The most arresting moments on Tears in the Club come when he is working with singers. ... The rest of Tears in the Club is instrumental, aside from the snatches of sampled vocals that Kingdom has long favored in his tracks, and the mix of formats renders the album a somewhat inconsistent listen.

Each track bleeds into the next with seamless precision, borrowing each other's fantastical effects from both mid-century analog plug-ins and modern digital tricks.

A set of punchy roots pop whose backbeat thumps as hard as her still-wounded heart. [Jul 2006, p.86]

Percolating tracks such as 'Pum Pum' and 'Chooga Cane' are more like undercooked, meandering jams than songs, mixing loose grooves and breezy synths as the profane Perry portrays a muttering old codger.

Lyrics referencing both Greek astronomy and the Old Testament, as well as guitar textures indebted more to Glenn Branca than Black Flag, reveal an art-rock ace up the band's tattered sleeve.

The album is their most straightforward yet. Fortunately it's not short on the witty lyrics and solid songwriting that always kept them from being a novelty act. [Aug 2007, p. 109]

Nothing on Heartworms matches the processional majesty of Port of Morrow’s “Simple Song,” or even the go-for-broke mugging of “Fall of ‘82,” an unholy riff on Joe Walsh, Steely Dan, and Thin Lizzy. What Heartworms does have, though, is the informal approach to formalism shared by another Southwesterner transplanted to Portland, Britt Daniel.

Instead of psychedelic pop or Princely funk, they regurgitate limp fake reggae, crappy country yee-haw, dorky Eurodance, and nasty New Age. [Dec 2007, p.126]

The music, particularly Lenny Kaye's guitars, can be both gritty and lush, but it mainly functions to uplift the words and hold them closer to the ears. The problem here is that Patti's got our attention but her couplets are too often second-rate.

Mud-footed trip-hop production... [Nov. 2000, p.208]

Even more '80s than its predecessor. [Jul 2004, p.105]

If the band could bring themselves to record with anything resembling subtlety, they might win over some skeptics. But they also might end up hanging with Lightspeed Champion. I suspect they'll take the trade-off.

These flat-voiced, fleetingly funky gangsta rips are too detached to be adorable. [Aug 2006, p.76]

Get me out of here, take me back: That's breaking up in a nutshell, and Cults till this soil multiple ways.

The jams always pull back at just the right moment, and the songs equal their folksy models. There's so much heart here that even the most exacting re-creations of bygone FM wank seem spontaneous.

Reliably excellent but emotionally detached, the Sea and Cake's eighth album is of a piece with their first seven.

It's about three songs too long and a little all over the place. [Nov 2006, p.99]

The reinvigorated results feel warm-blooded, definite, vulnerable, exposed.

The debut album from G-Unit producer Jacob "Jake One" Dutton plays like a crowd- pleasing beat reel for future employers.

Her best album-length-EP since Quarantine remains instrumental, but now skitters jazzily.

The album clicks because beyond the date-stamping visuals and the music's timeless project to unite art and pop, the longtime partnership behind Niki & the Dove has finally found a proper voice, and a proper name.

With guest vocalists crooning over synth wiggles seemingly lifted from Aphex Twin's "Richard D. James Album," the Iranian expat's first record in eight years is as tuneful as it is brazen.

It's far from an implosion, far from spectacular.

You Can Have What You Want floats dusty folk-rock melodies in thick echo, giving the vocals an otherworldly cast.

The upgrade is one of focus and intensity.

An amazing all-originals simulation, mostly of teeny-bop smashes by sundry Kasenetz-Katz-produced studio concoctions (plus the Archies) circa 1967-1970.

The musical spitting 
image of his dad Neil Finn (Crowded House, Split Enz), Liam blends sophisticated melodies and wistful vocals with masterful authority.

The aspirations here are lofty, as always, if less reflective than your average NIN lament; the songs swell, bobble, and even leak from the seams under the pressure.