Their supple, smouldering songs take you back to an innocent, pre-Britpop indie era while retaining the thrust of contempories like Bloc Party. [Aug 2009, p.87]

[The Warlocks] have replaced The Velvet Underground and Spacemen 3 with The Jesus And Mary Chain and Spiritualized as the objects of their affections, and Surgery is significantly less interesting as a result. [Oct 2005, p.110]

There are no songs here to touch past glories, [3rdeyegirl's] excitement in the studio is captured.... They just remind you he's still around; short of a tune, but the unique inhabitant of a purple planet all his own. [Nov 2014, p.80]

Kelly Zutrau's pure voice is full of tiny, yodelling curlicues that sound oddly Appalachian, and the songs have the sturdy melodies and heart-wrenching lyrics we associate with Nashville. [Feb 2016, p.84]

Only on 'Time of Songs' do the Tapes sound more than just another bunch of collegiate slackers with cool record collections. [May 2008, p.111]

Chiefly consists of lumpen and joyless AOR rock, with a few rhythm loops to give an illusion of modernity. [Apr 2002, p.104]

At times he tries too hard, but there's much here to commend. [Nov 2002, p.114]

Eitzel makes the songs his own, re-working them with a degree of affection and passion usually lacking from the covers-album genre. [Jul 2002, p.104]

The clumsy pot-banging campfire folk of his backing band doesn't help make it all any more listenable. Great lyrics, though. [Mar 2009, p.92]

A cohesive album that is simultaneously Big Star-ish (but not slavishly so) and Chilton-like (but not depressingly so). [Oct 2005, p.98]

You'd be hard pressed to find anything to summon the blood and stiffen the sinew among the 14 songs on offer here. [Mar 2007, p.90]

Folds stays true to his career-long mission to whisk up a melting pot of musical styles. [Nov 2012, p.73]

The Mix-Up is the best record collection ever thoroughly digested and re-imagined by a bunch of guys in love with sound.

Not for everyone, but quite a party. [July 2008, p.94]

Too often there's a pileup of overwrought, over-long ballads that struggle to make headway. [Jan 2005, p.121]

The promising flourishes of "Burn It Down" and "Explosions" give way to "Meteorites" and "Is This A Breakdown," mediocre indie rock plods. [Jun 2014, p.75]

This is bustling rock'n'roll that doesn't think too hard about much else. [Mar 2016, p.82]

Destroyed is up there with his career peaks. [Jun 2011, p.91]

It's the bruised and pensive love songs, such as "Broken Thoughts" and "Ninja," and the sci-fi sleaze of "Chainsaw," that stick and make The Ascent a contrived pop product with its heart and mind intact. [May 20113, p.79]

The overall effect is too solipsistic and immature to take you close to the title's imaginative world. [Aug 2006, p.96]

As with their third album, Can and Silver Apples are referenced, but there are additional moments here to please fans of both Terry Riley and Battles alike. [Dec 2008, p.94]

It's all a little too eagerly oddball at times, but generally avoids the trapdoor marked Novelty. [Dec 2014, p.78]

High on aggro but low on ideas, it mimics The Pistols' sneer and The Jam's melodies, while throwing in some inexcusably clichéd lyrics.

A mostly thin and needlessly morose album. [Jun 2002, p.108]

For better, and for worse, this is a band who still haven't figured out who they are. [Jul 2006, p.95]

The album presents the sound of masters at work, not thinking about their legacy, just doing the work. [Nov 2015, p.83]

He falls well short thanks to a dated, home-cooked sound and and the earth-bound mundanity of his collaborators. [Nov 2004, p.119]

Sighing, panting and smouldering her way throufgh a dozen digitized come-ons, she maintains the fiction of a robo-pop nymphomaniac while all around her, Rome burns. [Jan 2008, p.102]