Though several doses of this languid, tension-filled music get a tad draining, taken altogether it is a suitable sound for our troubling times, and there's an invigorating mysteriousness.

[An] even more ambitious, superbly crafted follow-up. [28 Aug 2005]

The sound is more varied and lighter on its feet with touches of harpsichord and banjo but anchored by the Hold Steady's signature: thick, humid arena rock, a high-pressure system of cresting guitars and pianos that injects these dramas with tension and embraces all their contradictions and ambiguities.

On “xx” and “Coexist,” the xx was using sadness as a kind of shield; its stylish monotony kept you from regarding the players as real people open to real connection. Here, in contrast, the music’s dynamics make you feel closely involved in what they’re singing about--the highs as well as the lows. I See You presents a band willing to be seen.

The songwriting and the vocal performances here are so strong — she’s playing with cadence and emphasizing the grain of her voice like never before — that eventually you stop caring what’s drawn directly from Swift’s real life and what’s not. It’s just a pleasure to get lost in tunes like “Labyrinth,” in which the singer explores her fear of falling in love again, and “Snow on the Beach,” a gorgeous duet with Lana Del Rey with some of the album’s most affecting imagery.

In its best moments, "Helplessness Blues" sparkles like some sort of divine plan, but a plan that knows the value of mistakes, surprises and even regret.

Breathtakingly beautiful.

Lacking a central, prominent voice, "Twin Cinema" is frequently the schematics without the soul, a formal tour de force with bravado to spare but not a lot of inner life. [4 Sep 2005]

It does reveal how thoughtful and meticulously pretty his songwriting was, even on his most intimate recordings.

Most everything on Over is built with measured precision.... Equally striking is the musical depth.

She goes deep, as deep as any artist working today, into the loud forest of stories where our ideas about love and the self are born. Her trail of crumbs isn't always obvious, but you can follow her there.

A feast for repeated listening, Veckatimest yields the kind of eccentricities a fan can spend months winding and unwinding.

It embraces both Tweedy's classicism and his refusal to settle for the familiar. [20 Nov 2005]

An album that seethes and rocks with real energy and depth. [22 Aug 2004]

Calling an Eels album personal and somber seems redundant, but compared with the guitar-rock discord of the two preceding albums, this return to meticulously crafted pop miniatures seems even more inward-directed. [24 Apr 2005]

Packed with forceful, nuanced songwriting that makes room for face-melting guitar riffery, lovelorn Midwestern teenagers and even, by Hold Steady standards, a bit of actual singing.

Unlike much ambient music, Gave in Rest isn’t made for background listening. In fact, only with volume can you fully appreciate the depth of Davachi’s creation.

Any of these songs could have appeared at any point in the group's discography. Which isn't necessarily a bad thing. A full-body massage, after all, is just as pleasing the fourth time as the first.

On her third work, Strange Mercy, her facility with song craft is no less compelling for its cerebral beauty, but too often that cool, constructed quality stands between its maker and the wild bramble of the song.

Long trafficking in a sometimes spare yet intricately drawn sort of Americana that could fit just as comfortably at the turn of the 20th century, their latest delivers the same deceptively simple alchemy of dustily lilting voices, vivid lyrical twists and crisp acoustic flourishes.

The pleasure is in listening to how often the National scrapes up close to maudlin, only to retreat in the nick of time.

Yet as easy as it should be for anyone to appreciate this thrilling and sincere record--truly, there’s no resisting the title track’s euphoric refrain--what might be most admirable about it is Sivan’s determination to make a particular group feel seen.

What’s exciting about the record, beyond its means of delivery, is how the music similarly blends the intimate and the extravagant.

Kaputt is hallucinatory and unstructured, grabbing for whatever it likes in the moment -- it's the radio of Bejar's mind, floating off to sleep.

He sings of the land and of people who struggle to hold on to some small piece of it. It's especially powerful considering the ways in which he's transcended significant struggles of his own.

Yet another compelling collection of expertly and inspiringly crafted songs that remind us just how wondrous pop music can still be.

The luminosity of her performance counters the album's tendency toward dry formalism. [5 Sep 2004]

The album is an artistic statement album with a capital "A," complete with an alter ego and theatrical flourishes that hint toward something of a funk-rock opera about death, spirituality and personal identity.