It seems so mild. [#64, p.98]

Only the rambunctious can appreciate the tinny, relentlessly inventive hybridization herein. [#64, p.92]

An occasionally rewarding but often confusing listen. [#64, p.108]

Listening to this breakup-on-tape is captivating. [#64, p.98]

A hungry batch of songs that finds Malin wandering the avenues and uncovering compelling stories wherever he goes. [#64, p.100]

Finds Wilco switching moods, tones, influences and instruments enough to suggest a band on a pub crawl in search of its winterteeth. [#64, p.112]

The melancholia lacks distinguishing marks. [#64, p.80]

The occaisonally infectious hooks keep the shtick from falling into one-dimensional parody. [#64, p.104]

A better-than-average Sonic Youth album. [#64, p.106]

Winds isn't without charm, but it feels like the work of a different group. [#64, p.84]

As potent and timely as anything it released during the Reagan era. [#64, p.83]

Not only essential, Love And Distance is like nothing you've heard this year. [#64, p.95]

Make no mistake: You will dance. [#64, p.80]

It mostly drives down that most scenic of romantic-pop roads, honking and waving at fellow motorists Death Cab For Cutie. [#64, p.104]

Consistently fantastic. [#64, p.80]

The major distinction this time around is the eerily cheery delivery. [#64, p.110]

It sounds industrial on paper but comes off more like a hybrid of post-punk and noise pop. [#64, p.100]

Sounds like it was put together using spit, eyelash glue and sequins that fell off David Johansen's costumes all those years ago. [#64, p.90]

Kind of like the Cocteau Twins if Don Ho produced their albums. [#64, p.86]

The slowly picked guitar, the detailed songwriting, the harmonica and the intriguing, plain-spoken lyrics are all here. [#64, p.96]

By stripping away the symphonic, avant edge... [Gomez] loses much of what made it unique in the first place. [#64, p.96]

It's like somebody took all the great elements of FM anthems--the indelible choruses, the melodic tenacity and the rush of invincibility--and cut out the fat. [#64, p.110]

This newly minted prissiness... gives the twinkly keyboard and tangled guitar of "Oh Fine" and the mock-pomp circumstance of "Was It A Crime" a starry-eyed sensuality. [#64, p.92]

Molina's delicate vocals glide and dip, leaving Bjork earthbound on the shore and pea-green with envy. [#64, p.102]

His deft handling of the pop-song idiom makes even these smaller-scale songs soar. [#64, p.89]

There's something far too aloof about Again. [#64, p.84]

It's hard to imagine a better psychedelic-pop record this year than Satanic Panic In The Attic. [#64, p.102]

It's not only the supremely crafted song structures that give this album its classic feel but also the trickery-free production and Russo's slightly grayed tenor. [#64, p.107]

A gorgeous record brimming with unhurried songs. [#61, p.108]

Pop uses the strengths and weaknesses of his many guests to differing--and sometimes distracting--effect. [#61, p.88]

The first Wheat album that'll make you cringe through four or five listens before you can tolerate its artificial sweetness. [#61, p.111]

There's something undeniably mechanical about Room On Fire. [#61, p.107]

The tunes wear thin before the bluesman gimmick does. [#61, p.110]

On par, quality-wise, with the triumph that was last year's Stereo/Mono. [#61, p.110]

An unnervingly powerful, cathartic final statement. [#61, p.107]

A better record than the Shins' first--a sonically bolder production with fewer effects and more hooks per square inch than a flyrod factory. [#61, p.109]

A formidable, spooky album you can lose--or perhaps find--yourself in. [#61, p.97]

There are interesting little moments along the way that might lead to subtle adjustments in course. [#61, p.98]

Gibbons' craft is making her desperate drama believable and compelling.... [But] the lack of memorable tunes is Gibbons' worst affliction. [#61, p.96]

A collection of sandblasted songs that redefines its sound and pegs Ladybug as something other than '60s pop purists. [#61, p.101]

Has enough regret, sadness and self-loathing to power a Trent Reznor comeback. [#61, p.96]

The Civil War uses familiar Matmos techniques to craft unfamiliar electronic music. [#61, p.103]

Some songs here make more sense than others, and the musicianship, while spirited, isn't quite accomplished. [#61, p.92]

Spoon and Rafter proves that sometimes refining your focus is just as enlivening as radical departure. [#60, p.108]

There hasn't been a set of pretenders this convincing since Interpol. [#61, p.107]

The previously skimpy instrumental backing has been beefed up at times with synthetic horn parts: a good idea. [#61, p.102]

By keeping it simple, Bowie has avoided the stupid, said more with less and made the clearest record of his career. [#61, p.88]

The group has dropped folky fingerpicking and bucolic string melodies in favor of episodic compositions full of complex horn and percussion textures. [#60, p.117]

Quasi has finally crafted a studio work that exudes the same whiff of spontaneity that's always been evident in performance. [#61, p.105]

As confusing as it is ultimately compelling. [#61, p.89]

