Sam Beam’s wily flirtations with girl-group chants and country-politan pageantry entices in fits and starts. Unfortunately, Ghost on Ghost’s midsection suffers from some genre weariness and similitude.

Whereas previous albums took a massive leap into noise and danger, this disappoints.

A minor criticism could arise in a homogeny of the individual parts, but that just might be splitting hairs.

Warmer than previous efforts. [#25, p.102]

I have no idea what's he's saying. I have absolutely no idea why the record is called Alopecia. But as I keep playing it, I really don't care. [Winter 2008, p. 100]

Here, every strain, key, and vocal is stirred up into a creaky, constanaut, clearly-defined symphony. [Summer 2009, p.98]

It is both heart-wrenchingly introspective and jubilant.

Although it may be too early to tell, if the rest of his future solo albums sound anything like his debut, then this scrappy kid definitely has a bright future in the music biz.

Subdued guitar work and sleepy rhythms provide a solid underpinning for the airy melodies, keeping them from drifting away like freshly-blown bubbles.

Though it may be too severe a downgrade for some, Tender Buttons is in fact a lovely ugly thing. [#17, p.96]

Whichever feeling he aims for--rousing or reflective--this Texan achieves striking authenticity. [Spring 2009, p.102]

There won’t be many more solid albums than this in 2013.

More provocative and aggressive yet theatrical than any full album the moody Martha has executed to date. Brava.

While the album isn't perfect, it offers a more complete experience; it's a little bit strange, but it's also a little bit brilliant.

Holy Fire isn’t a straight home run for the Oxford-based quintet.

Selections here appear sketch-like, but the artist's roots in post-punk drink amply despite the brevity.

The record does sound like the soundtrack to a bad dream--but you won’t want to wake from it.

Open Season opts for simplicity, its plainest moments being its most transcendent, and for the most part, it carries you along. [#15, p.92]

Songs like "Santa Cruz" make this album fallible--they aren't as beautiful as the place and memories evoked from the titles.

Our hero of Whiskeytown has returned. [#25, p.89]

A collection of reliable, trustworthy tunes. [#24, p.98]

Each consecutive [song] is stranger than the last. [#19, p.88]

Her sound is undeniably more mature than what you would typically expect from a 21-year-old, but tracks like "Don't You Remember" make you wonder if the overall vibe is more mature than it should be.

Expect talk of his crossover potential, the way he weds a mighty, funny, fresher-than-hell stage presence to the tried-and-true gangsta tropes of stunts and blunts. Expect 2Pac comparisons. Expect, based off this EP, great albums.

Thankfully, none of Lidell's guests do much to blunt his funky trajectory. [Spring/Summer 2010, p.108]

The project was, in fact, meant to be set to a stage show that never materialized, but the songs do mostly stand quite well in their own...sort of. [Fall 2009, p.94]

The dream-pop duo layers together featherweight electronics, '80s beats and island attitude-stirring them into a frothy blend indebted to both The Tough Alliance's harmonies and Air France's hazy atmospherics.

Stop bitching about never hearing anything new or different and pick this up. [#22, p.94]

There's no pulling them out of the abyss on this defiantly downcast Calexico record.

Gift Of Gab is assured and even-keeled on Escape 2 Mars--never reaching the intensity of Blackalicious' best work, or descending into the mellow lounge -scapes of "4th Dimensional Rocketships."

Move In Spectrums is good—with more ambition it could have been great.

The Weakerthans’ music ages well, and when they free themselves from style and are left to focus purely on their music, it never fails to make you feel special—thus making the Weakerthans a perfect band for fandom.

Craig Finn's lyrics house the crass beauty of a worn-down dweller of the turning century, making this album a movie I'd pay 10 bucks to see.

Particularly inspired by old '50s rock and roll like Little Richard and Fats Domino, the group does not disappoint its impulses, even if they're stuck on repeat.

Grandiose, theatrical and picturesque, it's not to say the album isn't beautiful, but comes off as somewhat contrived.

Autolux crawls through sophomore album Transit Transit, paring the exquisite agony of rush hour traffic with Lynchian surrealism.

Finally, the soundtrack to your most ineffable longings.

Andersson allows her vocals to swim straight to the surface of her latest record. The resulting 12 tracks yield mixed results. [Fall 2008, p.100]

It's not that Rose City has nothing to offer, it's just at its best when it's most forgettable. [Spring 2009, p.98]

Daisy demonstrates that Barnd New can remain forever sincere and massively intriguing composers. [Fall 2009, p.96]

On Departing, there's no lack of that rawness or emotion, and the crippling nostalgia still reverberates throughout.

As usual, though, the group are at their best when trying to come to terms with grace and beauty.

With lyrics appropriated from an e.e. cummings poem of the same name ["Dying is Fine"] contrasting with bouncy guitar riffs, the creation feels fresh; the past, unforgetable. [Summer 2008, p.91]

The music is nice enough, beautiful in parts, and will set a perfect mood for those who can slow down long enough to take it all in.

They arise triumphant with their own footprint in the soil of rock and roll. [Winter 2009, p.91]

In short, the band brilliantly harks back to the nearly forgotten art of blissful pop.

It's Mascis plodding on, warbling apathetically and then suddenly breaking into his shimmering birdsong. What motivates the consummate slacker band to continue is beyond all of us. But is anyone complaining?

This funk is organic. [#24, p.90]

A Nordic slice of pop heaven that ranges from electro-Calypso bizarrity to hand clap-driven electro anthems about "Breaking It Up." [Summer 2008, p.102]

For the most part, Outside Love distinguishes itself as a record of singular quality. [Spring 2009, p.97]

Good music transcends throughout time, and The Sea and Cake is one of few that do it right.

