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

Bitter, cold and insular, None Shall Pass is also profoundly (if proudly) out of step. [Sep 2007, p.124]

Their third albums smells less of revivalist chic than tribute-band nostalgia. New wave knockoffs have rarely sounded so old.

The gimmick runs out of novelty long before this third album is done. Even 31 minutes of show-off kiddie theater is too much.

The impact of M.I.A.'s music isn't in what she says, but how it arrives: in tracks so irritating they're irresistible. Anything but naive, M.I.A. brings a connoisseur's ear to her beats.

Where melodies once surged with hand-clapping giddiness, they're now august and restrained, balladic, not bubbly--fitting songs strung between hope, resignation and regret.

Creamy and precise, every coo and arpeggio blows through your ear buds like the ruffle of crisp bills.

Kweli’s rigid delivery and obsession with self-empowerment remain liabilities.

When the Teens youthfully chime in behind sheepish disclosures, it's like they’re arguing that a baby seat in the tour van doesn’t have to slow down the ride. And quite often, they prove it too.

The songs have as much personality as ever, reviving bygone styles, from falsetto lite-funk to electro proto-rap, with goofball energy and a music geek’s careful ear.

The tracks are catchy, meaty and modern. [Sep 2007, p.131]

The gruff, authoritative Chuck and irrepressible second-banana-turned-VH1-ladykilla Flavor Flav know that uplifting kids corroded by gangsta rap means offering something emotionally fierce and reasonably current.

Kayne West once again saves his friend from the NAACP lecture circuit with soul-snapping beats that effectively turn the headliner into a guest star on his own album. [Aug 2007, p. 110]

While his band's skeletal, rattling rhythms, swollen with synthesizer and studio ornamentation, feel more multidimensional than ever, Davis is most compelling when he retreats into the third person to describe an unnamed, uninspired singer with a "dumb-ass song" ('Ever Be').

A turgid modern, progressive rock with superficial hip-hop sheen. [August 2007, p.119]

If America was a self-respecting nation, there'd be a street named after him in every city. Alas, if they're based on this record, we'll find ourselves striding Vague Call to Goodness Street.

The bonus disc of dance remixes merely piles another layer of fastidiousness atop the already epically fussed-over tracks. [2007 Aug, p.120]

They might sound like Girl Scouts, but these are tough cookies. [Aug 2007, p.117]

The arrangements and singer-guitarist Romeo Stodart's delivery both veer toward cloying. The band also seems to have forgotten the art of brevity, resulting in too many songs that drag on past the five minute mark. [August 2007, p.115]

Anyone expecting Tom Rowlands and Ed Simons to torch their formula--multiple vocalists drop by and trip the light fantastic--will be disappointed; but their best record since the '90s proves they don’t have to.

Tom Smith's stentorian baritone, irritating in its overenunciated approximations of gravitas, is better suited to some community-theater group than a rock band.

Singer-guitarist Ryan and Gary Jarman comport themselves ably through these dozen distortion-cranked, rhapsodically sung bits of power pop. [2007 Aug, p.110]

Curt Kirkwood has written a gorgeous album that channels his brother's world-weary relief. [Aug 2007, p.116]

Zeitgeist’s orgy of avalanche rhythms, cascading riffs and sky-licking guitar is as grandiose as ever (the solo on "Tarantula" sounds like a nuke hitting a Guitar Center), but the bombast is softened as Corgan reaches out for shame-sharing community.

In fleshing out the contours of a sound once slavishly indebted to early-'80s titans like JD and the Smiths, they've nuanced the moods Banks moons over. Awesome for him. Only so-so for us. [August 2007, p.114]

Despite Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga's adventurousness, it's highest points end up being the most conventional. [August 2007, p.112]

Xavier de Rosnay and Gaspard Augé employ everything from ominous Christian iconography to slick future sounds to prop up their aura of overarching coolness.

While yet another geography gimmick song ("The Mesopotamians") might try the patience of anyone older than 8, goofiness also inspires them. [August 2007, p.118]

He took three years to produce this follow-up, and the labor shows, for good and ill. [August 2007, p.117]

It's all top-shelf alt-country: road-hardened, literate and dark as ever. [August 2007, p.114]

The best song on Super Taranta! is all about one <i>bad</i> party: the disappointed, outright funny 'American Wedding. [Aug 2007, p.111]

Superproducer Butch Vig is around to help transform Gabel’s strident leftism and occasionally clumsy choruses (e.g., "Protest Songs! In response to military aggression!") into swing-state-ready stadium rock.

[A] tightly coiled second album. [Jul 2007, p.119]

Mostly, though, this psychodrama feels both overplayed and underwritten. [August 2007 p.110]

It's the sound of a group treading water. [Jul 2007, p.110]

Clarkson has never sounded this depressive or spiteful. [Jul 2007, p.112]

It's the sound of a band not stretching out so much as digging in: burrowing deeper into loamy soil they know well. [Jul 2007, p.109]

This follow-up just isn't as lovable. [Jul 2007, p.110]

Luckily, Bon Jovi's country-music move yields just... one irritant. [Jul 2007, p.113]

A downer. [Jul 2007, p.116]

[Hayley Williams'] Tennessee crew's second album isn't as charmingly precocious as the first. [Jul 2007, p.116]

The oompah-oompah music-hall bounce, jolly sing-along tunes and attitude of playful whimsy haven't changed. [Jul 2007, p.116]

When Cornell strains for significance, he squeezes the life out of his music. [Jun 2007, p.105]

