Sounds astoundingly like an album from his '70s heyday.

A delicate and sometimes bleak record. [Dec 2006, p.123]

[It] lives or dies on whether you think... Jack Black is a comic messiah or a juvenile chump. [Dec 2006, p.129]

Although the songs are both traditional and modern, the mood of gentle awe and foreboding wonder is all of a piece. [Nov 2006, p.102]

[It] sees [MacKaye] playing to his weaknesses. [Dec 2006, p.106]

Stark, often stunning. [Dec 2006, p.121]

The contrived newer stuff suggests she should stop trying to impress US hip hop royalty. [Mar 2007, p.91]

A record that feels massive without tipping into bombast. [Nov 2006, p.106]

The sound is urgent and instinctive. [Dec 2006, p.124]

Madly ambitious and deeply heartfelt, it's a grand folly in the great tradition of British rock. [Nov 2006, p.96]

The lurch towards conventionality has exposed Isis' limitations: their paucity of melodic ideas, the pompous drumming, the lack of wit or soul. [Jan 2007, p.100]

Not wholly satisfying. [Mar 2006, p.102]

In short, Legend does for trad-soul what Oasis did for The Beatles. [Dec 2006, p.116]

[It] sees them break out of the subculture in spectacular style. [Nov 2006, p.123]

There's mammoth hooks and meaningful shouting galore here. [Jul 2007, p.116]

Sometimes enthralling, sometimes throwaway. [Nov 2006, p.120]

Full of fleeting revelations, Calamity is as bewitchingly fractured as The Red Krayola's subversive attacks on pop/rock form. [Dec 2006, p.106]

It's not always pleasant... but at its best... it's the funniest, most adventurous and liveliest record of his career. [Nov 2006, p.134]

Oddly life-affirming. [Nov 2006, p.99]

For the most part [it] is worth the wait. [Feb 2007, p.74]

There's a self-indulgence at play when can become aggravating. [Nov 2006, p.128]

Press Play works rather well. [Dec 2006, p.106]

Effectively picks and mixes from the Jansch stylebook. [Oct 2006, p.130]

Vivid, diverse and faintly trippy. [Nov 2006, p.99]

Shrill, theatrical, and unhinged. [Feb 2007, p.71]

Things are more cinematic here, with every melody weaving through a mise-en-scene packed with dramatic incident. [Nov 2006, p.101]

Though his voice is as lugubrious as ever, there is more light and shade than before. [Sep 2006, p.95]

There's something curiously inviting about this understated music. [Nov 2006, p.120]

As usual, Pollard sabotages his commercial potential with weak production values and occasionally straining vocals. [Dec 2006, p.121]

It's both Gothic and arch, meaningless and amusing. [Nov 2006, p.110]

When the adrenalin stops pumping, the reality is that labelmates The Constantines do this stuff much more effectively. [Dec 2006, p.118]

The harmonies are undeniably pretty. [Nov 2006, p.120]

Some of their poppiest songs to date. [Nov 2006, p.106]

Breathless power-pop offset by an innuendo-laden lyricism. [Mar 2006, p.98]

Amid snatches of skewed beauty, it seems Akron/Family have lost a sense of who they really are. [Dec 2006, p.101]

The Information often feels hygienised and missing some grit. [Nov 2006, p.100]

The problem... is that size seems to be used as an excuse for the lack of musical ideas. [Nov 2006, p.102]

Finn’s writing is sharper than ever, the various narratives driven less by the wordy exposition of yore than acute observation, devastating detail, by turns exclamatory, epigrammatic and grainily authentic.

This... is still very much a Dears record: confused and unfocused, a messy kind of masterpiece. [Sep 2006, p.90]

A real grower. [Feb 2007, p.73]

A fairly conservative affair. [Nov 2006, p.101]

Stodgy miserablism predominates. [Nov 2006, p.117]

With Shine On, Jet manage to establish a common ground between Badfinger and AC/DC. [Nov 2006, p.110]

One of Hitchcock's very best. [Nov 2006, p.114]

A 10-track masterclass in spectral, psychedelicised pop, it's awash with great tunes and soaring arrangements. [Nov 2006, p.117]

Neither beholden to tradition nor self-consciously moderne, she crafts skeletal songs of great warmth and grace. [Oct 2006, p.117]

Running over with ideas. [Nov 2006, p.128]

He concocts a series of dazzling interior epics with just a fingerpicked acoustic guitar and his echo-drenched voice. [Nov 2006, p.101]

[It] revisits the chamber pop of their 1998 debut... equalling it in beauty and surpassing it in punch. [Nov 2006, p.123]

Through the simplicity of their languid melodies, Beach House access a portal into pop's truly uncanny nature. [Jan 2007, p.93]

A softly glowing and unerstated album. [May 2006, p.98]

20 Y.O. is a lazy timewarp, not a retro treat. [Dec 2006, p.114]

A moody, giddy, charming album, as ragged and dynamic as those the band were making half a lifetime ago. [Oct 2006, p.100]

