O'Rourke mostly contributes electro-folk noodling for a laptop-friendly coffeehouse, but Tweedy's tunes are glum gold. [Jan 2003, p.98]

Hardcore is mostly content to refine the band's epic, frequently breathtaking constructions.

The bedrock combination of redlined guitars and Mark Arm's adenoidal wail has only been rendered more caustic by two decades of watching lesser lights cash out. [June 2008, p.114]

Here, [Califone] take a straighter path on their seventh album... but with the same basic ingredients. [Nov 2006, p.97]

Grooming their jam-band shagginess and spotlighting their songwriting chops, Philadelphia indie poppers Dr. Dog produce a clean, big-sounding album that uncannily evokes Summerteeth-era Wilco and Soft Bulletin–era Flaming Lips.

The Far Field can’t match its predecessor, but it isn’t without its highlights.

This is the most important artistic statement from NIN leader Trent Reznor since the late '90s.

The effect is like gauze with teeth--chill-out music that never stops looking over its shoulder. [Oct 2006, p.104]

This is the soundtrack for when everything feels like static and you can’t bear to press on.

The results are brilliant, but the album too often focuses on the latter two-thirds of the album title at the expense of the first.

Delivered in a frail squawk recalling Seattle singer-songwriter Perfume Genius, his coming-of-age songs carve intuitive, 
idiosyncratic paths (spidery guitar, buzzing electronics) to mountaintop indie-rock catharsis.

Idealism shows off plenty of blaring synth riffs. [Jun 2007, p.92]

Maybe not what they originally had in mind when they used to call it “Electronic body music,” but a stunning reinterpretation nonetheless.

Don't Stop boasts gleaming dance-pop production from first-album collaborators Richard X and Timo Kaukolampi, plus Bloc Party/Kate Nash producer Paul Epworth and Franz Ferdinand's Alex Kapranos.

Wave(s) is louder, catchier, and about half the length of The Water(s).

In dealing with the inevitable change that loss engenders, Ed Schrader’s Music Beat and Dan Deacon have crafted a memorable and eclectic record.

Both sides would be well served by a bit of mingling. [Mar 2007, p.91]

Kiss delivers plenty of unexpected layers, employed judiciously in service of Beam's usual ruminative ideas about good and evil, love and death.

Lacking the bluster and/or baritone to pull off the stumbly, ESL lyrics, Migala's drowsy fables wander aimlessly. [Sep 2001, p.164]

Unfortunately, timelessness does not always equate with flawlessness.... it is all a little too pristine and sanitized for someone's protection...

Some marriages end with shrieks, others with sighs. On Loud Planes Fly Low, Rosebuds co-conspirators Ivan Howard and Kelly Crisp set their breakup sighs to a Greek chorus of lo-fi keyboards, singing things they can't bring themselves to say.

This ain't perfect, nor is it exactly sui generis, but it still ought to bump up their summer-festival-lineup-poster font size by a solid five points or so.

While this album is inarguably Konono’s slickest offering yet, slick remains a relative term with these lo-fi guys.

Sometimes Kieran Hebden's electronic music is dawn-over-the-Buddhist-shrine gorgeous. [Jun 2005, p.108]

Pedals reveals a group of reenergized vets who've hardly mellowed with

At its best moments, the EP is experimental and detail-oriented. At its worst, it sounds like an empty pastiche of ideas drawn from a time-tested deck of Reznor-patented Oblique Strategies. ... If consistent, headline-grabbing smaller releases are the way to keep music fans listening and interested in Nine Inch Nails, then keep them coming.

At its best, Suckers' baroque pop struts confidently in glam platforms, blithely eager to please.

Let's have a toast for the ladies who stick it to the douchebags.