Instead of updating psych garage folk, they allow its corpus to fester in skronky breakdowns, churning feedback, and... a wicked spirit-medium session. [Jan 2006, p.91]

A strangely enervated Sonic Youth record, one that exchanges Murray Street's golden-years vigor for a sad sense of duty. [Jul 2004, p.108]

System's repeated willingness to make so much noise in the service of getting nowhere reveals an enduring idealism. [Feb 2003, p.96]

By turning indie-folk into nonstop neurotic cabaret, Oberst may have made the best album of his prodigious, prolific career. [Sep 2002, p.133]

She can sound brand-new and busted-down in the same verse, and she sings like a guitar player. [Oct 2004, p.120]

With subtle sonic shifts (such as chanting on the almost-poppy "Trembling Hands"), the songs are reliably dynamic, turning hushed beats and lightly scratched guitar into overwhelming drama.

Her vision is worth the price of submission. [Jun 2007, p.90]

Reign of Terror is evidence that these kids never stopped Armageddonit even once they got punk cool.

Deerhoof's trademark guitar-noise scribbling has been transformed in the studio, resulting in bulky, segmented yet hummable compositions that signify--we think--the triumph of cutesy creativity over grouchiness.

What it sounds like to be sucked into doomed romanticism rather than aspire to it. [Jun 2005, p.108]

Room's similarity to its predecessor ultimately bespeaks a purity of vision, not a dearth of new ideas. [Dec 2003, p.121]

Assembled as carefully as he once cut up a cappellas, it's a dance-music textbook.

With likeminded ensembles like Brooklyn’s colorful psych jammers NYMPH and Switzerland’s Eastern-flavored, Voodoo-inspired collective Goat transmitting dreamscapes from the beyond while exuding familial, Zen master vibes, Yoshimi’s OOIOO has joined that spiritual fray with this Gamelan-inspired trance inducer.

It's the rare rap album that actually rewards its mixtape following.

The entire point of Melody’s Echo Chamber is for listeners to find their bliss while Prochet quests for hers. While Emotional Eternal sustains this winsome, pastel streak, it’s mellower, more assured, more grounded, far less a product of happy studio accidents than what came before.

Wandscher (an original member of Whiskeytown) drives the ship with riffage ranging from gently atmospheric to snarling quasi-metallic. Still, it's Sykes' voice that impresses.

In her tuneful insistence that every unhappy couple is unhappy in its own way, Lewis remains one of our foremost chroniclers of heartache and its discontents.

Byrne and Clark rarely interact vocally, sometimes suggesting two solo outings spliced together; and the grooves have an anonymous vibe.

It isn't just a celebration of the warm-up DJ; it's a self-portrait of an artist who wouldn't be who he is today without once having had all those empty rooms to fill.

The songs are foundationally solid enough in their swaying rhythms and sublime melodies that they don’t need twists to keep them interesting, but the care Emmy puts into the album’s crevices makes it one of the fullest-sounding and fullest-feeling singer/songwriter LPs of early 2016.

If Dirty Projectors are no longer indie A-listers with the expectation of having each album provide shapeshifting genius, the upside is Lamp Lit Prose sounds like something Longstreth wanted to make rather than had to.

One of his strongest outings ever.

As you work your way through the new material, it becomes apparent rather quickly that Shabazz Palaces have elevated their jazz-damaged phrasing into a unique musical language. Butler, of course, responds to the music with idiosyncratic lyrics to match. ... Gangster Star leans towards a funkier, more upbeat mood.

Ten crisp roots-rock tunes in a mere 40 minutes, The King Is Dead finds the Decemberists in serious course-correction mode -- which is a relief, if also kind of sad.

Invite the Light is perfect for those times when you need gentle inspiration for cracking open the blinds and facing the world, but the album’s lithium-like vibes are more stabilizing than invigorating.

As usual, the North Carolina trio's latest is musically contemplative (mostly acoustic guitar or piano, bass, drums, maybe strings) and lyrically bountiful (camera-ready metaphors, idiosyncratic settings, characters with warts).

Earlimart's sixth full-length doesn't break new ground -- those Elliott Smith comparisons will keep on coming -- or approach the sublime sexiness of fellow Los Angelenos Rilo Kiley. But it's an undeniably solid set of droney hooks.

While it offers clear highlights—“Run On,” “Holy Winter,” and “Time Goes By” feel like hallmark songs—its loud-quiet-loud pattern is predictable. This is well-trod territory for MONO, never reaching the emotional heights and cerebral intensity of Hymn to the Immortal Wind, the surprising instrumentation or disco-like drums of Pilgrimage of the Soul, or the more nuanced thematic play of the Dante-inspired Requiem for Hell.