This record is not out to shatter you; its aim, rather, is to fuel your night drive through the dusky electronic corridors of sun-warmed youth.

Six Cups of Rebel isn't bad, but it is heavy-handed--and nowhere near his strongest.

The results are expectedly familiar, fantastic and welcome.

Future This delivers the same formula, but does so with perhaps one too many tracks.

The Prodigy has been treading water for a few years, most likely looking for the inspiration, sentiment and spooky samples which they now unleash on Invader Must Die--a treat for anyone with a thirst for the twisted and ferocious. [Winter 2009, p.92]

The one-man result: breezy soul tracks with pop structures, chill vocals and a grab bag of flourishes recalling everything from McCartney to Prince.

Lovers of perverse pop, rejoice! [Summer 2008, p.92]

Throughout, group leader Toby Martin accelerates his ascent to bedroom bard of the medicated generation, filling Twilight with Zach Braffian tales of the perils that exist in relationships with girls (“Sorry”) and pills (“On A String”).

Call it diversity; call it inconsistency; whatever. Moving in some direction is half the battle. [#22, p.93]

Apt at harnessing the power of the pout, songs are left in the shadows, no minor key left unexplored. Theatrical, yes. But not without restraint.

The quartet's cycle of jam band guitars and lamentable retrospectives os a smidge repetitious but there's comfort in the routine. [Fall 2008, p.97]

If you're looking for the quartet's usual twist in its sobriety, there's a Sondheim-ian feel to Keane's particularly ardent brand of complex pop melancholy this time out to go with its new sense of directness.

Still, without the pirate blouses and eyeliner... it's just homage, isn't it? [#12, p.99]

Tillman’s silken, Otis Redding–reminiscent vocals anchor funky, horn-driven R & B beats that match the swagger of Motown.

Sounds sometimes Dylan and most of the time Starbucks. [#12, p.102]

For this blissfully weirdo fourth outing, the sisters Casady freakishly but joyfully plunder the odder bits of medieval folk, drum and bass, Western saloon and Mitteleuropa gothic elements.

An A.merican D.ream struts back into those alleyways, but devoid of any kind of humor.

Hunters isn’t a perfect album, reliant as it is on Almeida’s chirpy, slurry tendencies to bring the joys, but it’s a nice start.

Resonating and radical, Ghost’s evocative and contradictory shades of noisy (“Dead Doctors Don’t Lie”) and dreamy (“Bat Lies”) soundscapes are a welcome and overdue escape from the “oppressiveness” of the Southern California sun.

Limits of Desire is more romantic, calling on aural cues from nostalgic ’80s movies but with some modern tricks.

Morrison turns his ever-honest eyes towards fatherhood and commitment, while the band balance his emotional vulnerability on thin lines of guitar, dangling the whole thing over a churning ocean of rhythm.

The New Danger's pulse doesn't always support Mos' growing manhood. [#13, p.89]

The result is a band that has found their collective groove.

The Massachusetts trio's newfound love of meandering atmospherics plays like a Broken Social Scene doppelganger dozing off in its own sonic wanderings.

Chris Martin’s voice is unremarkable but inoffensive on the non-instrumentals, and while some of Cosy’s tones are satisfying, they don’t redeem its shortcomings.

The resultant sound is crisp and lovely, and on a clear mission to please its other (the listener, maybe?).

Dead Son Rising is a dark experimental work that reminds us why Trent Reznor is an obvious fan.

The album does have spots that border on being too polished, so these Southern gents would do well to remember that everything is better with a little bit of dirt on it. [Winter 2010, p.100]

Hands play the instruments that induce you to dance and hear those sounds that make you want to feel it all.

Ra Ra Riot devotees will also recognize this electronic turn. The change, although typical of seemingly every 21st-century band, is respectfully executed, retaining Ra Ra Riot’s unique style, making this third album far less superfluous than most indie-rock bands’ later efforts.

Each song on The Spine is characteristically intelligent, observant, and poppy as all hell. [#11, p.94]

If you're looking to be moved, inspired, to scream or cry, look elsewhere. But the kids need to have their fun...so, bring it on. [Winter 2009, p.96]

This is the band's most cohesive, accessible, melodic and lyrically viscous record to date. [#21, p.99]

Besides a couple of limp late-album tag-ons, it appears that, for once, the kings of chill-out have gotten downright animated. [Fall 2009, p.96]

On their third effort, it's still the sexy that sells us.

