[A] ceaselessly grim set. [Apr 2007, p.118]

Beneath the sweetest of the album's retro harmonies, though, lurk harsh synths and dark thoughts. [Oct 2003, p.128]

Turns out there's a functioning soul beneath the smirk. [Apr 2007, p.115]

An album of languid grooves and slowly descending melodies. [#16, p.117]

Consistently compelling. [Oct 2003, p.116]

Every instrument here distorts, giving tearjerkers like 'I’ll Dream Alone' complementary grit.

There’s an exhilarating and ruthless intensity here, mingling the grimness of country murder ballads with the simplicity of girl-group pop.

Although their guitar-drums set-up is reminiscent of the White Stripes, the Animals are more interested in the wake-and-bake vibe of haggard hippie bands like Love and the Jefferson Airplane.

Darker and colder than its predecessor but, surprisingly, more fun. [Jun 2005, p.109]

[Lopez's] wry lyrics and melodic flights lend the disc unexpectedly sharp, stirring edges. [Nov 2005, p.141]

Wildflower is assiduously intimate: lushly orchestrated, strictly mid-tempo and abundant with musings about balancing freedom and love. [Oct 2005, p.136]

This mix of gospel classics and classic-rock clunkers turns out to be a surprise keeper. [May 2005, p.116]

She's chosen a bunch of fiery roles that even she can't dull up. [Jul 2007, p.114]

Their fourth album toughens things up immeasurably. [Oct 2007, p.114]

Even as they take on the album title's potentially heavy theme, two vocalists sing with wide-open smiles, and they toss in new-wave beats alongside the saloon pianos and tube-amp guitars. [Aug 2008, p.84]

It partly works. [Mar 2006, p.110]

There's a lot of passion and red corpuscles surging just outside the music's clean, primary-colored lines. [Apr 2006, p.112]

A set of piano-based chamber rock so tense and acidic they need to let off steam every two or three songs. [Apr 2005, p.124]

[An] assured and surprising record. [Mar 2006, p.110]

The result is severely mellow, but too sensuous--the basslines thick with libidinal tug, the vocals steeped in contented, coital afterglow--to ever get boring.

With its stories of faithless lovers, broken relationships and speed-dealing suburban doctors, @#%&*! Smilers almost seems to feed off the stagnation. [Aug 2008, p.88]

It occasionally feels slack, especially compared to old faves like “Wildcat” or their bootleg hip-hop remixes.

The bleakness is stirring as often as it is enervating. [#23, p.100]

The mean-spirited sounds of Good Mourning are easy to listen to, but hard to forget. [#17, p.132]

It plods before revealing its considerable sonic luxuries and melodic charms. [May 2006, p.105]

Pete Doherty remains the British tabloids' pinata of choice--but at least his music is looking up.

OH (Ohio) ends with a straight-faced rendition of the hokey country standard 'I Believe in You,' with lyrical mush about dogs and babies, but Wagner sings it like he wants to believe every word.

These tunes sound like they're built out of yard-sale detritus, salvaged and held together with masking tape, chewing gum, anger and sentimentality. [Nov 2003, p.112]

Full of life and energy. [Sep 2004, p.138]

A torrid album that marries old-school rap aesthetics to punk-rock concision. [May 2004, p.127]

Gracefully balances dirty-South revelry with gorgeous graveyard reveries. [Oct 2005, p.141]

Proves they can do just fine without the foggy-hollow reverb they've always used to make their meandering sound mysterious. [Oct 2006, p.139]

It's a shockingly entertaining record riddled with moody hooks. [Sep 2007, p.128]

Sultry suits her fine, but when she reaches for the sadness in these self-written songs, she can’t summon the sense of conflict that was embedded in ’50s pop.

He orchestrates IDM glitch, acoustic guitars, strings, hip-hop beats, witty rhymes and emo candor with casual, genre-blending assurance. [#17, p.133]

A fizzling delight, jettisoning previous jazzy inclinations in favor of a gorgeous electronic pitter-patter that sets off Prekop's velvety, mourning vocals. [#14, p.143]

Everything here, from the restrained pedal steel and drifty organ to the lyrics, reflects a gentle informality that has nothing to do with laziness and everything to do with following the flow.

The more you listen, the less soothing his songs become; this is drifty music about living a rootless life where satisfaction is elusive.

This compendium of pop standards is as good an introduction to the great American songbook as any.

The recording quality on their debut album is admirably scuzzy; the drums sound like somebody’s banging a cereal box on the floor, which is part of the immediate charm.

Cardinology lays even deeper into the language of rehabilitation, grace and renewal.

Feuled by a ninth-grader's nausea they refuse to grow out of, they take their skateboards and chase down the horizon. [Mar 2009, p.64]

What keeps the songs interesting isn't his understated singing but his delectable arrangements. [Sep 2005, p.138]

Ward still sounds most himself when he gets lost in his own world.

Malin convincingly wraps his tortured warble around the dust-caked tunes. [#14, p.139]

This is mostly music to zone in and out of--periodically, new sounds and rhythms croip up and coexist in rough approximation of grooves, catching the ear; other times songs drone in the background, either beatifically ot forgettable. [Nov 2007, p.146]

Making good on the promise of two nervously explosive EPs, Tokyo Police Club indulge in plenty of echoey atmospherics but also add Foo Fighters-esque blasts of guitar, as if leaping into action and kicking over their chairs. [May 2008, p.79]

The fourth disc from her Toronto foursome Metric adds brawn, finesse and grandeur to their new-wave drive and Morse-code guitar scrapes.

Regret comes in many shades, but Westerberg never makes it boring or mopey. [Nov 2003, p.123]

Lucid, enjoyable and occasionally full-on rockin'. [Oct 2003, p.115]

If the students sound like masters, then Yoko’s generous legacy is secure.

