Heartbreaking Bravery is both entryway and endpoint, a listening experience that's harrowing and gripping and, no matter how you come at it, moving. In other words, it remains true to its title.

The real act of provocation here comes in the streamlining of what had been cacophonous material into a solid bag of actual tunes.

A sultry brew of Gypsy, Mexican, and pop ingredients that's adorably silly and unexpectedly moving. [Mar 2008, p.100]

He also lightens his fifth album with sweet, sincere interludes.

Pretty much every guitar band going is currently toiling in the same ’90s nostalgia mines that Kempner dives into here, but few are able to do so with both technical prowess and its emotive content intact.

The mall-ready hooks and occasional stabs at acoustic pop on Deja Entendu have been replaced by the sort of Radiohead-indebted bombast that begs to be played at lease-breaking volumes. [Dec 2006, p.99]

This is some serious whimsy. [Feb 2008, p.92]

This is music to play in dark, velvety, womblike bars; this is music to play while buying cigarettes; this is music for well-dressed poor people. [May 2003, p.109]

When Phosphorescent's Matthew Houck and his band pay homage to Nelson, it feels like a greenhorn hitching on to the pothead patron saint's biodiesel wagon as a credibility grab.

Given time, Isbell could be roots rock's Flannery O'Connor. [Aug 2007, p.102]

Deerhoof's... most ambitious record, but it's also their most familiar. [Feb 2007, p.85]

When the clamor stays spare, the threesome's clank and bleep stumbles into beauty, and their feedback morphs toward free jazz. [Nov 2006, p.105]

Despite subjecting himself to psychoanalysis and attempting to purge himself of ego, Ashin has created something emphatically empathetic out of his inner turmoil. He's going through it like everyone else, but the very personal Anxiety is remarkably messy, dramatic, poignant, and at times, beautiful.

[Has a] swirling spy-movie ambience. [Jun 2004, p.108]

The Wolf works best as a concept album about never surrendering the night when you got your first real six-string at the five-and-dime and were tryin' to break free. [Oct 2003, p.108]

BAIO’s always had strange and smarts to offer in his world-class quartet; The Names finally gives us a first-person view.

Josephine Olausson's Ono-esque delivery remains an acquired taste, but that's surely by design: If she sang any sweeter, Love Is All's songs might evaporate like cotton candy.

New Magnetic Wonder couldn't be brighter if it had been performed on the sun. [Feb 2007, p.82]

Collett achieves both scope and cohesion on these tenderly twanging tunes, making his way assuredly through slow-burning swoons ("Henry's Song"), nimble boogies ("Charlyn, Angel of Kensington"), and back-porch laments ("No Redemption Song").

Ironically, spitting over minimal head-knock beats from WHY? and Advance Base, Serengeti sounds reborn.

Reflection takes a shallow look inward and a deeper look outward than you'd expect from a nonstop party.

Cass McCombs confronts life's miseries with a smirk and a softly rocking beat on this enjoyable sixth album.

This folkie indie-pop band doesn't slam you with hooks on its fourth album--everything is catchy in a modest, reasonable way.

Deep Fantasy is exhausting, cathartic and a little scary.

Just as his piercing voice and languid tunes echo Neil Young's rustic side, a Neil-like tough-mindedness runs through Green's stark meditations, which confront despair head on.

Some will find it a disappointing follow-up to one of the great rock records of the past few years. Some will jump around and pump their fists to every chorus without giving the lyrics much thought; some will live and die by every word. Some will even find it all kind of funny. Nobody is necessarily wrong.

The Stand Ins, is packed with the same compound sentences, sprawling narratives, and precarious, barn-dance guitars that made its companion piece, 2007's "The Stage Names," so weirdly gripping.

Nocturnal Koreans, the band’s 15th album, forgoes power for stillness, and manages the unprecedented: It’s the best thing they’ve done in 14 years.