This is a pretty uninspired piece of work.

All the songs sound almost exactly the same. I don’t care! It doesn’t matter! Just dance!

It’s not the most subtle or nuanced album, you can’t really dance to it, and it’s not particular clever. What it is: brutal, full of hooks, rock solid and fucking loud.

As eccentric as it is beautiful.

It's good in its own right, but perhaps you're better off listening to it in isolation from the rest of their canon. It's not quite there, but it is definitely a good record.

Even if the album sounds more restrained, there is nothing holding back the quality of the material.

One long sugar rush.

Such are The Clientele’s gifts that its hard to believe The Violet Hour is only their debut album; few bands with more impressive vintages and prolific back-catalogues have managed to make records as touching, cohesive and deeply seeped in their own character as The Clientele have here.

Played start-to-finish, New York Noise begins to cohere into a joyously multi-hued mass, where hip-hop is a natural cousin of atonal noise, where minimalism becomes the perfect complement to funk, and where not even the skronked-out mess of DNA or the melodramatic ultra-seriousness of Glenn Branca can get in the way of a good party.

Unlike cLOUDDEAD, every track on Oaklandazulasylum is, at least musically, accessible and inviting.

A disjointed mess- brilliant songs gone so awry that I find myself no longer excited by the prospect of listening to the album through, but disappointed.

Hotel Paper treads the line between rushed brilliance and rushed dross.

There’s a glistening veneer of contented happiness coating the record, as if some adult-oriented radio programmer gleefully shat on it, but the tragedy is that Phair is wholly complicit in this utter waste of talent.

Blemish is not sadness or happiness; it is strange observation and relapse.

I Am the Fun Blame Monster is totally vibrant, totally groovy, and once again, totally awesome.

It’s not a real consistent journey, because of the eclectic styles, but the masterful sequencing makes it flow smoothly from track to track.

Promise Of Love is chock-full of pretty, melancholic music. In other words money well spent.

This record is still an example of mediocrity.

The highlights would be far better suited to lesser status on a great album, and turning away from the impressive vocal performances of Rock Action to fully retreat into vocoders and hushed mumbling is a step backwards. [Note: Score listed is an average of two separate reviews, scoring 91 and 72.]

The record is sprawling and beautiful, a genuine pop masterpiece through and through.

Beckett references numerous stylistic signposts across the multifaceted recording’s thirteen tracks--Merzbow, Chain Reaction, Fennesz, Techno, Pole--but manages to personalize his music too by infusing its cool, abstract minimalism with a sensual warmth and melodic pop sensibility.

Musically there&#146;s not enough variation to keep things interesting throughout.</A>[Note: Score listed is an average of two separate reviews: a <A HREF="http://www.stylusmagazine.com/musicreviews/grandaddy-sumday2.shtml" TARGET="_blank">61</A> and an <A HREF="http://www.stylusmagazine.com/musicreviews/grandaddy-sumday1.shtml" TARGET="_blank">85</A>]

While it&#146;s unrealistic to expect another Kid A-like transformation, by pulling all those familiar elements together, Hail to the Thief sounds, well, a little familiar.</A> [Note: Score listed is an average of two separate reviews: a <A HREF="http://www.stylusmagazine.com/musicreviews/radiohead-hail_to_the_thief2.shtml" TARGET="_blank">68</A> and a <A HREF="http://www.stylusmagazine.com/musicreviews/radiohead-hail_to_the_thief1.shtml" TARGET="_blank">90</A>.]

You can actually hear the moment when the album turns sour.

It could have been much more, but for what it is -- a blissful summer excursion -- L' Avventura is delicately delightful.

The most wildly inventive, exploratory, unafraid, surprising, nonsensical, and flat out funkiest single I&#146;ve heard all year.

Despite the ubiquitous lackluster second half, and some weak tracks scattered throughout, the opening triple-threat supersedes them.

Nastasia&#146;s pen has sharpened greatly since The Blackened Air. No more does she scratch out mental images and feelings into terse songs, but builds upon those images and experiences -- placing the listener in her worn, ragged shoes -- instead of in our Gucci&#146;s, 20 feet away, behind a chained link fence.