The Renaissance hints at newness, but its cushy boom-bap grooves, airy soulfulness and rhymes about struggle and redemption recall rap’s Edenic “golden age.”

The result approaches sublimity, but remains geared toward dance floors. [#13, p.96]

The best songs here brace his vulnerability with expansive flourishes. [Apr 2004, p.134]

A spirited, gutsy evolution from the formalist new wave of Metric's first album. [Nov 2005, p.138]

A fierce, arty mix of melody and brute clatter. [Jun 2006, p.141]

Wheat adopt a new, far breezier musical style for their first release since 1999. [#23, p.112]

The bullying production threatens to obliterate what’s good here: A half-dozen gentle seeker’s songs with meditative acoustic textures and lyrics advocating reasonableness among humankind, which was always Cat Stevens’s domain.

Because of his no-frills persona, the smallest suggestions of personality make a charismatic impact. [Jan/Feb 2007, p.89]

The loudest record [Hersh] has ever made, and even if few individual compositions leap out of the general roar, it sounds fantastic. [Apr 2005, p.116]

The sugar is matched by splashes of vinegar thanks to untuned guitars and off-pitch vocals that toy with self-sabotage. [Jun 2006, p.137]

One long, shameless come-on. [Jun 2007, p.107]

Conley could use a few more breakups to check his sentimentality. [Oct 2003, p.126]

Practically every song sounds as though we've heard it before--because, well, we have. [Sep 2003, p.122]

Odd touches, from the choir that materializes halfway through 'I Got Mine' to the sonar ping keeping time in 'Oceans & Streams,' add texture yo these impressionistic tales of ramblin' and being done wrong, without ever sacrificing the Keys' raw power. [Apr 2008, p.76]

Listening to these tales of failing relationships feels like eavesdropping, but it's irresistible. [Sep 2004, p.136]

They sound like just another rock band. The thing is, they're a fine rock band. [May 2005, p.119]

Torrini captures a few joyful infatuations followed by a lot of lingering wounds; she’s vulnerable but never conquered.

A throwback to his trunk-rattling G-funk heyday.

Where the last Streets record was mainly about coming up with new words to describe cocaine, the fourth is surprisingly expansive and often quite deep.

WFTD occasionally give in to the urge to crank up the fuzz and play straight-up indie rock, but the narrower each song's scope is, the more it feels like it should go on forever. [Oct 2004, p.131]

An amped-up grotesque of torchy vaudeville and European parlor songs that starts as high-concept camp and winds up strangely illuminating. [May 2006, p.105]

Thankfully, Brightblack's mellow mysticism never comes at the expense of a frisky groove. [Jul 2006, p.97]

Dub, metal, Okinawan folk, hip-hop and various strains of out jazz all inflect Blondie’s hooky popcraft, and they never pretend they’re something they’re not, such as young.

Sung in his almost icy, stentorian cry--and outfitted with mega-choruses--the tracks feel as epic as Havok's themes. [Jul 2006, p.97]

With his buddy Josh Homme from Queens of the Stone Age, Hughes gets the details right all over Heart On.

Throughout, atmospheric ennui tugs against upbeat synth-pop--this band is best wehn it's got a beat. [Nov 2008, p.73]

Way too much fun. [Oct 2006, p.130]

She's been kicking around the industry a few years--she cowrote Britney's 'Gimmee More'--but she still comes across as fresh on her long-delayed debut.

This I'm-coming-out record is an unhesitant move from songs of the heart to songs of the groin. [Dec 2003, p.130]

An ambitious, twangy and faintly psychedelic folk-rock set that still may not convince haters he isn't a twerp. [May 2007, p.102]

Coheed have found their sweet spot.

You could roll your eyes and complain that these guys are still pimping teen angst in middle age, but really it sounds more like it’s matured into the longest-running mid-life crisis ever--30 years and counting.

The moody disco on Couples is both sleeker and spookier than the sexed-up indie rock of th Blondes' promising 2006 debut, "Someone to Drive You Home."

The kind of laconic, deceptively laid-back statement that cult heroes Alex Chilton or Doug Sahm might have dashed off in their prime. [#18, p.123]

Like the previous Brazilian Girls records, New York City is a lounge-y pileup of bossa rhythms and Old World romantic ache, girded by slithery push-button funk throb—at once refined and happily trashy.

It's brave, and it's needed. [Jul 2006, p.95]

On Traffic and Weather, their lyrical touch slips. [Apr 2007, p.114]

There's no unnecessary reverence, so the roots move that could have tagged Aerosmith as geezers proves instead that they're still wild boys. [May 2004, p.118]

Auerbach's fat, rocketing riffs are rivaled only by his Delta-dipped drawl. [Oct 2004, p.114]

Finn has been sharper and funnier before, and their fast-and-down-the-middle rock has gotten more experimental, which isn't the same as better. But it's still a pretty good way to spend 45 minutes. [Aug 2008, p.86]

You sense Timms has seen it all. [Oct 2004, p.130]

Manson's music still evokes decay, but he sounds more fertile than ever. [Jul 2007, p.116]

His wisest and warmest record yet. [#27, p.136]

What Hammond... lacks in attitude, he makes up for in old-school pop charm. [Apr 2007, p.111]

Spears’s fifth studio album is her most consistent, a seamlessly entertaining collection of bright, brash electropop.

There's something about the precision of the gear changes and the crisp efficiency of Rob Schnapf's production that hits the spot, however derivatively. [Apr 2004, p.134]

It shows the old ska formula to be an unimprovable invention. [Sep 2005, p.135]