Sadistically fun. [#60, p.97]

On [Her Majesty...], the whimsy and multicolored narrative threads that represented the best of the Decemberists' terrific first album are given room to breathe. [#60, p.96]

Riff-worthy, down and dirty and occasionally idling down Americana's lost highway. [#60, p.92]

Tepid, predictable.... It's sleek and stylized, the spastic, jittery punk replaced by impassioned, searching guitar lines. [#60, p.110]

The endless Anglophilia gets boring, especially when Pulp, Blur and the Auteurs have all done it better. [#61, p.86]

A full-length valentine to the Jesus and Mary Chain. [#60, p.110]

Even the most seriously depressed songs here have a lightness that's been missing in the past. [#60, p.111]

A catchy rock record steeped in intelligent social and personal commentary that incorporates pedal and lap steel with great cowpunk results. [#60, p.119]

Its most accomplished album. [#60, p.97]

Aside from a few fleeting moments of watery prog and lumpen rock, the album's 15 songs have a slow-growing charm and understated grace, something that gradually becomes powerful in its own right. [#60, p.102]

The Kings of Leon sound like Molly Hatchet locking horns with the Gun Club. [#60, p.105]

Golightly brings out rock'n'roll's original transgressive spirit. [#60, p.98]

Oh, big breathy bombast, they name is Sense Field. [#60, p.113]

Think a minimalist A Tribe Called Quest. [#60, p.110]

The problem with Answers is the grooves are slathered in all that useless skill. [#60, p.119]

Part prog, part punk and part reefer haze. [#60, p.106]

Faced with conventional, if not threadbare, tunes, Sylvian becomes grand in comparison, humming and mumbling through the subtlest opera of tweaked, quaking noises. [#60, p.117]

Sounds like musicians so thoroughly bereft of ideas and energy that they've resorted to lifting melodies from their record collections wholesale while crossing their fingers for luck, hoping no one will notice the difference between inspiration and theft. [#59, p.88]

What's miraculous about Promise Of Love is the way the band instills the music with such incredible warmth. [#59, p.85]

This batch of 11 half-baked songs is whiny, lifeless and not even close to stimulating. [#60, p.106]

A pleasant if vaguely unsatisfying collection of songs. [#61, p.106]

Elements of glam, power pop and soul creep into the Tyde's pool of sound, making for a winning, genre-spanning formula. [#60, p.117]

A wounded angel of a pop record ono which malice and sorrow are offset by rapturous surges of strings. [#60, p.117]

These are just tender pop songs, timeless enough to defy categorization. [#60, p.95]

An exciting blend. [#59, p.103]

Much of the material is mid-tempo and occasionally bland, but in its best moments... Kill Them With Kindness soars. [#60, p.105]

E shunts between naked self-examination and arch character studies. [#59, p.91]

While all this sounds real pretty and is a pitch-perfect soundtrack for your hip cosmopolitan engagements, You Forgot doesn't have enough stick-to-your-gut songs to sustain a long-term, repeated-listening relationship. [#60, p.93]

It sounds like a war against music. [#60, p.97]

A batch of 10 songs you really need to spend some time with to appreciate. [#59, p.97]

So low-key that you'd be more likely to slip on it than stumble over it. [#59, p.96]

A monumental record from a towering talent. [#59, p.103]

The problem is that the half-hour Squares is as unfocused and repetitive as a double album. [#59, p.108]

A record that blows up like a supernova and runs the dinner-jacket nobility of its predecessor through a wood chipper. [#59, p.96]

As subtle as, and harder than, a flying mallet. [#58, p.84]

The Gossip keeps getting better, stretching a little more. [#59, p.95]

His most emotionally expansive record. [#59, p.101]

With Rounds, Hebden has found the secret meeting place for man and machine; he uses his cunning to exploit it and all of its startling possibilities. [#59, p.94]

Uneasy listening, certainly, and not for the cursory-minded. [#59, p.94]

Playfulness ultimately wins over arty schlock. [#59, p.106]

Basically, he's Bob Dylan in a hoodie. [#59, p.98]

The perfect soundtrack for winter 1996.... It's icy, robotic and just a little bit behind the Curve. [#58, p.88]

There are great moments that grasp for--and sometimes reach--the bombastic ground between Radiohead's pop days and Sunny Day Real Estate's proggier side; then there are long stretches that fail to push any buttons at all. [#59, p.90]

Credit sludgemeister Alan Moulder's mixing with fashioning this trio's graceless clamor into a pop blasterpiece (though the high-gloss context occasionally suggests a randier, more cacophonous No Doubt). [#59, p.111]

Shooting through the proceedings is a relentless, apocalyptic jitteriness that leaves you teetering on the edge of your chaise. [#58, p.84]

After a promising start, the album charts a steep and steady decline into ersatz Bowie and slapdash psychedelia. [#58, p.96]

Folkier and less prone to rocking than [Ryan Adams], she's also more dedicated to preserving an overall country feel to the music. [#59, p.88]