There's a fair amount of Fugazi worship on display with track like the churning punk of "Ruptured Line," but the album really flies when the metal influences come to the fore. [Nov 2018, p.]

Disturbing, but also enthralling. [Jan 2020, p.23]

The music is decent enough. .... The problem is Jake Duszik's vocals, which are soft and blank of affect in a way that is oddly characterless. It leaves Rat Wars feeling, if not completely without merit, a bit of an empty vessel. [Review of the Year 2023, p.29]

For all the overwrought sentiment, A Wave... is strangely compelling. [Jun 2026, p.35]

You can't help thinking that by ironing out their creases, The Sleepy Jackson have lost a little bit of their spark. [Aug 2006, p.111]

If the piano melodies lapse into sameness, Russo sprinkles John Barry and Carpenters motifs on top to keep it trembling. [Feb 2005, p.74]

The intensity builds relentlessly. [Jun 2005, p.102]

Dark Night Of The Soul will probably be remembered more for the stunt with the blank CD-Rs than for the music intended to be burnt onto them.

Only on "Hooting And Howling" and "All The Kings' Men" do you catch the sharp, hot stink of their once feral presence. [Mar 2018, p.35]

The songs are warmly hypnotic: pitch-perfect pop. [Dec 2013, p.66]

The Tom Waits-ish jazz of the title track, the slinky CCR-ish trundle of "My Baby Drives" and the gentle pedal-steel-led-weeper "White Gardenias" confirm that Earle's quieting of his demons has lost him little. [Nov 2014, p.73]

The blend of Owen Brinley's choirboy vocals and a raft of prog-tinged riffs is a source of promise, magic and drama. [Mar 2009, p.87]

This very fine third album carries much of Okkervil River or The Decemberists in its piquant narratives, though the banjo-led music is more akin to the erudite hillbilly-folk of Jim White or even The Be Good Tanyas. [Apr 2013, p.73]

An oddly uneven set. [Nov 2013, p.67]

Creepy but beautiful. [Apr 2014, p.73]

The result is an assured, mostly instrumental album with freeform jazz as its guiding imperative. [Oct 2016, p.40]

The bruising "Madder" betrays the influence of Scott Walker producer Peter Walsh, but there are flickers of respite, notably "The Bomb," which tethers its emotional unravelling to a lovely piano figure. [Jun 2018, p.24]

This set borrows from those same Nebraska recording sessions [of 2017's Tomorrow Forever] with nary a weakling to show. Pounding rock'n'roll colludes with lethal hooks, while jangly guitars and soulful harmonies mesh with ethereal melodies. [Jul 2018, p.34]

The resulting album is a joy. [Jan 2026, p.27]

It's Hit-and-miss but lots of fun, with real skill and joie de vivre behind the incessant experimentation. [Jan 2012, p.90]

There are a few moments of longueurs, where the songs come off a little too session muso. But this new, becalmed Perhacs reveals a clear eco-political message articulated with subtlety and nuance. [Apr 2014, p.79]

The results is something scrappier, but loveable than Deerhunter's billowing drone. Less sonic cathedrals, more tripping at chapel. [Apr 2009, p.91]

Honey finds Snaith embrace sampling and AI vocal processing to refine a sound that pops with possibility. [Nov 2024, p.34]

So aesthetically perfect was the formula that Clinic displayed on their earliest singles, an acidic blend of The Velvet Underground, '60s garage and The Monks delivered with frenetic intensity, that subsequent attempts to branch out have felt strangely limited. Bubblegum, however, succeeds quite neatly in making some distance. [Nov 2010, p.83]

Even back-porch sketches like "Free" and plaintive instrumental "First Snowfall In Detroit" radiate a warm, freewheeling, unforced beauty. [Jun 2014, p.91]

Lucinda Williams' version of Gentry's iconic "Ode To Billie Joe" leaves much to be desired but. ... Overall, this one's worth it. [Mar 2019, p.30]

So much of Okie is overly sentimental, mono-paced balladry. [Nov 2019, p.27]

Mostly fine results. [Feb 2020, p.25]