Glorious soundsuite. [Oct 2020, p.37]

The results are sometimes too meta to be particularly satisfying, but when but coheres - as on the bracing, static-smeared "Backwash" - it's worth the effort. [Nov 2022, p.29]

Same Old Man won't upend the form-book, but it's an agreeably unpretentious addition to the Indiana-born veteran's canon. [June 2008, p.93]

Despite--or perhaps because of--its viscous air of paranoia, this record is unputdownable. [Mar 2004, p.100]

Red Barked Tree is the most successful product to date of this examination. [Feb 2011, p.86]

More organic than their 2004 debut, Parades is just as richly rewarding. [Nov 2007,p.98]

The Bride Screamed Murder channels the band's two-kit battery into intense percussion romps topped by burly call-and-response bellows, like a military drill conducted on strong hallucinogens. [Aug 2010, p.88]

It's commendable stuff, but you can't help wishing he'd kept the scattershot, carte blanche approach of before. [Nov 2007, p.121]

Toussaint masterfully irons oout the kinks and the dissonances from the city's music. [Jul 2016, p.77]

Migration, road-tested in SJ sets, finds Green cruising into that emotional landscapes occupied by the likes of Jon Hopkins and Mark Pritchard. [Feb 2017, p.23]

If Hypnotic Eye was just about the snarl, it'd lose steam fast. Instead, it's only one element of a story that's bigger and richer, which is how a storied American band returned to the core principals of yesteryear without having to pretend to forget all they've learned in the meantime. [Aug 2014, p.63]

More than a specific era, Real Estate conjure a sense of place and experience as vividly as any US indie film of the past five years. [Nov 2011, p.97]

As with the best bedroom punk records, the bloody-knuckled passion and immediacy of these 13 rapid songs transcends any cavils about sound quality. [Oct 2003, p.130]

It's a rootsy affair that evokes the spirit of the MC5. [Jul 2003, p.112]

The album stands or falls by the seductiveness of its atmospheres and the memorability of its hooks--and here, it must be said, Release fails to imprint itself, leaving an impression mainly of dejected weariness. [May 2002, p.95]

Gedge hasn't sounded this belligerently broken-hearted since 1987's "My Favourite Dress." [Mar 2005, p.100]

Their energy is extraordinary. [May 2005, p.97]

The Outsider is delivered with the forthrightness, jive and firepower of a hip Southern Baptist preacher. [Aug 2005, p.102]

A fearsome blast. [Jun 2006, p.100]

Living With The Living finds them at their most assured. [Apr 2007, p.113]

Overall... the mood remains one of pleasant inconsequence. [Apr 2007, p.94]

There's an elegiac beauty to these tracks. [Oct 2007, p.114]

North Star Deserter is among his finest, sublimating Chesnutt's occasional tendency to cloying whimsy in gothic folk backdrops. [Oct 2007, p.87]

Loose, raw, a bit funky, it illustrates the band's knack for creating new-but-classic-sounding songs and getting them down on disc with a sizzling live feel. [Aopr 2009, p.87]

This stellar set is anchored by existential bar-band thumper 'Just About Time' and 'homeland Refugees.' [May 2009, p.86]

The Liberty Of Norton Folgate--a title which makes sense in context but is otherwise unlikely to be jamming up the ringtone sites--is Madness in both their pomp and their prime.

Henry lacks Wait's distinctive voice and lyrical personae, but his way with deftly arranged melodies is often superb. [Sep 2009, p.84]

It's a short album, just 30 minutes, and "Weird Feelings" is one song that stands for most: full of hooks and sparks it's fun while it lasts but over in two minutes and too easily forgotten.