While there's a bit less winsome lilt and a bit more loud fuzz, the songs still sound like a bulked-up amalgam of early Pavement, Television Personalities and your favorite shamble-rock outfit. Why change it if it works? [No. 136, p.61]

This is an album of mostly beatless soul whose heart nevertheless pumps vividly and loudly throughout its 17 tracks. [No. 136, p.61]

Tweedy is a certified master of the simple, effective melody--time and again, he's built something grand from the pieces of something small, and trace evidence of this trick is splattered all over Schmilco. [No. 136, p.60]

All the elements anyone would want from the band are adroitly balanced. [No. 136, p.59]

Cosmonaut is a mostly understated genre-jumper that serves as the platform for frontman Bid to exercise his dry wit. [No. 136, p.59]

Having carved out a signature sound from the start, Local Natives continue to sound both fresh and familiar. [No. 136, p.57]

Another low-key masterpiece wrapped in spooky twanging guitars, heartbroken harmonies, droning tempos and lyrics that often don't rhyme, delivered in Brett Sparks' deadpan, rumbling baritone. [No. 136, p.57]

It's an immediate, obvious highlight of Wasner's career, and of the year. [No. 136, p.57]

Discerning Anglophiles will warm to the charms of the Divine Comedy's 11th album, Foreverland. [No. 136, p.55]

Everything about the resulting album elevates what could've been a gimmicky lark into something affecting. [No. 136, p.53]

The fantasy and the fantastic continue, and his soft sculptural Dadaist lyrical sense of romance will always go with DevBan's trembling, lilting melodies like cheese and chocolate. [No. 136, p.53]

The title track suggests maybe they've found a perfect merging of the '70s and the heavies, as it shifts from funky shuffle to skulking stomp. The rest is still King Crimson than King Diamond, but that's not a bad thing. [No. 136, p.61]

Red Fang soon settles into a comfortable cruising speed, with a devotion to mid-tempo exceeded only by Slayer's commitment to thrash. [No. 136, p.61]

If Morning Glory was Oasis' Rumours, then Be Here is its messy, glorious Tusk. [No. 136, p.59]

A fascinating, headbanging and improbably accessible listen. [No. 136, p.55]

They whip out churning rock tunes with burning guitars and solid hooks, switch things up with softer, melodic ballads, and evoke the glory days of Southern rock with impressive ease. [No. 136, p.53]

Ruminations doesn't set out to be a grand statement, but it's all the more rewarding for keeping the focus on Oberst's word-rich language and emotionally direct observations. [No. 136, p.59]

A pleasant surprise. [No. 136, p.56]

It's a darker, more nuanced album, and Jones, now 37, sings with more depth and soul than she did in her youth. [No. 136, p.54]

A brave, provocative and thoughtful addition to the Tuckers' canon. [No. 136, p.51]

About 45 seconds into song after song, the chorus punches in loudly--predictably and, ultimately, annoyingly. [No. 135, p.57]

Ultimately nothing curtails The Sides And In Between from taking large, genre-defying outbound steps. [No. 135, p.57]

While RZA has never sounded so alive, Banks has never sounded so, well, dead. This hot/cold, menace-and-moody pattern--it's what most of Anything But Words' song structures are all about. [No. 135, p.51]

Same Language is excellent ersatz Russell. [No. 135, p.53]

Like any record geeks, they deftly reshape their heritage into their own original catalog. [No. 135, p.53]

Between Waves might be the least Relapse of all Relapse titles, but that's what genuine eclecticism looks like. [No. 135, p.53]

There's melody and rhythm, but mostly the overtones float through the ether, seldom resolving into anything approaching a song, although the overall effect is soothing and dreamy. [No. 135, p.54]

At the core are lyrics abstract enough to keep you coming back and digging for meaning until the next moles record, however many decades off that might be. [No. 135, p.56]