Cut Mr. Hansen up, and he reassembles nicely, but weirdly enough, it's tough to out-Beck Beck. [Jan 2006, p.92]

You won’t hear much new on Vertigo, but what’s there is lovingly, potently rendered.

Like Coldplay killing time with the Happy Mondays at Manchester's Hacienda club. [Mar 2005, p.92]

Romantic defeatism can be charming if you infuse it with enough daydreaming, art-school blues. [Mar 2005, p.92]

Feels like rock that Beavis would play if Homme were his pal.

Often lives up to its title, but they ought to find a kind way to break it off with the horn section. [Jul 2003, p.110]

As up-to-the-minute as the album sounds, Kim herself remains stuck in the past, eulogizing B.I.G. or strapping on the horny scorn she birthed so long ago. [May 2003, p.110]

After ten years, Rancid's still-rock-solid kinship is evident in their lock-step chemistry. [Oct 2003, p.108]

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

Jimmy Eat World might still be stuck in "The Middle" a year from now, but this album's more thoughtful homestretch at least suggests the possibility of alternate futures. [Nov 2004, p.115]

Peaches seems to be having much more fun with her sleazy subject matter. [Nov 2003, p.116]

Summer Sun sometimes sounds like a band treading water at low tide, but obsessively exploring the contours of a moment is what Yo La have been about from day one. [Jul 2003, p.109]

Where Basement Jaxx's diversity used to serve a club-DJ flow, here they let it off the leash, with mixed results. [Dec 2003, p.126]

Unfortunately, Coombes seems to have the glam era's fuzzy-brained approach to pop songwriting nailed a bit too well. [Apr 2003, p.106]

If The Cure feels like a recapitulation of the band's career, it's because they've recorded songs very much like these before. [Aug 2004, p.103]

Hoffer preserves [Trevor] Horn's professional sheen but not his swinging charm, leaving us with all bathwater and no baby. [Feb 2006, p.86]

Musically, A Blessing and a Curse is the Truckers' least complicated album. [May 2006, p.93]

Uneven but fascinating. [May 2006, p.92]

Talkie Walkie 's detachment is still, well, pretty -- virgins might commit suicide to it, but most likely they'll just swoon.

The radio-friendly album Liz Phair should have made. [Oct 2003, p.113]

Both jarring and hypnotic. [May 2006, p.91]

Over blotto new-wave/industrial beats, they party hard and get lost on the way home. [May 2003, p.116]

The sharp riffs only occasionally add up to anything with a pulse, but the Pornos have always been bad mathematicians. Archaeology -- that's their subject.

Vanderslice's arrangements glide between loping acoustic strums, delicate picking, and stately piano chords, though for such a quiet affair, Kid Face has a surprisingly sturdy bottom end.

She might be Hank’s granddaughter, but Holly Williams doesn’t let the lovesick blues get her down on this twangy-yet-smooth sophomore effort.

Skillful if occasionally rickety, Lightning showcases a confident, evolving voice.

Many of the tunes emerged after the duo’s chance meeting in Todos Santos, the Mexican town Buck calls his second home. This sense of discovery shines through the record’s layers of polish. Its immediacy makes Arthur Buck a rarity in 2018: a record that wears its messy heart, as pleased with its flaws as it is with its power.

The old comedy adage goes that if it bends, it's funny, but if it breaks, it's not. Tell that to Drive-By Truckers, who break everything in sight yet still strike tragicomic gold every time. The Big To-Do, their eighth full-length, features another cast of walking-dead survivors struggling with their vices in a Faulknerian landscape of rocked-up desperation.