Howl is not exactly the group's Nebraska--BRMC dabble in too much "White Album" Beatlemania for that--but it's a general extension of that record. [Sep 2005, p.101]

There's a nifty kind of egolessness about the NPs: They're team players in a way that few other bands are right now. [Aug 2005, p.93]

[He] veers awkwardly into slickly arranged, radio-friendly verse-chorus-verse. [Sep 2005, p.109]

Vanderslice is tortured and diffuse even by Death Cab standards. [Sep 2005, p.109]

Their swirl of guitars and organ is even more densely alluring, but the arrangements let in some welcome light. [Oct 2005, p.137]

It's a techno album, straight up. [Aug 2005, p.98]

Repulsion is like The Wild Bunch seen from the outskirts of Edinburgh, a European reflection of the stylized American West. [Aug 2005, p.99]

Amid the so-so modern rock is one of his most sublimely sincere songs, "(Shine Your) Light Love Hope." [Aug 2005, p.103]

Alternately goofy, sweet, and weird. [Aug 2005, p.97]

Showcases vocals more boldly than Melody A.M. [Aug 2005, p.98]

Behind all the ridonkulous disses and boasts, Missy sounds a bit unsure of herself. [Jul 2005, p.97]

Sounds as informed by middle-American community theater, church choirs, and John Adams' American operas as any canonical "folk rock" it may resemble. [Jul 2005, p.102]

Sound[s] like Prince cutting the ass out of Squarepusher's pants. [Aug 2005, p.103]

Songs like the predictably ribald "Porno Bitches" are little more than by-the-numbers, behind-the-music tracks. [Jul 2005, p.104]

A lovely, eerie album that plays like a digital memory of a lo-fi lullaby. [Aug 2005, p.103]

A deliriously twerked, end-of-days house party. [Jul 2005, p.104]

This transcendent debut is the real stoner rock. [Aug 2005, p.103]

Drift[s] off into heavily EQ'ed cymbals and pastel-gray synth-string washes. [Jun 2005, p.108]

While Transplants' self-titled debut caught the trio at that moment when the third-beer buzz kicks in... the new record seems to have picked up several pints and bong hits later, when shit starts to get grisly. [Aug 2005, p.96]

[A] cosmos-goosing masterwork. [Jul 2005, p.104]

Both these records chronicle the physical and mental graffiti of figuring out how to emerge from some very large shadows, including his own, with nerve and power. [Jul 2005, p.96]

You just wonder how songs this miserable can sound so excruciatingly gorgeous. [Jul 2005, p.104]

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]

The Peas give fun a bad name. [Jul 2005, p.104]

Like an art film that ignores narrative, there are moments on Get Behind Me Satan when the motion seems stationary. [Jun 2005, p.101]

If this reunion... isn't a revelation, it still has its thrills. [Aug 2005, p.103]

Leanness and vitality have replaced the cokey bloat of their last few studio trips. [Jun 2005, p.103]

Sometimes Kieran Hebden's electronic music is dawn-over-the-Buddhist-shrine gorgeous. [Jun 2005, p.108]