Those unawares of Deer Tick’s five preceding efforts ought to make every effort to catch up. Likewise, those who appreciate the band’s quality and consistency will find Vol. 1 and Vol. 2 to be a perfect pairing, as compatible as their titles imply.

[A] sensational self-titled release. Mixing the album’s overall tone with soul, rock, electronic, and hip hop, the album has a vibe that is something close to Mike Patton’s baby Peeping Tom.

Some long-time fans may object to Lightning Bolts new legibility, missing the communal chaos and staticky buzz that made listening to previous outings like opening a box of bees. But the maelstrom still looms, the intensity remains, it’s just a bigger, more focused sound.

Clearly, Boz is back, and at age 70, he’s never sounded so assured.

They direct their efforts with a determined forward thrust that spills over the melodic parameters with a celebratory display of rock ‘n’ roll revelry.

There’s a lot here, all of it sounding exquisite.

He’s brought the whole Destroyer vibe to an entirely non-Destroyer set of material, and you can feel the waves of cool detachment, of stylish artifice wafting off these tunes just the same as always.

These salad days have been solid days for the Salad Boys, no matter how you toss it, making them a sterling addition to their musically rich NZ heritage. Pleasurable neural sensations are guaranteed.

With this supremely supple and joyous display of early innocence and promise, Aztec Camera showed they already come into their own.

They hit their stride midway through on a trio of sweet ballads--“Rock in the River,” “Jackie Boy” and “All That’s Left”--and although the surrounding songs keep to the same tone and tempo, those three numbers give the album its emotional imprint.

Gonzalez paints broad strokes on this vast musical landscape, and although a wee long, Hurry Up, We're Dreaming may be his conceptual masterpiece.

There's plenty more good and bad.

Though his songwriting skills have rarely come to the fore, the quality of the material here--all of which he wrote, save a pair of covers--makes these tunes first rate.

To drag out a well worn cliché, The Best of Quantic is the proverbial embarrassment of riches, but boy is that true. This is just a feast of plenty for anyone interested at all in smart, sophisticated, well conceived and recorded global music in the 21st century.

A Wasteland Companion belies its foreboding title, largely eschewing the hushed introspection that's cast a pall over previous efforts in favor of, well, a sound that's at least marginally more hopeful.

With Pan the band has created an album that places them squarely amongst the pantheon of musicians they so obviously adore.

Only four songs on here but it's a good four songs.

Thomas Brenneck has crafted ten seamlessly funky and beautifully played and arranged instrumental tracks in search of a film.

The combination of the two disparate methods of performance made for quite an extraordinary menagerie of styles that will definitely appeal to hip-hop, art pop and world music fans alike.

These 14 songs sound as wholly irresistible now as they did when they were such an essential part of a soundtrack for a now-distant decade.

This is an essential CD for both the serious and casual fan.

Apparently Cartwright exorcised his punk rock demons with Desperation, as Shattered is the band’s most accessible record yet.

This band seems poised for some kind of breakthrough and Tiger Talk seems as a good a place as any for this to happen.

There is not a single track on this record that doesn’t belong, each nearly flawless in their own way.

These songs may not scan perfectly or make much objective sense, but they feel very real and relevant and uncalculated.

An exceptionally strong debut record, Soul Power will make you believe in the title concept.

Where The Action Is may not be the absolute rave-up the album title implies, but it is a remarkably incisive effort that ought to remind one and all what a singularly important ensemble the Waterboys were… and still remain.

Pink City is her prettiest, most cohesive work yet. It’s well-constructed enough to showcase the weirdness that crops up in her songs without making her seem like a novelty act.