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.

A rare case of one step back, two steps forward. [Nov 2006, p.144]

The minimalist tracks rate among his best. [May 2006, p.109]

Earth is the sound of a band coming to that inevitable realization: five patrician perfectionists who've resolved to sound sloppy, even (or especially) at the risk of fucking up. [Jan/Feb 2006, p.98]

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.

Lauper hasn’t sounded this relevant since her 1983 debut, when she celebrated female masturbation.

Amid the frenzied melancholy, there’s filler and a histrionic misstep or two, but for those willfully lost in the perpetual adolescence Smith has always documented, here’s the new soundtrack to Saturday night.

Rae's music sticks in your mind like a pleasant scent you wish would linger. [Jun 2006, p.143]

The Clan's lyricists remain as aggressively word-drunk as ever, balancing the music's pop conciseness with oblique rhymes that compel repeated listening. [Feb/Mar 2002, p.116]

Even the most hardcore riddims here percolate with moments of silky soul, pop and gospel. [Aug 2004, p.128]

Her woodwind-like voice and lucid sensiblity are hardly weird, but Andrews pushes her toward a dreamy and daring edge. [Apr 2005, p.117]

Enough human warmth sneaks through to make this second album exciting and affecting. [Nov 2005, p.133]

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]

The subtle, heartfelt results may not help them shed the "emo" tag, but should propel them beyond cult status. [Apr/May 2002, p.116]

Coheed have found their sweet spot.

He can go from dazzling to deadeningly dense over LP lengths, so this smaller dose is appealing. [Apr 2005, p.112]

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

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 emotional terrain is much more treacherous here, and more rewarding for it. [Oct 2003, p.114]

Cute but not too sugary, smart but not too brainy, [Stacy] Jones's songs practically define pop-punk. [#14, p.130]

Satisfyingly sloppy.

No new fans need apply here, but those who know and love his sound will find that this self-styled career summation, a nod back to late Husker Du with computerized updates, sprouts horns with repeat listens. [Aug 2005, p.112]

On this eight-song EP--available for free on his Web site--the amiable 42-year-old lends his peach-cobbler drawl to songs about maimed soldiers and power-drunk bullies, a doleful cover of Creedence Clearwater Revival’s 'Fortunate Son' and 'Mission Accomplished (Because You Gotta Have Faith),' which deploys a Bo Diddley beat to excoriate a leader who “drove us off a cliff and told us we were flyin’.”

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

Us[es] Nevermind as a trusty road map. [Apr 2006, p.116]

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

Baker... somehow makes them sound more outrageous--and more convincing. [Dec 2005, p.148]

It's art music first and pop second. [Oct 2003, p.115]