Auerbach moves flawlessly through all of his favorite frames of references. [Mar 2009, p.112]

A patchwork quilt of wispy Britpop ballads soaring majestically in an effort to overcome their own blandness. [Oct 2002, p.78]

Although the lovable weirdness seems absent this time around, fans will be in for a solid and consistent rock album from start to finish.

The sound on Stay Gold is what suits him best: heart-on-sleeve Americana that’s equal parts earnest and exuberant.

Immediately memorable. [Aug 2005, p.164]

Even more devastation stems fro Iain Cook and Martin Doherty's sophisticated and catchy layers of synthesizers and vocal loops. [Oct 2013, p.82]

With Jace Lasek's glistening falsetto intertwining with wife Olga Goreas' dreamy midrange pipes, the Montreal group's third album, The Besnard Lakes Are The Roaring Night, creates a nocturnal viobe in broad daylight. [Apr 2010, p.122]

Exactly what you'd expect from the involved parties. [May 2005, p.138]

The songs are mature but not boring; nicely layered but not overproduced; well executed but not sterile. [May 2006, p.164]

While the band do seem to reconcile something within by the conclusion of Odd Soul, the unpredictable, biting musical journey to get there makes for some powerful listening. [Nov 2011, p.96]

At times beautiful, at times shambling. [Jun 2006, p.194]

A scattershot bagful of wild rides and demented ditties and an album of maniacal depth and vision. [#146, p.86]

At times monotonous, Heart's strongest tracks are those augmented with vocals by female guitarist Marcie Bolen and basist Carrie Smith. [Apr 2004, p.96]

More cohesive and less frantic. [Apr 2007, p.180]

Gira spins riveting yarns like a charismatic neighborhood storyteller. [Jun 2005, p.164]

As edgy as singer-songwriter pop gets. [Oct 2005, p.158]

Mariachi el Bronx (II) triumphs because not only does it treat West Mexican Musical idiom with respect, it raises the bar for future directions and possibilities. [Sep 2011, p.114]

Thick and lethal guitar chug and vocals bordering on death-metal bellowing are offset by spidery single-note melodies and catchy sequences. [Sep 2012, p.92]

The proof [of the band's maturity] is in each one of the songs: Every member is playing with a richness and depth that can only come from spending all this time in the studio and onstage together. [Jun 2015, p.95]

The Florida foursome still manage to top themselves with each outing. [Nov 2015, p.96]

Bob Mould is no ordinary musician-in fact, you could say he's a pop genius. Silver Age is just one more confirmation of that fact.

Even the psychedelic overreach shows a most uncommon artist at work. [Feb 2003, p.64]

Amazing. [Jan 2004, p.108]

A satisfying and surprisingly profane comeback. [Jan 2005, p.114]

When the music these guys create individually is already so great, why would anyone mind having it mixed together? [Oct 2009, p.106]

A well-rounded album that might be mewithoutYou’s best.

On any other Walkmen album, just the hooky brilliance of the title track could be enough to declare this set a success, but there's never been one quite like this before.

There's just incredible depth to The King Of Limbs, and if you're impatient, you'll miss it.

Now more than ever, Hanna's voice and music resonate and inspire. [Oct 2013, p.88]

Smart, eclectically but authentically funky, and humane to boot. [Oct 2005, p.168]

Transcend[s] the alt-country tag. [Aug 2006, p.206]

It's full of the old-fashioned care and craft hip-hop has largely forgotten. [May 2007, p.160]

It's only the countrified twang of the Promise Ring's "Forget Me"--which should be the most emo song here--that doesn't really work. Everything else is delightful and, naturally, delightfully sad. [Jan 2015, p.94]

A Ways Away casts a spell you won't want to break. [Jun 2009, p.102]

Lazaretto finds him simultaneously unbridled as a player, yet meticulous as both mad scientist and personal diarist.

Their darkest, most impenetrable record yet--the aural approximation of staring down a mine shaft at midnight. [Jul 2002, p.75]

These are some of the most challenging songs in the band's catalog, yet they're more approachable than ever before. [Aug 2012, p.88]

The core of any Low album, though, is the unearthly beauty of Sparhawk and his wife Mimi Parker's vocal harmonies, which, after 20 years, have lost none of their emotion-stirring power. [Apr 2013, p.90]

Twenty One Pilots ramped up everything, from new influences to the number of producers (four) to the metric ton of uncertainties and fears multiplying in frontman/songwriter Tyler Joseph’s cranium. And it’s wonderful.

