High grade West Coast guitar pop. [Dec 2003, p.131]

With nothing fresh to moan about, it's like a seventh James Bond movie without any new gadgets. [12/2000, p.223]

The album also features songs written and sung by other Apples, and while they're perfectly pleasant indie pop, they only accentuate Schneider's mastery.

More of the same, really, and what same is that anyway? His beats, hooks and musicality tread slightly above water.

Even though the lyrics stay hippy-dippy, there are hard-earned moments of musical release.

It's more ideation than practice, which is why the too-cluttered American Beauty/American Psycho won't be this band's American Idiot.

Farther into the cosmos is sister record Attention Please, the least "metal" thing the band have released to date, which focuses on icy rhythms and smoky moods, as if they're slinking up alongside the xx.

Though Benson’s fourth solo album is less distinctive and more finessed than the work of his money gig, it still puts his secondhand fame in perspective.

The first album under his own name is stranger and more varied, a psychedlic/psychotic kaleidoscope worthy of early Animal Collective. [Oct 2008, p.114]

Luke Temple possesses both an eerily high-pitched cry and a facility for his adopted grooves that makes the results far more distinctive than derivative.

For all its languid rookie charms, In Heaven might be best remembered as the harbinger of a more consistent sequel.

The result has to feel like a studio adventure! Whereas Daft Punk’s Random Access Memories was lavishly rich, Smith’s treatment of his session players manages to flatten all human serendipity and rhythmic nuance.

By ratcheting up their guitars and still singing about everyday themes, Coldplay are recasting their nerdy-student Britpop as Important Rock Music without sacrificing the homespun vibe that allowed Martin's fans to believe that he wrote a song for each one of them and called it "Yellow." [Jun 2005, p.99]

"R.I.P music," wrote Cunningham in the introduction to the album. As corpses go, this one is exquisite.

Each track follows the Rage Against The Machine model: Make music for the masses without diluting it for the bosses. [Nov 2005, p.101]

Drunk on ringing guitars, crashing drums, and swooning harmonies, singer Ross Flournoy and crew try to compensate for their shortage of fresh ideas with boundless enthusiasm -- and almost pull it off.

If Diane's songs are more accessible, they're still not easy, creating the Inception-like sensation of wandering around in someone's overheated brain, where urgency and a lack of clarity intertwine to disorienting effect.

Taken as an hourlong whole, though, Noctourniquet really does feel like the band's most accessible effort in years.

Idlewild grasps for a distinctive sound, departing almost entirely from rap per se. [Sep 2006, p.99]

Eno unleashes tempests of breakbeats ("Horse"), electro exotica ("Bone Jump"), even roiling post-rock ("2 Forms of Anger"), creating a perfect storm.

They turn to the next logical ladder rung of pretension: symphony. And they may have finally found the perfect category to fuse with their ever-swooping brand of rock.

Goldfrapp downplay the "cinematic" strings in favor of buzzing live-wire synths. [May 2003, p.116]

Across two epic, messy tracks, the pair go around the world: classic ambient house, dated trip-hop, thundering drum loops, weird dub, even down-home picking, yet stay nowhere long enough for anything to really take hold.

In contrast to Miller's usual earthiness, this Americana super-session is sonically lighter than air--thanks to spectral six-string ambience from Bill Frisell, Marc Ribot, and pedal-steel ace Greg Leisz, who adorn heavenly voices including Emmylou Harris and Patti Griffin.

A little rockier, a little slower, and a little less transporting. [Jul 2003, p.110]

Hipster-mocking songs like "Turn Your Back" aren't as funny as the scene they want to outsmart. [May 2003, p.116]

As with so much of Too True, it's more Flowers in the Attic than Flowers of Evil. But it's also part of a glorious art-goth tradition: bookish rockers chasing pop into the dark, deep within the Hong Kong gardens, where all cats are grey.