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

Where once he growled his rhymes through gritted teeth or abortively gulped them down altogether, now the beats let him breathe. [Jul 2007, p.113]

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

Kelly's true genius is the metaphor-laden sex jam, and Double Up has some great ones. [Jul 2007, p.115]

The outfit dispels any virtuoso vibe with their joyous absurdism. [Jun 2007, p.104]

[An] album of sharply assembled rock & roll. [Jun 2007, p.105]

The cocky songs mask a lot of misery. [Jun 2007, p.107]

The Used remain best when dripping with sweat, not sentiment. [Jun 2007, p.108]

The songs are more blustery than ever. [Jun 2007, p.108]

Sky Blue Sky often feels like the Dead's American Beauty if Jerry Garcia had taken Paxil instead of acid. [Jun 2007, p.103]

There's no great leap into maturity... They've kept their salient feature--scorching, adolescent tantrums--unchanged. [Jun 2007, p.109]

It's better written than her previous CDs... But this new old style is far less suited to her talents. [Jun 2007, p.110]

The Bush-Blair era has damaged these guys, and the results rule. [Jun 2007, p.105]

Even if nobody's made a record that sounds much like this before, she's given her performance here too many times already. [Jun 2007, p.106]

New Moon sounds less like a pile of outtakes than an official album released in a parallel universe.

Texturally, it's a middle ground between her searing early album Under the Pink and the sun-dappled 2005 The Beekeeper. [Jun 2007, p.105]

The elliptical vein opening, restless country twang and surging metal riffage have never sounded more confident. [Jun 2007, p.107]

[The] sense of playful adventure ensures that smooth needn't mean snoozy. [Jun 2007, p.108]

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

Lambert has a strong voice, if not an exceptionally pretty one, and it suits her badass hell-raising much better than it does quiet laments like "Desperation." [May 2007, p.107]

This odd cast creates strangely beautiful moods. [May 2007, p.104]

All too earnest. [May 2007, p.105]

In the tradition of thorny newbie bands that get scarily too big (Nirvana, Radiohead, Weezer), they’ve followed their funny, catchy debut with a less funny, less catchy second record to prove how little they trust the good times their music obviously inspires.

THe music is scarily gripping... his best computer blues since 1994's The Downward Spiral. [May 2007, p.108]

The big-screen sweep and high-definition melodies (suggesting Weezer’s sluggish pep buoyed by the Flaming Lips’ hallucinatory orchestrations) make this “malfunctioning android”’s anthems of depression extra vivid.

A riot of black humor, sex mania and mean-eyed, chaotic rock.

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

Witness the birth of a new dance genre: fantasy-core!

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

The Kings sound huger, less moonshine-slurry, even more romantic.

While the lyrics are strictly study-hall (“I’m no gentleman/I can be a prick” = poetry!), TAI… separate from the emo wolf pack by cribbing furiously from ’70s rock.

It’s an immersive, art-school-bred aesthetic that, three or four times on the band’s debut album, makes for some very good music, too.

Angry Mob delivers 13 consistently catchy tracks that bounce unrelentingly. [Apr 2007, p.115]

13 tracks of Disney-channel-ready pop, buffed and Pro-Tooled almost beyond recognition--and it's not half bad. [Apr 2007, p.111]

will.i.am... does push [Big] beyond her Sly Stone safety zone. [Apr 2007, p.111]

That it doesn't dissolve into kitsch and comedy is a tribute to Mika's gifts. [Apr 2007, p.118]

His once-believable menace comes off as forced caricature. [May 2007, p.109]

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

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

Is there another "Float On"? It scarcely matters: 10 years into their career, Modest Mouse have stumbled into their best album yet. [Mar 2007, p.137]

What elevates this power trio above any number of punk revivalists... are precision and craft. [Apr 2007, p.115]

The music's intellectualism obscures as many truths as it unveils. [Mar 2007, p.130]

For the first time in El-P's career, he's realized you don't need to be loud to get your point across. [Apr 2007, p.110]

There's nothing remotely original about any of it. [Apr 2007, p.111]

Gummere’s voice is no one’s idea of pretty, and his lyrics are sometimes hard to decipher over the squall. But they’re both secondary to the nose-bloodying sonic punch.

The quartet has the virtues of youth... and some of the drawbacks. [May 2007, p.106]

[It] sounds fantastic--partly because the production nails sample-ready '60s soul right down to the drum sound' and partly because Winehouse is one hell of an impressive singer. [Apr 2007, p.121]

The lightness and clarity that once set Hales apart is here squashed by overwrought arrangements of lesser melodies that replace pop classicism with conventional rock bluster.

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

Too bad about the self-important, chanted lyrics, which rattle on even when the band's trying to stretch out and groove. [Apr 2007, p.110]

What was once joyful, now sounds careworn and overly precious.

You can only discover fire once, though, so instead of a revolutionary blueprint, Neon Bible makes a triumphant clamor that's nearly as cathartic. [Apr 2007, p.109]

The saggy country-rock complaints about corporatization and alienation [Farrar] offers... sound like submissions to an Air America poetry contest. [Apr 2007, p.121]

Fans of the Stooges' early-'70s masterpieces wondered what they would have sounded like with a big-league budget. Here's the answer: loud, surly and still barely civilized. [Apr 2007, p.120]

An instrument-juggling, one-man-band approach that recalls the romantic, psychedelic pop of the Zombies and the textured electronics of Radiohead.