjoy Cut Copy's lush new-wave revival. [June 2008, p.106]

Spell-casting pop and Twitter branding this is not; the excellent force of this album is how it taps into the sheer pain, anger, and sensuality of the idea of “the witch,” rather than its archetypal signifiers in pop culture.

This is not groovy indie finery; there’s a rock-as-high-art vision at work here.

There are expected blips of Fiery playfulness -- pinballing "bop bop" vocals, backward-masked beats -- but this is as straightforwardly evocative as abstract pop gets, with the hazy beauty and fractured narratives of a vintage Polaroid slide show.

[Corgan's] the closest thing our generation has to John Fogerty--a control freak who actually knows what the fuck he's doing. [March 2003, p.118]

Silkworm's songs aim for a groove and grace almost completely foreign to their genre. They don't always get there, but when they do, the results are breathtaking. [July 2002, p.110]