Lanegan has finally produced his long-threatened masterpiece. [Oct 2004, p.125]

This trip is an easy, late-summer cruise. [Oct 2006, p.142]

Here, they combine hardcore punk’s combat-boot side with its tortured-noise side, layering what sounds like scores of tsunami-distortion guitars over an atomic-speed drum blitz to attain rarely witnessed levels of obliteration (think Black Flag reincarnated as psychotic yetis).

Strangely compelling. [Nov 2004, p.129]

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]

[Finn] tells better stories than anyone else in music these days. [Oct 2006, p.131]

The emotional peaks are so sharp, the wordplay so juicy, that all excesses are redeemed.

Their most violently inventive album yet. [Nov 2003, p.109]

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]

S-K swagger like they never have before, eschewing the filler that made their last few records drag. [#9, p.157]

Buck ingeniously borrows from dub, metal and country to capture his characters' woozy worlds. [Mar 2005, p.137]

A gentle, reflective and often gorgeous album. [Nov 2005, p.132]

Their most sure-footedly solemn performances to date. [Nov 2003, p.114]

The songs on Fever to Tell swerve like they're being followed by the police, constantly changing and transforming. [May 2003, p.124]

With the groundbreaking stab at emo self-analysis, Cursive deserve at least a boost out of the emo ghetto. [Apr 2003, p.122]

It's conceptually daring, but beyond a few ecstatic moments... the sound is familiarly Bjorkish. [Oct 2004, p.113]

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

Rancid find plenty of ways to bend punk's rules. [Sep 2003, p.127]

Their propulsive intensity busts down garage doors, stumbling only with the wrongheaded ersatz cocktail ballad. [#8, p.117]

Feverish and bruised, dense as chowder, the songs describe danger and alienation in distressed voices. [May 2004, p.128]

This return to murky obscurantism, thankfully, comes with a return to guitar noise. [Jun 2005, p.115]

What's most frustrating about them is precisely what's most appealing: Their refusal to write traditional songs, coupled with their giggling nature-child personas, adds an air of mystery and makes for some beautifully offbeat melodies. [Nov 2005, p.131]

His new take scythes through the original, revealing growls and guitars long obscured—sometimes it’s distracting, but often it lends the songs a newfound jolt.

On [Takk...], the band opens up emotionally, warming up their lengthy jams to a slow burn to create intoxicating, meditative rock. [Oct 2005, p.143]

After decades, Waits's theater of musical cruelty is familiar stuff. But the old dog's tricks still have bite. [Applies to both Alice and Blood Money, Jun/Jul 2002, p.111]

This is Jay-Z's suicide note and his glowing eulogy rolled into one. [Jan 2004, p.106]

It's an "important" record... But, more crucially, it's an enduringly entrancing listen. [Apr 2006, p.123]

The most tightly hook-larded, colorfully produced, listenable Decemberists record to date. [Nov 2006, p.138]