Their less-than-radio friendly name will likely keep them just outside of the mainstream, but what they've accomplished on this monolith of an LP is going to be impossible to ignore during this last half of 2013.

A pop pin cushion that's incurably catchy, and as prickly as it is pretty. [Jun 2003, p.97]

The result is their most haunted and harrowing album to date. [May 2011, p.98]

Segall's laconic vocals and playing style ties everything together and maintains a blunted brilliance throughout. [Sep 2013, p.92]

A grab bag of great ideas, instead of a truly great album. [Sep 2005, p.170]

He's created the "good, good pop record" he threatened with "Arm's Way," wisely getting out of his own way and letting the simple but undeniable pleasures of the Motownish title track, the synth-happy '80s pastiche 'Tender Torture' and his latest Brian Wilson homage, 'On Foreigner,' with its massed Beach Boys harmonies, shine through.

Manchester Orchestra are no strangers to reinvention, but this is a bold step. It’s a grower of a sound: folky yet enormous, like Fleet Foxes at their most widescreen, and with no immediate hooks (“The Gold” is close, though). When they do emerge, they’re not easy.

While the tracks are theoretically similar to the atmospheric vistas of other instrumental units, Jesu's melancholy--accidental or implied--offers a truly unique experience that deserves much more than background-listening status. [Dec 2010, p.114]

Though the length of the songs can prove to be daunting, the album is arguably one of Isis' finest moments. [Jun 2009, p.105]

Here's the thing about originality... You don't really need it when you play this proficiently. [Dec 2006, p.188]

Think Doug Martsch fronting the Shins and playing the sweetest Carl Newman jams ever. [Sep 2004, p.124]

Aesop Rock proves he's also a viable beatsmaker--his spacey, highly textured production is easily the best in the Felt series so far. Slug's rhymes are better than anything on the last few Atmosphere joints and MURS is on point, as always. [Dec 2009, p.113]

The New York quartet have outdone it with Lenses Alien. [Oct 2011, p.106]

The duo are branching out more than usual, finding themselves tougher, smarter and more tender all at once. [Feb 2017, p.80]

It's less mopey than Bright Eyes, less pompous than Sufjan Stevens and better than almost everything else. [Feb 2009, p.103]

Brill Bruisers leaves a lasting impression in the best possible way. [Sep 2014, p.108]

Shimmeringly beautiful and richly unpredictable. [Mar 2003, p.92]

Packs more moods and minx-like mischief than many albums twice its length. [Jul 2003, p.114]

The group's self-titled fourth album may be the maverick trio's most straightforward yet. [Oct 2007, p.160]

This is the most imaginative and urgent FNM have sounded in years--not to mention the most relevant. [Jun 2015, p.96]

It's a refreshing turn from a band who easily churned out more of the same to little complaint. [Jun 2011, p.109]

The sequencing on Lost Songs is top-loaded with furious rockers that gradually dial down velocity and acceleration toward atmospheres familiar, anthemic and delicate as Conrad Keely's ragged-from-shouting vocal style continues to command attention. [Nov 2012, p.86]

While this may sound like an Oprah Book Club selection, it's Sims entertaining flow and producer Lazerbeak's ability to switch between dancefloor packers ("Weight") and worldly drum-circle loops ("Future Shock") which takes Bad Time Zoo through the ceiling.

Motion City Soundtrack have made the best album of their career and easily one of the best albums of 2010 or any other year. [Feb 2010, p.91]

Whether it's moving, restrained numbers or jarring, chilling bursts of intensity, it's a hellish journey with heavenly execution. [Jul 2015, p.97]

Hold Time exists not simply as a vehicle for the rehash of rock 'n' roll blueprints, but as the highway on which to drive home his acute pop-rock songwriting. Mar 2009, p.107]

The allure is, as ever, the trio's use of the stereo field, and their ability to pump some breathing room into these otherwise sticky and humid tunes. [Dec 2015, p.106]

Gorky's emotional punch is as heavy as it ever was--despite the bells and whistles. [Jan 2002, p.84]

Not only have Steel Train Shed the jam-band tag with their third, self-titled full-length, they've also finally lived up to their own musical potential. [Aug 2010, p.152]

