More than a covers album, this is a cathartic reminder of pop’s revolutionary power. [Oct 2021, p.55]

Some handle the group's distorted guitars with a squeamishly light touch in the pursuit of sleek House and Techno. [Apr 2012, p.68]

The Saga Continues is a somewhat unwieldy collection of Wu offcuts with seemingly no concept. Less an album than a collection of outtakes. [Dec 2017, p.64]

Much of Lil BIG Pac concerns his experience behind bars. It would be eerily prescient if the criminal system weren't so predictable. [Aug 2016, p.63]

A series of one-dimensional tracks, produced by Dean Hurley, that at their best sound like a karaoke outsider artist running though some vocal exercises. [Aug 2013, p.54]

For the most part it works, weaving a dark atmosphere of foreboding and dread through the songs. [#240, p.68]

Preparations is a tediously uneven listen that drags on despite its 31 minutes running time. [Oct 2007, p. 63]

The moody bits are surrounded by so much that is abstract that their affective properties seem a matter of happenstance rather than expression. [Mar 2015, p.46]

Bozulich's gloom is top quality gloom, as far as that goes, but nothing here lights up the heart like [2008's] Voyager's blistering "Truth Is Dark Like Outer Space." [Sep 2011, p.51]

For all his power as a motivating force it’s perhaps inevitable that Ye proves weakest of the first four. Left to his own devices West sounds bewildered, somewhere between awe and exhaustion. [Aug 2018, p.63]

The overall effect may be part shamanic dance to the thrum of the universe part 1980s arcade game, but All The Way exploits the transcendent powers of both. [Sep 2008, p.50]

Drift is thoughtfully and firmly wistful, an acoustic fireside plainsong with odd interference from a distant radio and neurotic strings (“Sleep”) or, in the vein of a Yankee Tindersticks, practising delicate odes to the simple pleasures of touch, free time and, perhaps, the timefree. [Mar 2018, p.50]

Drumming that starts off in a motoric groove warps into something way more minimal and amateurish, something undanceable, yet difficult to resist at least shrugging along to. [Aug 2016, p.59]

Though it may not feel exactly pleasurable, it most definitely connects. [Sep 2014, p.72]

This is classic David Grubbs--which is to say a joy, but also that it's unbashedly disparate. [Apr 2013, p.50]

There’s a kind of manic, excessive inventiveness here, as if the song needs just one more bridge or a doubling of the refrain to sustain its ideas. Yet on closer inspection they are often internally samey. [May 2020, p.53]

Measurable, replicable perfection has never been Smith's raison d'etre and Re-Mit--their 30th studio album in 37 years--possesses all the eccentricity of the group in their early pomp. [Jun 2013, p.49]

The skill and charisma of Mosaic sometimes goes too far.

The result is an often awkward assemblage of trial and error decisions that either allow the tracks to keep their era’s verve or attempt to punch things up in a modern sense, where the cut-off date is the mid-90s. ... All is not lost, though. It’s insightful to hear where Davis was heading with sleek arrangements such as “Give It Up” and “Maze”. [Dec 2019, p.65]

Even in the midst of the fairly wretched Phase Two there are gems but you sure have to dig for them. [Feb 2016, p.54]

It's a series of blows that fail to connect.... Taken on its own terms, divorced from the genre to which it owes its existence The Ark Work's dogged pursuit of incongruous juxtaposition can be hugely entertaining. [Apr 2015, p.53]

These heavily layered, smoothly produced compositions emit occasional warmth, but coolness is the prevailing order; the intricacies of arrangement demand admiration but fall short of engendering a more heartfelt response. [#204, p.68]

What's lacking on Date Of Birth, though, is any sort of excitement. [#212, p.75]

Work (work, work) is a sophisticated response to a reality paralyzed by consumerism. [dec 2011, p.56]

Those who find Anticon's selfconsciousness and self-flagellation a bit hard to stomach may be able to digest Odd Nosdam's maddening instrumental collages. [#230, p.71]

They were the first on the block with this particular subgenre and are still in front of a massive paxk following in their wake. [Dec 2008, p.72]

Keef [has] formidable talent for writing hooks (and tracks) that are both naggingly catchy and strangely joyless. [Feb 2013, p.61]

Crazy Clown Time is like a sound painting of oddball modern USA done in the style of Old Weird America. {Nov 2011, p.62]