It's hard to talk about the Editors without drawing comparisons to their Great Brit predecessors Joy Division and Echo & the Bunnymen, and on In This Light, these comparisons ring true. [Holiday 2009, p. 92]

'Emergency Call,' with its Jerry Rafferty-esque hook, marks the highpoint of the album. But the ditties are offset by introspective ballads like 'Never Looking Back,' with its mournful melody, and 'Bound,' a song in which Matt gets his dander up and renounces a woman who’s wronged him.

It's impossible to decide whether Black is tourist or guide in the land of dusty genres he evokes. [#21, p.102]

A rare debut, as well crafted as it is likeable.

Pairing synths with Springsteen is a formula that's worked well for The Killers' frontman before, but here the Lanois production begins to grate amongst the constant God imagery and every third line being a cliché.

The synthetics have the heavy warp that most dance floors like to roick, even as they land somewhere between Meat Beat Manifesto, Gang of Four and Ghostalnd Observatory. [Spring 2008, p.100]

Zeitgeist is mostly a grinding, straightforward affair that demonstrates none of the innovation and vision of the band’s previous efforts.

Anywhere I Lay My Head is a starling achievement not because Ms. Scarlett has simply managed to cleverly re-imagine some assemblage of Tom Wait songs, but rather, because she has seized upon precisely why they affected us so much the first time round. [Spring 2008, p.91]

Listening to this record, made me feel like the Andy Rooney of dance/electronic music. [Winter 2009, p.92]

The Vision, the latest from bass music sensation Joker, strikes a wondrous balance of doom and poppiness.

The Fountain is replete with shimmering, flaw-repellant pop, all glorious melodies and gorgeous atmospherics; and while Will Sargent's feral guitar hounds are kept tightly leashed, Ian McCulloch rattle off couplets and takes us to dizzying heights of piercing sadness and grown-up romantic longing. [Holiday 2009, p. 93]

The band experiments with world music (“Are You What You Want To Be?”) and psychedelia (“Pseudologia Fantastic,” “A Beginner’s Guide To Destroying The Moon”) but falls short.

Even though songs 'He's Frank' and 'Toe Jam' are tremendous achievements, I Think falters too often in mediocrity, and fails to show promise of becoming as classic as it was meant to be. [Winter 209, p.103]

They don't stray from what they know and they don't tarry from their blueprint. It's just that they don't know much and their blueprint was done in crayon. [#5, p.92]

When Welcome To The North is at its biggest, it's also at its best. Unfortunately, that means that the record's better half comprises the last two tribal minutes of each track and a couple of exceptional highlights. [#13, p.100]

Hung on the haunting vocals of frontwoman Sarah P, At Home is no mere retread, but a full-fledged genre renaissance.

The songs possess an entrancing power but lack a certain amount of dynamism, the kind of tonal shift or chord change that sets your hairs on end, which is the hallmark of great pop music.

No longer satisfied with the kitchen disposal, Eats Darkness just goes ahead and throws in the kitchen sink, tractor, uprooted tree, and any other incongruous items it can find. [Summer 2009, p.96]

A marked improvement upon the blank and boring pop they pulled out of the Monkey House in 2003. [#17, p.95]

The Troy, New York-based Rowe's songs have an edge to them, albeit in an all-too-similar vein.

By the end of the year, expect Harris' star to steadily rise as 18 Months continues to devour the calendar-and the universe.

The Boy With No Name instantly gets Travis back to the business of being Travis. [#25, p.102]

The Handler is no doubt marred by some tasteless postcoital nyuks... and outdated references. [#12, p.97]

Simple without being simplistic. [#14, p.98]

It may sometimes sparkle, but it never shines. [Spring 2008, p.102]

Loud Like Love’s loudest moments (“Exit Wounds,” “Purify”) are all puff and no power. But on the tormentedly bemused “Too Many Friends,” we get incisive philosophical reflections on technological alienation and the swelling meaninglessness of modern existence.