Joyce Manor successfully break through the quintessential sound of both pop and punk to beautifully curate a 10-track album that is a little weird, unabashedly intimate and all too relatable. [Nov 2016, p.90]

His most accessible and easiest listen yet. [Apr 2016, p.98]

The project is pretty perfect, really.... Give Up ultimately becomes a beautiful lesson in how to dance life's pain away. [Mar 2003, p.100]

Arguably the best record of Leo's career. [Feb 2005, p.84]

Awash with sweet bass grooves, tasteful psychedelic guitar action and the occasional Indian tone, the album nonetheless maintains a mostly melancholy quality. [Nov 2008, p.162]

The honest emotion, varying dynamics and avoidance of cliche up the record's potency, leaving you with the sense that this is how metalcore should make you feel. [Apr 2014, p.89]

Ambitious but understated, intelligent but immediate, Pedestrian Verse is simultaneously heartbreaking and life affirming--and anything but pedestrian. [Mar 2013, p.90]

On One of Us Is the Killer, everybody is firing on all cylinders and DEP sound just as urgent as ever. [Jun 2013, p.94]

What We All Come To Need finds Pelican mastering their post-metal craft while indulging the ambitious curiousities that hinted at on 2007's "City Of Echoes."

If you're looking for a little warm blood pumping through the veins of your dance music, as opposed to the droning and repetitive beat sketches plaguing a lot of the genre, this is just about ideal. [May 2008, p.146]

With stunning soloing by guitarists Mike Spreitzer and Jeff Kendrick further enlivening the proceedings, this is really is state-of-the-art metal designed to destroy everything unfortunate enough to be in its path. [March 2011, p.93]

Frustrated longtime followers will love that the XX-chromosome half of the brother-sister duo plays it mostly straightforward on her totally charming, engagingly breezy solo debut. [Aug 2011, p.114]

Oddly, they sound more now in 2002 than they ever have. [Dec 2002, p.96]

A cohesive, 100-percent successful record. [Oct 2002, p.95]

A welcome return to form in which [Corgan] plays rock music not out of obligation, but out of celebration. [March 2003, p.83]

Rarely have they sounded more comfortable with themselves. [Oct 2003, p.116]

Delivers huge hooks, metronomic riffs and driving drumbeats, all of which enhance the Kadanes' amplified whispers. [Aug 2004, p.108]

This Steve Albini-engineered masterpiece is destined to establish these 15-year vets as one of underground's strongest songwriting forces. [Aug 2002, p.83]

It's a tight little package of anthemic hook and heft that moves with even more purpose than 2012's Harmonicraft. [Mar 2015, p.94]

Lacing together 15 tracks this tight is nothing short of a rap lifetime accomplishment. [Aug 2012, p.84]

Oddfellows is a multifaceted and consistently fascinating album. [Feb 2013, p.94]

'I Call Out Your name won't exactly smash the state, but it's a perfect little pop song. So are opening track, 'When I Died' and 'Now We Can See', where the band's return to gleefully subversive social commentary can't undermine their most infectious pop hook. [May 2009, p.110]

While The Campire Headphase sounds slightly defalted compared to [earlier] discs, it stlll has many charms. [Jan 2006, p.144]

When the dark, somber and damn loud refrains of 'Ego Death' kick in, it sounds like these guys could completely take over indie rock. [Nov 2009, p.106]

Although a more varied use of the two drummers would be appreciated, the overall echoed effect with the cleaner production offers a complete, homogenized sound, which, when consumed en masse, makes for a killer album. [Jun 2009, p.105]

1372 Overton Park is a fresh progression for Lucero that still retains their unpretentious Southern Charm. [Nov 2009, p.110]

Even though Case already pushed the envelope creatively on her previous effort, "Fox Confessor Brings The Flood," she goes one step further, using several homemade instruments resembling a music box and snake charmer's flute. [Apr 2009, p.134]

Though parts of the album veer a bit too close to the synthetic hippie pabulum you hear upon entering the Nature Store, there's enough dark charm on Espers II to make it essential listeing for those of us who prefer our CDs caked with actual resin. [Jul 2006, p.208]

The Big Deep is a very good album that is hard to pigeonhole. In a time when far too many bands are playing by the rules of one sub-sub-genre or another, true uniqueness is encouraging.

With Lions have always gone big, and with Holy Shit, they succeed in being anthemic without sounding overblown. It's a difficult balance to strike, but they've had the time to figure things out.