The Cribs' songs hold up even when slowed down, and they're able to paint outside old lines with the added shadings, nodding to Sonic Youth ("City of Bugs") and the Smiths again ("Save Your Secrets"), while still delivering plenty of their typical Britrock momentum.

There are no musical clangers, and occasionally the guitar work is more ambitious than it needs to be. Bryan’s voice, when it is low and slow, is more exciting than his bro-holler, but both are pleasure for pleasure’s sake--and pleasure is enough reason to listen to this collection.

The Fragile Army trades the cluttered arrangements... of their first two albums for tightly focused orchestral pop with big Technicolor hooks. [Jul 2007, p.102]

Slight echoes of her past work seep through, but mostly she's casting a refreshing new spell. [Nov 2007, p.125]

Not all moods suit Andersson--the sultry, overdramatic 'Locusts Are Gossiping' falls flat--but she builds enough goodwill elsewhere that you’ll want to hear her try everything.

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.

Super rates as less essential than 2013’s marvelous Electric because I don’t hear another “Thursday” or “Love Is a Bourgeois Construct,” no grand conceptual coups like their Springsteen cover.

Unshackled again from the need to craft radio-­ready riffs, the guitarist unfurls long­-winded but beguiling keepers.

Well known as purveyors of viscous guitar sludge, the duo of Stephen O'Malley and Greg Anderson expand their ambitions and make some startling jazz-ensemble noises on their seventh album.

Compared to the sleek, grandiose flash of Coldplay's last two albums—Viva La Vida and Mylo Xyloto, both underlined by help from Brian Eno--Ghost Stories feels as melancholically light and airy as Parachutes, while ironically sounding more like Eno.

Player Piano's handcrafted tales of loneliness and bad romance draw quiet power from Hawk's charmingly reedy vocals, while the layered synths and other scruffy keyboards evoke subliminal longings and anxieties.

Only a snob could hate these 11 songs, which wear their bright, adrenalized grooves, lucid melodies, and arena-ready choruses the way the Hi-Fi boys wear their vintage Poison T-shirts: proudly and without a shred of irony. [Mar 2003, p.119]

Wallentin has reined in her seductive-foghorn voice, and Wildbirds & Peacedrums are a more subtly compelling band for it.

Believe it or not, though, this appealingly lightweight set of funky robo-rock jams actually makes good on Homme's promise.

The Mountain Will Fall is only somewhat transcendent in its quiet moments, and the highs are too few and ephemeral. It’s quaint--a step away from the zeitgeist, but not quite future enough.

Elegant and nimble songs that are intricate in their beauty and restless in their heartbreak.

Campaign--a mixtape in name that feels not quite like a mixtape but not exactly like an album, either--is at its best when it carries on that tradition of richness of sound as a virtue in and of itself.

Lindstrom is becoming increasingly diverse; but his style is immediately recognizable--probably as good a proof of artistic development as there is. Cheap and dirty, he still shines.

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

More classic-sounding raveups like 'Last to Die'and 'Livin' in the Future'--a perfect hybrid of 'Tenth Avenue Freeze-out' and 'Cover Me'--work on their own merits, but we already know what these merits are. [Nov 2007, p.122]

Occasionally, you wish Peñate would just calm down already -- even the ballads feel a little rushed -- but his ordinarybloke vocals and eager hooks never fail to please.

His latest release (aided by fellow Texans Okkervil River) is wizened and epic, marked by squealing guitars and a deep wistfulness.

The music might be prime kicking-back fare, but that doesn't mean Braids can't sneak some gentle urgency into the mix as well.

With the band's pop instincts craftier than ever, these songs might even reach past the keg party. [Jul 2006, p.84]

Just as winningly sloppy as its source material. [Nov 2006, p.104]

Even when Electrelane ditch the cheer completely, they inspire more smiles than growls. [Jun 2007, p.92]

Bright, anxious pop-rock melodies that pulse with a geeky charm. [Sep 2006, p.114]

"I know it sounds strange," chirps mullet-rockin' Yo-Landi Vi$$er in "Rich Bitch," "but I used to count change." In fact, that's one of the more credible claims on this South African rave-rap crew's delightfully low-rent debut.