Ignore the mouth-breathing rock bangers, and Mockingbird is as comfortable as well-worn denim.

The melodic sense of Newman and cowriter Dan Bejar keep things from stalling out. [Sep. 2007, p.136]

General Dome's force is relentless, but about halfway through these 12 songs, things run together, with muddy, [mid-dy] waters polluting the mix.

Teens of Denial is an album that works until it doesn’t. That moment will come at a different time for every listener.

On his first solo studio album, the granny-spectacled guitar god unplugs for a set of gentle acoustic ditties.

Their debut LP for Thrill Jockey feels more tightly composed.

Reflection takes a shallow look inward and a deeper look outward than you'd expect from a nonstop party.

His weathered voice has fissured in all the right places.

LP builds a steamrolling production and piston-like percussion out of broken electronics and heaps of scrap metal.

Opener 'Another Likely Story' sets the mood, dovetailing chilly lunar textures with hushed vocal harmonies to often nap-worthy effect.

More than anything, I and Love and You proves how miscast the Brothers were as folkies, because their ambitions are so much larger.

Episodic is a steady, ten-track affair that doesn’t overstay its welcome, and it leaves on an anxious note.

Unlike Mirrored or 2011’s underrated Gloss Drop, La Di Da Di is where Battles demonstrate their competence rather than their virtuosity; there’s never that moment of dominos falling to their death or the mutated instruments and real-time looping opening portals to parallel dimensions.

The Roots work hard and play hard on undun, but there's not enough pleasure to balance out Thought's business-like, consummately bland reading of the character who's supposed to bring the entire album to life.

Just seven of the 15 songs here break three minutes, which is smart, as Sniper turns rubbery bass lines and thin synths into goth-flavored bubblegum pop.

Confirms [Molina] as one of underground pop's most beautifully odd voices. [Jun 2006, p.83]

A few late-album glow-stick groovers abruptly shift the vibe to rave-era bliss, but until then, turn off your mind and float downstream.

Sholi deftly incorporates eerie groans, math-rock guitars, la-la sing-alongs, and frenetic drum lines.

The production (from Ski Beatz, 88-Keys, others) adds florid, melodramatic choruses to jazzy boom-bap tracks, blunting the impact of Kweli's dogged street intellectualism.

Functioning adults that they are, Dillinger Escape Plan have realized that tightly wound precision left to its own devices is about as much fun as orgasm denial. Welcoming the pleasures of melody's slow release, they've retained their desire to rage and contort.

Music remains the Coup's ultimate sweetener, and here the jams hit hard like the words--from the big beat of opener "The Magic Clap" to the grimy guitar on "Land of 7 Billion Dances," departures from the smooth, soothing funk that was once this outfit's specialty.

Sidewinding bass lines and slashing guitar help pull together ballads of marital woe ('The Drifting Housewife'), epic rock­outs ('I Am the Supercargo'), and rousing takes on regret ('Your Acting's Like the End of the World').

Despite this abundance of raps about the unadulterated greatness of rapping, the Slaughterhouse four pull it off with extraordinary sincerity, and Our House avoids devolving into some tired treatise about how these guys make "real hip-hop" and other rappers don't.

He also lightens his fifth album with sweet, sincere interludes.

Nils Edenloff's passionate songwriting comes across as both raucous (“The Dethbridge in Lethbridge”) and gently sweet (the harmony-rich boy-girl cupcake “Don’t Haunt This Place”), consistently marked by a joyful sonic ingenuity.

At times, Lidell seems determined to overcrowd his genuinely soulful and lyrically strong music, whether it's with silly, pitched-down vocals ("Your Sweet Boom"), laptoppy clicks, squiggles, and washes ("She Needs Me"), or blasts of aggro rock ("You Are Walking").

Scattered predictability aside, AC/DC still sound strong and hungry 35 years on, as if they could pulverize riffs in perpetuity.

There's nothing on Trap Lord to suggest Ferg will follow A$AP Rocky onto the pop charts, but it's a rewardingly dark and grounded listen.