They've toned down the distorted-guitar squall and ash gray skronk that blanketed their first two albums, the rhythms are friskier, more vigorous; the hooks accessible and easier to love. [Oct 2008, p.77]

On their lush major-label debut, the haunting Peter Gabriel-esque yawlps of singer Tunde Adebimpbe are punctuated by singer-guitarist Kyp Malone, whose raspy falsetto provides a sense of deadpan panic. [Jul 2006, p.103]

Bejar's most accessible album yet. [Apr 2006, p.111]

Lost in an eerie, graceful torpor, he opens his mouth and lets words seep out and linger, like so much intoxicating smoke.

Vespertine is her most intensely private and intimate-sounding work, a journey through an interior world that is quietly ecstatic, erotic and playful.

His bleakness was never this naked or all-consuming. [Nov 2004, p.143]

In Rainbows is far more pensive and reflective than its predecessor.

Valhalla, they are coming! [Jun 2005, p.114]

Singer-songwriter Britt Daniel's gift for obtuse yet engaging melody is now where it ought to be: up front. [#9, p.155]

The kind of boiling, roiling blues the Bad Seeds haven't cooked up in years. [Nov 2004, p.131]

These bluesy spirituals are so raw they bleed. [Mar 2005, p.136]

Strange, spooky and brilliant. [Apr 2006, p.114]

It doesn't feel like soapboxing; it feels like life. [Mar 2005, p.142]

Pacific Ocean Blue [is] a moody, groovy and deeply congenial solo album. The earthier Banbu. regularly rises to the Malibu heights of the first album. [July 2008, p.79]

None of the album rocks, or gets particularly rootsy. [July 2008, p.72]

He has his own personality: not a gangsta or a player but a diligent pragmatist. [Apr 2004, p.124]

Some of Dizzee's insecurity is replaced by newfound swagger. But swagger works, too. [Oct 2004, p.112]

These rough, bitter, ruminative songs are slower, longer and wordier than those on Decoration Day. [Sep 2004, p.139]

Their first protest record. [Oct 2006, p.137]

Unlike 2001's spare Essence, this album prickles with the lyrical details that make Williams's work exceptional. [#15, p.126]

Even more surprising is how dynamic the duo sounds, as their voices both blend together and draw each other into fresh territory.

The band's debut struts and flirts like the best-looking guy at the bar. [Apr 2004, p.126]

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]

Tweedy whittles down the arrangements and drops in enough experimental nuances to make the whole thing sound refreshingly lo-fi. [Jun/Jul 2002, p.116]

Phrenology is a celebration of self-determination, a nonstop joyride through some very complicated brains. [#12, p.149]

[She] displays the true grit of a younger Bonnie Raitt.

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.

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