Welcome to the Dirty North, y'all. [Feb 2005, p.88]

Stuff this simple can turn into art that's fantastic or a fantastic disaster. Coachwhips walk the line masterfully. [Feb 2005, p.91]

The Young-ian guitar stutter remains intact. [Mar 2005, p.92]

Almost lives up to the hype. [Mar 2005, p.92]

Mostly great. [Jan 2005, p.96]

Sounds like the morning after, confused and calm all at once. [Jan 2005, p.100]

It includes some of the most thoughtful music of Eminem's career, and some of the butt-stupidest, and while there's a lot to like about both, the album feels transitional and muddled. [Jan 2005, p.95]

Pursues a darker strain of irony. [Dec 2004, p.124]

In the end, like her hero Loretta Lynn, she's the good girl who done got complex. [Dec 2004, p.123]

Daniel's bump-and-grind synth lines are all campy humor. [Mar 2005, p.92]

A Perfect Circle prove that they've got not only good taste, but real bite, too. [Dec 2004, p.117]

The Lyre Of Orpheus is effectively Abattoir spillover: more mellow, less grand in conception, but--somehow--more pretentious in execution. [Dec 2004, p.118]

Shadow's bold beat-scaping is missed, but guests galore lace the esoterica with plenty of angsty personality. [Dec 2004, p.124]

The Malibu-dreamin' sound evokes a band settling into their twilight years--relaxed, carefree, and ready for a sunset cocktail. [Nov 2004, p.118]

The Donnas... have zeroed in on their true obsession: obsession. [Dec 2004, p.117]

They add enough kinks to the old herky-jerk formulae to make their half-hour in the sun blaze by like nobody's business. [Dec 2004, p.124]

[Simple Plan is] a band as spiritually distant from Dookie as John Mayaer is from Blind Willie McTell. [Dec 2004, p.124]

Jimmy Eat World might still be stuck in "The Middle" a year from now, but this album's more thoughtful homestretch at least suggests the possibility of alternate futures. [Nov 2004, p.115]

The bleaty rhythms and abrasive guitars start to pile up willy-nilly, and some of the more techno sections sound like kids going bazonkers in a toy store. [Oct 2004, p.109]

He's more grounded... and his evasive, abstract beats underpin his vocals less randomly. [Dec 2004, p.124]

All that stands between this young English foursome and Perry Farrell-ian Valhalla is a lack of a truly rippin' axman. [Dec 2004, p.124]

Smith's intentions cry out from the album's every discordant corner--he clearly wanted to test himself, to unhinge parts of his sound. [Nov 2004, p.105]

They find a woolly warmth and loopy generosity few English art-rockers have stumbled upon since the first Beta Band record. [Dec 2004, p.124]

The songs remain the same: clear-eyed musings on breakups-as-existential-crises. [Dec 2004, p.124]

Savage punk rock that shifts and shakes like the bleachers during a homecoming orgy. [Jan 2005, p.98]

Only later do you realize the cotton candy you've been enjoying is wrapped around a dildo. [Nov 2004, p.118]

These reimaginings... unlock some interesting textures suggested by [Black's] still-scratchy vocals. [Dec 2004, p.118]

[Eitzel's] best album of closing-time kvetch since 1993's Mercury. [Dec 2004, p.124]