New York's experimental sonic collective continues to make challenging and rewarding music on Eye Contact.

Grinderman 2 is a great album by most standards. By Nick Cave's standards, however, the man responsible for Prayers on Fire, No More Shall We Part and even the first Grinderman record, it doesn't quite live up to its promise.

As simple as the instrumentation is on the album... they use it to maximum effect. [#11, p.98]

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]

[Josh Tillman] distinguishing himself as more than a back-row howler.

With Majesty Shredding, the group toggles between what once was and where it wants to be, bringing back punk and infusing it with a whole lotta pop. [Fall 2010, p.96]

Although Kanye's production work has certainly been more spectacular in the past, his subtle tweaks and inversions on Be provide Com with a revamped template. [#16, p.94]

Every song has a beautiful sheen, with washy acoustic guitars bathing the listener in stained-glass glow.

Mastodon's most accessible album to date finds the ATL-iens as unfocused as ever--and out of gas.

A lot of bands pepper blues and soul influences into their work, but Joe Lewis is genuinely capturing the spirit of those styles and making them relevant to modern audiences. No easy feat, and it's damn fun hearing him do it

While some songs may become tedious, like the lengthy "Hannibal," the album as a whole is a great addition to the Caribou discography.

There is something so honest about My Morning Jacket--something fresh and something Skynard. But in a good way. [#7, p.91]

While We're New Here is spooky, it's more chill-out mix than futuristic minimal-rave, and comes as a less interesting culture-clash than, say, The Dirtbombs doing covers of Detroit techno songs.

Darnielle has not lost his talent for storytelling. [#15, p.99]

The result is a thoroughly cross-cultural album dripping with soul and iconoclasm. It’s fun, too.

It comes on slow, seeping into your memory through dusty riffs as expansive as Texas plains.

The end result is a kind of low-flying elation that only these experienced noirists could deliver.

We still have a band trying to blow your mind with pure musicianship and experimentation, while having the balls to show restraint and even unabashed posie-sniffing beauty.

The attempt to cross unbridgeable distances, whatever the outcome, defines The Whole Love.

Grace is in-your-face with an aggressively told tale of selfhood (to say nothing of the heartbreak of loss) at its most exposed and anthemic.

She transforms a Sufi song into a lullaby, and like her simultaneously near-and-distant voice, turns a faraway place into home. [Fall 2009, p.100]

On its self-titled debut, the post-punk trio remarkably bottles the sound of a live show.

Unhurried, deliberate and raw.

A hefty team was assembled to do this right... and do it right they do. [#21, p.93]

A Creature I Don't Know takes Marling even further in her musical career than her efforts have already-and the girl's only 21.

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]

Mirroring the lack of linearity in Lanegan’s career is the contrarian approach to this collection.

The tension between revelation and ambiguity is echoed in the music, which avoids the easy, straightforward release of pop crescendos in favor of alternating textures and rhythms.