The second brilliant Scissor Sisters longplayer and the greatest album John/Taupin never made. [Oct 2006, p.96]

It's unmistakable, unsettling, classic Linkous. [Oct 2006, p.120]

Haines... is shaping up as the most impressive writer of the current wave of Canadian indie. [Jul 2007, p.103]

A near-perfect balance of industrial threat, hardcore power and black comedy. [Oct 2006, p.134]

It can take its place alongside Live At Leeds, Rock Of Ages and Wilco's more recent Kicking Television as a live classic. [Nov 2006, p.104]

Burke... intuitively transforms a bunch of country tunes into gospel rave-ups and secular hymns. [Nov 2006, p.101]

The boundary-trampling spirit that makes their music stretch out almost infinitely live remains barely tapped. What keeps The Zutons special is singer David McCabe's lyrics. [May 2006, p.108]

As brave as it is diverse. [Oct 2006, p.104]

The pappy, throwaway nature of the tunes undermines any serious intent. [Oct 2006, p.124]

A sweeter collection of songs this year you'll be hard pushed to find. [Oct 2006, p.110]

Empire arrives with the same frazzled mien as Oasis' What's The Story (Morning Glory); alive with paranoia, delivered with an unshakeable self-belief. It's relentless stuff. [Sep 2006, p.80]

For the most part, Ben Kweller simply suggests Jackson Browne reared on Weezer. [Oct 2006, p.114]

The most immediately striking thing is the effect of the string arrangements, which add an extra layer of haunting mystery. [Oct 2006, p.102]

It's a world away from their introspective acoustic work... but [Producer Mitchell] Froom's airbrushed studiocraft... suits their well-crafted songs. [Apr 2007, p.105]

A competent, well-intentioned exercise in futility. [Oct 2006, p.110]

This is one of the most rambunctiously entertaining and high-spirited records of 2006. [Dec 2006, p.108]

While Food & Liquor struggles with its own contradictions, it does so over scorching beats and with lyrical flair. [Dec 2006, p.113]

Curiously short on atmosphere. [Nov 2005, p.100]

Alas, she doesn't have the power or swing to ride a big band, and as soon as producer Tommy LiPuma turns up the contrast and volume, her voice hardens. [Oct 2006, p.112]

Return To Cookie Mountain sees TV solidifying their more ethereal tendencies into denser compositions. [Aug 2006, p.100]

It initially seems as if the moments of inspiration between self-indulgences are becoming scarcer. A bracing middle section resuces Amputechture. [Sep 2006, p.89]

Adopt[s] a more relaxed approach than 2003's obsessively intricate Kish Kash. [Oct 2006, p.106]

It's a beautiful record. [Oct 2006, p.112]

Only on the superb, slow-burning "Gravity" does he really sound like himself. [Nov 2006, p.119]

Overall there's a sense of a moment having passed. [Oct 2006, p.123]

Laudable, but overreaching. [Nov 2006, p.130]

Sounding like a highly-evolved amalgam of their entire output--with added surprises--the beauty of this 12th album lies in its head-spinning diversity. [Oct 2006, p.134]

Lacks not only the impressive guestlist [of its predecessor]... but also the sparkle. [Nov 2006, p.99]

The duo can't help sounding like they're holding back a little. [Oct 2006, p.99]

The saturation bombing technique is only partly successful. [Nov 2006, p.123]

Injects [Viva Voce's] cosmic American visiion with a creeping paranoia and, in places, a much heavier rockist edge. [Sep 2006, p.106]

It's a maddening inversion of all the conventions of songwriting, but a brilliant one nonetheless. [Dec 2006, p.102]

Mastodon mostly veer clear of the slick atmospherics that turn other technical metal bands into post-rock wallpaper. [Oct 2006, p.117]

The songwriting largely delivers. [Dec 2006, p.127]

Molina's at the top of his lonesome game throughout. [Oct 2006, p.117]

A tour de force of intertwined sound and imagery. [Oct 2006, p.117]

Effortlessly ambitious. [Oct 2006, p.119]

They've turned their backs on disco and privileged operatic rock while retaining their--ahem!--inimitable sense of fun. [Dec 2006, p.106]

Peyroux's enviable ability to sing just behind the beat conveys effortless sophistication. [Nov 2006, p.124]

Too one-speed to attain the subtlety of Zep, too constipated to really funk out. [Oct 2006, p.99]

B'Day sounds oddly de-energised. [Nov 2006, p.100]

The production is more sophisticated, the arrangements more intricate, the melodies and harmonies more complex. [Oct 2006, p.106]

Love And Theft was quite unlike any other pop album--apart, that is, from Modern Times, its direct and audacious sequel. [Sep 2006, p.72]

Consolidates the experimentation of 2002's Phrenology and the conscious snap of 1999's Things Fall Apart into a focused, intelligent record. [Oct 2006, p.123]

[They] now sound more immediate, but seem to have forsaken some of their delicacy for caffeinated fuzz-pop, minus hooks. [Jun 2006, p.120]