Be the Cowboy largely dispenses with the distortion of Mitski’s guitar-oriented recent work, getting all the fuzz out with intro track “Geyser.” What’s left are short and thwarted pop songs. (Only two are longer than three minutes.)

Though we may never fully understand BUB’s highly advanced Space Speak comprised of rumbling mix of squeaks, chirps, and squrggles, listening to the ebullient Science & Magic would indicate BUB’s newfound ability to sneak out from under the proverbial bed and bask in a ray of sun.

John Agnello's knob-twiddling is spot-on. [Mar 2007, p.98]

Even when the concept stumbles, parts of Vide Noir are pretty enjoyable listening anyway, like the flecks of psychedelic guitar across the title track and the filigree detail and sensual current of “Moonbeam.”

Changes continues to find him doing what he does best--performing chicken-scratch rave-ups in a raw and unkempt emotional squall, and finding unexpected meaning in authoritative cover songs.

T-Bone Burnett's understated production suggests an aqueous atmosphere, with a few actual sea shanties.

The Golden Age is their most placid disc since 1989's "United Kingdom."

Slay-Z is a very good mini-mixtape, and more than half of it sustains in any formation.

It's a jumble. But Albarn's love of "Waterloo Sunset" poignancy adds emotional weight.

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

Fashion Week is very different from any other Death Grips album just for being so linear, and while Stefan Burnett's guttural, performance art-ish MCing is missed, their astoundingly dark and imaginative sonic palette remains intact.

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.

Murdoch pipes up now and again, but he's mostly content to play puppet master in his own lush­pop cabaret and revel in the fact that he only has to write and produce these brilliantly classic­ sounding songs, and not warble them.

On their fourth album, this Scottish indie-pop band's fondness for woeful heartache and Phil Spector–esque production reaches a poignant peak.

The overall affect is a travelogue falling between chillwave's lo-fi explorations and the sophisticated melancholy of Lykke Li's Wounded Rhymes: tightly economic pop tunes that draw on aural largesse as much as claustrophobic bricolage.

Sunflower Bean have enough homegrown ability between them to draw up a series of immersing and original compositions.

This new EP with his New Romantic band finds even more ways to surprise.

On his third solo effort, the G-Unit rapper is a connoisseur of cars, women, and guns, spinning tight spider webs of syllables that are often so patterned that they obscure individual strands.

Joyously addictive mutual self-destruction is what Do It Again is all about.

None of Collapse’s derailments are permanent, and this one only lasts a few seconds before the music puts itself back on track. If the EP leaves you wanting anything, it’s more malfunction, more frenzy, more extended deviations from the Aphex Twin playbook.

An excellent collection of space folk and ramshackle Tropicalia that matches the wild-eyed absurdism... of his band's better output. [Apr 2007, p.94]

The best mood music transfixes; merely excellent, Jetlag is sometimes too easily relegated to the background.

Yoking fuzz-stoked guitars (credit Television vet Richard Lloyd) to gorgeous melodies derived from the Beatles and Big Star, Sweet serves up his best tunes since "Altered Beast."

There’s not much artifice to be found in U.K. trio GoGo Penguin’s sophomore album, as even though the LP is a construction of jazz, classical, electronica, and trip-hop building blocks, it flows together naturally.

These eight tracks--only one of which stretches past the eight-minute mark!--actually make up the Mars Volta's most consistently compelling slab since 2005's salsafied "Frances the Mute."

[Aesop Rock's voice] Paired with the Long Island rapper's abstract, self-aware lyrics, it makes None Shall Pass a challenging, rewarding head trip. [Sep 2007, p.122]

Vedder's incantatory vocals and campfire instrumentation evoke the eerie beauty of untouched lands. [Nov 2007, p.126]

Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark's first album in 14 years--and first in 24 to feature the lineup that recorded the bulk of their hits--meticulously returns to the ostensibly perky sound and pensive sensibility of the Merseyside quartet's early-to-mid-'80s heyday.