Some selections are heartwrenching... But others bear the stain of sentimentality, denial, even exploitation. [Jul 2006, p.98]

Prog was rarely as songful as the brutal beauty here.

Mastodon present a prog-metal concept that would make Stephen Hawking bang his head.

A beautifully contained album, short in length and miniaturist in vision. [#14, p.135]

The best of Shadows lives in murky half-light where texture matters as much as melody. [Oct 2004, p.112]

The album's plush and detailed enough to invite extensive exploration, and varied enough to not get exhausting. [Oct 2005, p.135]

It's Banhart's gift for melody that ultimately carries the day. [Nov 2004, p.128]

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

They’ve upped the sonic oomph a notch, leaning on the piano, violin, xylophones and perfectly mangled Pavement-style guitar mess.

Beginning with "Further On (Up The Road)," Springsteen finds his footing and rides out the album on a stirring high note. [#9, p.140]

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.”

Things get almost crushingly heavy, but he fights through his nightmares like he's one spastic stab in the dark from flicking on a night light. [Apr 2008, p.77]

Her music is exhilarating, enigma-packed and, despite the unceasing noise barrage, winningly sweet.

The boldest album of their career. [Mar 2005, p.141]

Muscularly arranged with bongolated beats, psychedelic swamp guitars, boogie-woogie pine top and snowballing chorus hooks, Just Us Kids approximates a certain literate strain of early-'80s album rock.

Rooty boasts a raw, bustling edge and compulsive experimentalism closer in spirit to the hypersyncopated, R&B-flavored two-step garage currently ruling London clubland. [Jun/Jul 2001, p.104]

The Mekons can do anything, because no one told them they couldn't, and they do it better than almost anyone else. [#9, p.152]

Subduing the bright tinge of her country-flavored roots rock, Essence's acoustic musings mix Delta blues with Nick Drake-style nocturnal intimacy, while Williams's voice limits itself to a hushed drawl. [Jun/Jul 2001, p.102]

Vampire Weekend’s version of globalization is too tightly and smartly woven to be mere dilettantism, and at times Koenig is emphatic, even desperate, about escaping white-bred familiarity.

Sometimes the tone is self-congratulatory, but a house band this glorious deserves some kind of standing ovation. [May 2004, p.127]

As familiar as alt-country has become, Ward makes it worthwhile again. [#16, p.125]

When these Swedes get whacked by romance, they cushion the blow with a reed-kneed bedroom boogie that shimmies while evoking decades of great escapist groove music. [Mar 2007, p.141]

Eitzel sounds like he's finally emerging from the murk. [Nov 2004, p.128]

Roars like Led Zeppelin, churns like King Crimson and throbs like early Santana. [#17, p.138]

New Porn songs gush eagerness and surge like the front car of a roller coaster. [May 2003, p.122]

Point is the sound of a post-everything pop auteur rediscovering his attention span. [Feb/Mar 2002, p.111]

Most of the album is more fun than a folkie could stand. [Jun 2006, p.147]

His second solo album (which he dedicates to Pimp C, his partner in the pioneering Houston rap duo UGK who died of a codeine overdose last December) features blunts, ho's and Caddy-shaking beats galore--but also elegantly constructed takedowns of corrupt politicians, covetous ministers and crooked police.