Cave's themes remain unchanged, but his songcraft prowess continues to grow, aided by the finest instrumental backing and production of any Bad Seeds album to date. [Winter 2008, p.90]

You want this album. [#21, p.98]

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]

Lust Lust Lust, the fuzzed-out, starry-eyed return-to-form by The Raveonettes, takes you there and then kicks you out at sunrise. [Winter 2008, p.94]

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

The mood is undeniably American, and Bonnie (or Oldham) seems incomprehensibly at peace with his hallmark solitude. [Winter 2009, p.91]

La Radiolina emerges as a delicious bouillabaisse of gypsy punk, reggae and countless indigenous sounds, expertly stirred by a band of brawling pirates who plunder each port for musical spices and then add them to the cauldron.

There's an organic component that coexists along with the machines, giving them a warmth few acts have been able to unearth. [#11, p.93]

This album's genuinely passionate without any sort of cheesy emotional transparency. [#6, p.81]

This is one of the quintessential L.A. albums, for its fireworks of fame and celebrity are stripped naked and left to wander. [Spring 2008, p.94]

Manages to artfully encompass all that sucks about post-pubescent life... within an exquisite ball of heady poetry, cold composition, and the kind of warm brilliance that comes from only the most inspired of collaborations. [#15, p.96]

It's passionate. It's thoughtful. It's catchy. It's their breakout moment, their best record, and... it will be one of the best albums of 2004.[#9, p.100]

This is the best album Trail of Dead has ever made. [#13, p.94]

The results are compact, near-pop micro-anthems. [#17, p.93]

One might be a bit startled by how much, well, more broken this new [album] sounds. [#17, p.92]

While disc two rounds out the duo's footprint upon several documentaries, what makes Cave and Ellis' scores unique is their doppelganger ability to stand alone without the films, while the films largely lean upon these audible landscapes as a means of storytelling. [Fall 2009, p.91]

A patient, assured album where nearly every sound feels appropriate. [#22, p.93]

Even when they’re forging new ground (which is often) or mixing it up with any of the aforementioned conversation points, they still manage to sound exactly like themselves.

Decades beyond the point at which most of his peers peaked, Paul Simon is still discovering new ways of writing and conveying amazing work and discovering beautifully unexpected and often spiritual language, as well as new rhythms, melodies and instrumental textures.

Gonzalez has crafted an admirable paean to fuzzy memories, nostalgia, melancholic rumination and pop experimentation, imploring the listener to become the stories and places that populate dreams.

In comparison to... Ta Det Lungt, Tio Bitar trades much of the immediacy for multi-dimensional empiricism and fringe atmosphere. [#25, p.98]

[Mudhoney] are as furious, as weird, and as tuned-down as ever. [#19, p.101]

The seasoned professional executes discipline on a record that seems entirely natural--layered to the top, but never giving in to excess. [Winter 2008, p.92]

Beck’s willingness to raid just about any genre works wonders when coupled with Mlle. Gainsbourg’s ability to inject matter-of-fact sexual energy into just about anything.

Explode[s] with musical vitality. [#15, p.97]

Berninger sounds smart and witty; but above all else, he sounds like he really went for it this time. [#15, p.105]

There is an unhinged, maniacal desire to cross on over into the cosmos on Comets on Fire's (frankly) totally awesome new record. [#21, p.100]

It’s a nice cross-section of material that highlights why Pavement was such a darling of the alt press, but Quarantine fails to truly capture the greatness.