Thanks in part to an overly generous 73-minute running time, the reteaming rarely feels vital. [July 2008, p.100]

Sloan returns with this more digestible 13-song opus, but their essential blandness remains unchanged. [July 2008, p.104]

Flying Lotus' spaced-out visions are the album's trump card, a computerized mesh of hip-hop beats at dub-like tempos.

As before, the least substantial choruses often repeat the longest, but it's a shortcoming offset by archly charming verses flaunting byzantine puns and rhymes that prove the Maels are as ambitiously eccentric as ever.

This Is Not The World isn't quite the breathless playground once populated by robots and carnival kids, but 'Think Tonight' possesses a fist-pumping riff that's one piano short of an Andrew W.K. song. [July 2008, p.96]

A few moments of uncomplicated clarity (a stirringly memorable hook or clarion-call chorus) would elevate ExitingARM from brilliant mess to true pop genius.

Velocifero's grinding soundscapes (honed in part by Alessandro Cortini of Nine Inch Nails) are easy to admire.... Too bad there's rarely much of anything going on below the surface.

Another nuanced collection of mid-tempo '70s-pop-referencing tunes that document the lives of folks who manage only fleeting moments of happiness between protracted stretches of frustration.

Over 38 taut minutes, these New York kids reflect the mirror-ball gleam of primo INXS and "Emotional Rescue"–era Rolling Stones onto the lives of today's young, rich, and wasted.

At its best, Fleet Foxes is warm and cathartic, with all the hopefulness of a balmy summer night.

While Jonathan Meiburg’s uneasy high quaver has always generated the kind of simmering intensity that made Jeff Buckley so gripping and unnerving, canny tonal shifts give his introspective songs a bristling, heightened urgency.

But for every song with a strong concept, there's another that meanders through so-so rhymes without any memorable phrases or punch lines. [July 2008, p.92]

Things go slightly south with wedged-in jokes, but if you overlook those interruptions there's enough fuzzed-out fun and tender, Shins-like classicism to transcend any retro trappings. [July 2008, p.100]

The debut album from this London quartet, founded by laptop folkies Sam Genders and Stephen Cracknell, lulls you along with its sparsely melodic tinkering and blippy slow burn. [July 2008, p.92]

Lay It Down (with tasty guest spots from John Legend, Anthony Hamilton, and Corinne Bailey Rae) makes it clear that Green's devotion to the primacy of his music's groove has only deepened with age.

Songs in A&E, finds an eerie strength in quietude and mortality.

Once the annoying vocoder-rock of 'Tombstone' kicks in, you remember that alll dystopias start out with the best intentions. [June 2008, p.114]

Though Welcome doesn't quite congeal into an artistic statement--it's more like a collection of promising demos--Pants flips his shopworn styles with more panache than the average bedroom producer.

Barring "Blade Runner," the best pop art by a former adman. [June 2008, p.119]

Effectively reinventing their sound with these glooomy anthems, Booka Shade should still rock the superclubs with ease. But some may miss the clever duo known for the carefree pulse of singles. [July 2008, p.94]

The moody brass of 'Maundy Thursdays,' the loveless female narrator who opens 'June Evenings,' and the restless whispering in 'Never Content' are all touches that keep the billowing instrumental opulence tethered, affectingly, to humans on the ground.

Beyond the fact that her voice is deep enough for her to front Crash Test Dummies, there's nothing particularly compelling about Scarlett Johansson's singing.

The bedrock combination of redlined guitars and Mark Arm's adenoidal wail has only been rendered more caustic by two decades of watching lesser lights cash out. [June 2008, p.114]

Whenever it seems that Islands are losing you, Arm’s Way coughs up a moment so beautiful it might make your heart swell and burst into a bloody, disgusting mess.

Bun combines swagger with substance without losing a step. [June 2008, p.104]

No, Virginia compiles a clutch of new tunes, old demos, B-sides, and cast-offs from the previous album, but it scores biggest with an obsessed fan's accordion-powered rendition of the Psychedelic Furs' 'Pretty in Pink.'

Adorned with piano and synth, the ten songs on Re-Arrange Us are fuller, more elegant vessels for the duo’s warm, intricate melodies.

He sounds too lecherously happy to reach the emotional depth of his best work, but for lessons in proto-Brit-rock, he remains a top authority. [June 2008, p.119]