The August release date makes this a perfect end-of-season party album, getting you in beach or barbeque mood. [Summer 2008, p.92]

This is a brutal disappointment. [#19, p.97]

Divided By Night continues to raise the bar for the electro wizards. [Spring 2009, p.96]

The heavy-handed force of the latest effort to sonically disconstruct and reconstruct gets tiresome. [Spring 2009, p.103]

Weak poetry set to any music sucks, let alone this plodding folk-lite. [#13, p.90]

Not every song here is successful, and as far as innovation goes, Grubbs isn't going to be driving the conversation, but he's put out a pleasing pop record that leaves listeners with no reason to absolutely despise the channel. [Winter 2010, p.99]

Gomez finally makes peace with the fact that it's a pop band that loves to jam and a jam band that loves to write pop songs.

Ultimately, this collection is a series of album nearly-rans. This shouldn't undermine the songs, but it should reiterate how strong Weezer's records actually are (for the large part).

Many of the songs indistinguishably work together to guard from it, making the album as a whole feel like one long, subdued tranquilized state.

In this debut, Lou Reed and "Gallows Pole"-era Led Zeppelin mix with Fraiture's honest storytelling and obvious familiarity with a good hook, thus ensuring that while these tracks won't be slam dunks, they will hold up against detailed scrutiny. [Holiday 2008, p.94]

Most of it just falls flat, neither recapturing the glory days nor squarely moving the band into a new era. [#21, p.102]

Yeah, it's good: vintage rock. [#20, p.92]

There are a few thrilling moments here—notably the cinematic ballad “Nothing”--but the band mostly flounders as it seeks a new direction.

This isn't a case of a band branching into a new sound as much as becoming a new band altogether. And this one just doesn't make the cut.

The band proves once more that you can't get by on just clever quips and happy-go-lucky hooks. It's too bad, because these catchy compositions would be worth replaying if only they had more substance.

The band’s fourth release, Christopher, falls flat despite containing one of this year’s (possibly this decade’s) finest pop songs with its opener “Desert of Pop.”

If all goes well, people will forego the bad songs and concentrate on the really good ones, and Starsailor will get the message to go subtle and tight. [#8, p.102]

Too often, though, the metronomic guitar-plucking and rainy-day harmonies give the tunes an interchangeable, mid-tempo somberness, which inevitably turns boring.

The last few numbers droop, and as a whole, the record sinks a little from the weight of all that goddamn goodwill. [#12, p.98]

It's refreshing to see a talented musician who’s harmlessly heartfelt, but the record would have more edge and lasting value if Jack simply grew some balls.

This is nowhere near a bad album. [#12, p.95]

It's both disjointed and jarring, but it's unlike anything the Chicago legend has done before. Drop your booty if you enjoy such things. If not, try and appreciate those who do. [Holiday 2008, p.91]

The only problem is that many of those stylings have already been put to death, so hearing them again can be a little annoying.

From the Midlands to the Midwest, the mediocre couldn't be more on fire.

The thread that made Weezer everyone's favorite nerd-rock quartet--the soul and core behind the dramatic guitar crescendos--has unraveled completely, leaving us with a record full of, well, a lot of dramatic guitar crescendos. [#16, p.87]

The album's lyrics feature mostly throwaway new-age drivel... and gut-wrenching despondency reduced to bored balladeering. Or just plain silliness. [#13, p.102]

You can't help but be pleasantly surprised and impressed by how much this effort doesn't borrow from its predecessor.

Some kind of Californian 5th Dimension/Phil Spector hybrid. All apologies, guys, but it comes off about as genuine as Phil Spector's current legal defense. [#11, p.94]

Funstyle's what would happen if M.I.A. joined a musical sequence on Saved by the Bell.

That this album eviscerates the armies of shoegazer-come-latelies is a trifiling accomplishment compared to the fact that for 74 minutes--with an overall tone of foreboding bordering on the haunting and disturbing--this album is impossible to turn off. [Spring 2008, p.92]

The formula seems tired, or at least stretched too thin to be effective. [#9, p.101]

Beyond the Neighborhood is somewhere in between, melding studio tweakery with the kind of sweeping melodies that never seem to go out of fashion.

14 tracks that go from anthemic to soothing and sleepy, while never once crossing any kind of line--or even looking at one. [#15, p.94]