The processed guitar-based tracks on Rug don't quite rollick or shimmer, but with Alanis it's the lyrics, not the music, that count. [Apr 2002, p.114]

It’s tense throughout, but it’s also endearingly frisky, and the poppiest moments have a tendency of landing at just the right time to stave off any potential noise-rock monotony.

The result is a patchwork approach to nostalgia, cherry-picking sounds from dance music's collective memory and rearranging them into something that's more than the sum of its parts.

Live instruments have replaced the samples that fueled their debut, resulting in a more fluid, if still absurdly amateurish, sound. [Oct 2007, p.104]

It's not perfect--it's too long by a third, David Lee Roth often sounds like a 2 A.M. drunk doing David Lee Roth at karaoke, and a Kinks cover wouldn't have killed them. But the album clearly aspires to both be part of the canon, and, if need be, serve as an entry point.

Ultimately, the curiosity of the song selection helps Best Troubador feel like a more thoughtful and earnest tribute. Sometimes the two men’s disparate sensibilities find an appealing point of overlap.

Written in Chalk sounds like a breakup record, with the Millers (and guests Patty Griffin, Emmylou Harris, and Robert Plant) picking through an emotional boneyard of broken promises, shattered hearts, and spiritual uncertainty.

The sad sacks who populate such bitterly funny songs as 'Already Gone' and 'R.I.P.' linger in the mind long after the toe-tapping grooves have faded.

While the similarly mystical/mewling Joanna Newsom seems adrift in fantasy, Tiny Vipers finds wonder in being rooted firmly to the terra.

Devonté Hynes pens an indie-rock passion play that picks up the tempo and spotlights his thespian skills

He can disavow his youthful rage all day, but Gabel is at his best when he's feisty.

As pure listening experience, Tourist's mazelike structure, full of echoes and switchbacks, best lends itself to listening on shuffle.

Disc two works better in theory than fact, compiling disparate song fragments into a single 33-minute mixtape-inspired track, but the group's radiant delight in pure sound is undimmed.

Though Fate's sepia sweetness and the band's ever-improving instrumental ingenuity (see 'em live!) can't mask a vaguely troubling lack of original ideas, Dr. Dog wears the vintage look amiably well.

None of this will make Devin a star anytime soon, but that's less his fault than it is everyone else's. [Nov 2008, p.90]

It takes a minute for the standouts here to stand out, but it's an enjoyable wait.

The songs often end up miles away from where they started, but the characters and melodies persist.

The Broken String pares down the track list and polishes the best of the EPs. [Sep 2007, p.123]

Amid such scene-upending sentiments, the band's all-too-Glaswegian moniker represents a clever case of bait and switch. [May 2008, p.98]

This Virginia duo's debut could double as a hypercompressed essay on post-punk's shift into indie.

The dusty, reverent feel of even the album's wildest rockers gives the sense that he's just a lone wanderer battling solitude with sound.

Though Blow Your Head leans hard on the Diplo cohort (Major Lazer, Rusko, Borgore), its colossus is James Blake, whose shower of warped arcade-game synths and butchered old gospel vocals is stunning--heaven for believers and headaches for everyone else.

In dialing down the pomp of Belong and the fuzz of their debut, the Pains discover something that transcends mere buzz: an ageless indie pop sound that could last them for years to come.

Processed guitars and keyboards, wordless 
vocals, and muted beats blend into a pastel wash of sound, as shifting patterns hint at familiar styles without assuming a clear shape.

Compared to the spontaneous hodgepodges of 2009’s Psychic Chasms or 2011’s Era Extraña, VEGA INTL. Night School is a far more intricately assembled product.

It reads like a book, its impassioned lyricism underscored by reverb, pedal steel guitar, and pattering, stick-clacking drums. The sound builds on the musical spaciousness of Ultimate Success, reflecting the environs of the Tornillo, Tx., ranch at which it was recorded. Indeed, the new album’s title offers a straightforward glimpse into its subject matter.

So is Recovery a classic album? No. But is it an essential one in shaping Eminem's future? Absolutely.

On her fourth album, Portland, Oregon singer/songwriter Mirah Yom Tov Zeitlyn expands her sound palette, somehow adapting a Carnival parade for the otherwise restrained "Country of the Future."