THe Knot is an iron-willed, albeit reserved, expansion of the duo's sound. [Summer 2009, p.106]

The lyrics, not entirely in English, are a bit al dente and often overshadowed by the quartet's blend of jazz, blues and dub sounds. [Fall 2009, p.106]

The ever-loquacious monster of folk has a lot to say on his latest record (this one finds him particularly obsessed with time), but it’s his growing mastery of orchestration that muzos might appreciate the most.

Mind Bokeh has all the cuts and scratches you'd expect from an album by a producer, but it's jerky without being propulsive, mixing a swathe of styles with harsh funk, sudden stops and melancholy undertones.

An album awash in evocative warmth. [#9, p.111]

Sounds like the house mix for a Marxist disco. [#11, p.92]

The music is a bit harder. [#19, p.104]

Frances the Mute documents the Mars Volta as a passionate and explosive band that has grown capable of taking the music in a hundred different directions. [#14, p.96]

Collaborations with Queens of the Stone Age's Josh Homme, Lanegan's fellow Gutter Twin Greg Dulli and original Red Hot Chili Peppers drummer Jack Irons inject a little more heavy and sleaze to his rock.

Apocalypse is Bill Callahan's newest cryptic journey into the heart and art of this American life.

Never cluttered, Drowaton is as compelling as it is complex. [Filter Mini #10, p.13]

Like New Zealand itself, it must be experienced to be really understood. [Winter 2008, p.92]

Raposa breathes a life of delicate beauty amidst a seemingly hopeless situation.

It's simple, easy listening. [#11, p.98]

If you generally like Byrne's music, you will unquestionably enjoy this record. If you've come looking for revolution, I'd recommend a time machine. [Holiday 2008, p.100]

All swelling organs, Teutonic strings and scathing political diatribes delivered in her winsome, insouciant vocal style.

It’s a demanding, damn good and rewarding listen, one that squeezes your heart and head through shaking fingers.

A short film accompanies the release, but it hardly seems necessary, given the music’s powerful cinematic evocativeness.

While not as in-your-face or sinister as the last LPs, Latin packs a punch nevertheless. [Spring/Summer 2010, p.107]

Solid, workmanlike rhymes abound, but a shortage of mind-blowing moments is tempered by the absence of mediocrity.

Inoffensive to the nth degree, this is a sleeping pill, not the double espresso we ordered.

Nothing Is Precious Enough For Us sustains the antebellum lilt and spare arrangements of the first album. [Summer 2008, p.105]

Reggie Youngblood's honest and witty dialogue of jealousy, loniness, and egotism vents interior frustrations while the other Kids synthesize sulk along the way. [Summer 2008, p.97]]

It’s markedly less garage-born than previous endeavors, too, sounding more akin to a dancier Echo & The Bunnymen or a version of The Magnetic Fields’ 69 Love Songs recorded at higher fidelity.

In brief, it's one of the grooviest albums you'll hear--Saudi Arabia, here, or anywhere else. [Fall 2008, p.100]

Just five tracks, each piece from The Mystery of Heaven resonates the way a film score does--with grandiose, cinematic, room-shaking effect.

Where WIXIW was the intricately ordered product of a hundred thousand small decisions, Mess is a sloppy, outward-turned--and, it has to be said, uneven--quagmire built with the kind of swagger that dares you to use its own title against it.

Strangely timid in both its production choices and songwriting. [#11, p.92]

What was once so fresh is now a little tired. [#6, p.80]

Their most melodic and probably their best record yet. [#11, p.94]

The album’s enthralling fusion of electronica and soul proves that Faker’s glass foundation is a prism showing his colorful range.

There are no distinguishable hooks or chorus lines anywhere on Coming Apart; instead, it’s just Gordon and Nace simultaneously subverting and creating musical forms that will surely polarize listeners who want to “get it” and those who refuse to.

What the album does do, however, is sets the band on that coveted trajectory upwards.

Just like with White Stripes albums, the music rattles your brain like no other and gets better with age. [#20, p.97]

Romance is Boring is a strong effort froma dedicated band tgat could use a but more restraint in terms of arrangement, but nonetheless, it's self-asured, deliciously Welsh and--as always--a real god time. [Winter 2010, p.100]

Big Wheel and Others represents McCombs’ most transient yet memorable volume of song-carved verse yet.

The record feels its finest when the finger-picking guitarist keeps things simple and mellow on the acoustic, filling the remaining space with his warm, husked vocals.

Gogol Bordello’s incomparable brand of swaggering gypsy punk hasn’t lost a whit of its euphoric urgency.

[Many] of the songs submerge the rock and roll swagger of Your Arsenal in dramatic atmospherics, making ofr an astonishingly immediate visceral experience. [#20, p.91]

The record's personlaity wins over, and the evil guitars do too. [Spring 2009, p.98]

At best, the heart found in earlier recordings is missing from Ann's soft voice here. At worst-as in the album closer where she counts down from 101 to 1 in a flat tone-things get downright tedious.

The two marry sounds of melodrama and sheer polyphonic weirdness for a result gone (sometimes) wonderfully awry. [Fall 2008, p.98]

Smalhans is all the luscious layering, thoughtful breakdowns, sneaky beats and catchy positivity fans would expect with some cockier, more straightforward dance moves included, as well.

The reality is that Bitter Drink, Bitter Moon is the musical equivalent of a grape soda--it tastes familiar, but it's just not quite a grape.

While fun, some of the foursome’s unique sound is sorely absent.

The Mountain may not be the repositioning kick-in-the-pants that the Heartless Bastards' peddle it as, but Wennerstorm's Midwestern maelstrom's been assuaged by new members and country/folk memes. [Holiday 2008, p.100]

This fourth album, the devastatingly visceral Mosquito, does indeed find them trawling the more lugubrious recesses of their psyches and sonic proclivities.