The solipsism and trite accounts of benders from the first album are still there, but the music has gone exceedingly soft.

Meaty and encompassing, Future Crayon rarely misses, even if it fails to measure up to the band’s sublime full-lengths.

You could spend an age listing and describing the musical wealth of Damaged... Better just to listen to it, soak it all in, than fail with words.

Get Lonely doesn’t have the full force of any albums in the Mountain Goats catalog.

A bit too predictable and lightweight.

An immediate and combative disc that blurries up a litany of angers over surprisingly versatile layers of pop-punk guitar thrusting, The Body, The Blood, The Machine is a focused tantrum, irresolute in its actual stances, but pissed and rambunctious enough to overcome its vagaries.

It’s abundantly clear that Ward is an indie-rock songwriter--a pretty good one sometimes--who doesn’t bring a whole lot else to the table.

In country music, it’s all about the chops--and Millan doesn’t have ‘em. Yet.

To the Races isn’t that bad. Bachmann’s just so much better.

While most of the tracks on The Shining lack the abstract ideas and flow of Donuts, it’s still an admirable record.

If an army of songwriters and million-dollar producers can make Paris Hilton listenable, even for only 38 minutes, then no one else with a major-label budget behind them has any excuse.

Bloated with ideas and parsimonious with tunes.

His music could be a good deal better than it is.

While sometimes Classics sees the group straying from their conceptual center, it’s never without Ratatat’s unmistakable identity and indelible gentle humor.

Genuine hooks are oddly scarce.

Kill Them With Kindness might be a rewarding listen, for example, for a Stars fan, but then again it might be better to stick with the more familiar originals.

It offers in personality and atmosphere what it lacks in originality.

A truly soulful pop album, at least for one disc, Back to Basics is one of 2006’s best when Linda Perry’s fingerprints aren’t present.

Ill-advised collaborations and uncharacteristic subject matter mar proceedings, particularly the record’s dragging second half.

With no foil to Barat’s grumpiness and bitterness, it’s therefore difficult to see anyone getting nearly excited enough to love Dirty Pretty Things as much as many loved The Libertines.

Avatar shows Comets capable of a level of sophistication and skill previously unconsidered.

Give Friedberger credit for diversity, craftsmanship, and the unprecedented ability to release a double album that actually feels composed of two separate entities. The rest of it? Too much, too fast.

The question with Christ Illusion, as with any post-Seasons album, is simple: could these songs make it into Slayer's live set? The answer is yes, and more than the usual one or two.

Made in Brooklyn is mostly filler and little meat.

Crucially, he shows all the sides of his personality, making this one of hip-hop’s most well-rounded albums of recent vintage.

By making a bad album that also tries so assiduously to distance themselves from the backpacker movement that they unintentionally pioneered, they may have cut off their most fervent and loyal supporters and the chance of gaining a mainstream audience.

There’s hardly an honest word on In My Mind; any sane listener’s bullshit meter should red-line after about fifteen minutes of it’s textured repulsiveness.

ABO keep the music tight and enclosed to match the lyrical mood, making Derdang Derdang a succinct, purposeful statement.