Overall, Thrashing Thru The Passion is musically looser than previous offerings—fewer ballads, the big rock numbers less lush and more compact—but it also makes it accessible to new listeners, who can then work their way back through albums like Heaven is Whenever or Separation Sunday.

Weezer has always had heart, and OK Human shows the value of taking time to record instead of filling the silence with countless tours and albums. Weezer is finally taking risks outside of the formula that has worked so well, and they still have a lot of mileage left in them.

A hot mess of an album that’s simultaneously the most indulgent and most disciplined record he’s ever made.

There’s nothing to suggest in Hotspot that Pet Shop Boys are running low on inspiration. The album’s highs are high enough to further prove that the duo has had the most consistent career of any of their synth-pop peers.

Moving basslines and driving, bouncy drumming run under brass backing, bright keys and group-sung vocal harmonies throughout Partie Traumatic's joyous entirety.

Lovesick Blues is more a collection of great moments than great songs, although there are a few of those as well.

Rock or Bust is the best LP that AC/DC has produced in over 20 years.

Daydream is a lot of fun, and even though it does what it does really at a high level, it ultimately can’t distance itself from the source style and succumbs to playing the part too well.

You can cook a hard-boiled egg quicker than it takes to get through a Kurt Vile song, and we love him for that. The stretched-out jams on Back to Moon Beach are consistent with the last 15 years of his sound, yet it holds some of the greatest work Vile’s done in nearly a decade.

To call Heza, the third LP from the New Orleans-based duo, more opaque would be an understatement.

Even if four of these five songs on State Hospital are just castaways not included on the next year's record, this EP still manages to flow just fine on its own.

Juliana Hatfield Sings The Police is an experiment, and maybe as such it’ll be deemed less worthy, less interesting, than Weird. But where Weird is good, Juliana Hatfield Sings The Police is engrossing, an act of pop cultural interrogation for its own sake.

Yes, Braid is still a guitar-forward post-punk powerhouse, and No Coast is a great addition to its catalog, even possibly containing some of the best material the band has ever written.

A rough, intriguing fit. [Apr/May 2006, p.101]

Even the more listenable songs on Brand New Abyss, such as “So There” and “The Woman You Want,” sound more like a successful regurgitation of past sounds and ideas than anything new. And while that’s not a bad thing, it’s not enough of a reason to spend time listening to the new album.

It’s a passionate and pointed collection of songs with a sly sense of humor and a certain lived-in wisdom.

The end result is an incredibly inoffensive album, one that’s perfectly lovely without offering any striking new ideas or features that make it memorable.

If Social Cues isn’t a bad album by any stretch; it’s nonetheless, in the band’s discography, surprisingly generic.

Its coda features a lone, breathy synth that unfurls like a tattered flag planted high atop a snow-covered peak, and, like the band’s best work, the song is comparable to little else in the pop/indie landscape—a far cry from the tepid feel that permeates too much of this Mess.

In the end, some echoes of The Promise Ring remain in Maritime’s toolkit, but as part of a musical identity that’s been evolving on its own for a dozen years, centered on a passionate and skillful songcraft.

Somber and yet stirring, Each Other is an album that encourages shoe gazing, day dreaming and simply settling into quiet contemplation.

Rome does sound like the result of five years of Very Serious Effort, except instead of honing a few rough spots, the hubris-driven tinkering ended up chipping away all the soul from what could have been a jaunty and lively homage to some of the best movie music ever made.

With the solidified lineup comes a more realized sound, trading the previous record's dry, jangly pop with a lusher, more fluid presentation.

End should be the playbook for any artist who wants to balance giving fans what they want while growing their creative craft almost three decades in.

Narcissistic, repetitive, underpowered and yet strangely compelling in its quirky construction and directness.

In lieu of memorable choruses, indie nerds will enjoy this disc of earthy space-pop as a complete experience without any aesthetic hiccups.

The results, especially when they give equal time to his natural charm and knob-twiddler Bobby Harlow's clearly natural talent ("Keep On Movin'"), are nothing short of spectacular.

An efficient 33 minutes, Broken Boy Soldiers supplies the summer's most gas-conscious road tunes. [Jun/Jul 2006, p.128]

Fuzzy atmospherics crash in, overpowering some of Romance’s most brutal quips, forcing the band to struggle at making its musings rhythmic and begging for its earlier punk-twee punctuation.

This album doesn't stray far from the formula of their previous work, but it isn't disappointing. It goes down smoothly and will keep your toes tapping until the very last beat.

The album is dazzling in its ambition, not least because the Lemon Twigs are in earnest.

Just like Futuresex before it, this innovative, sonically dazzling album sounds like it was beamed in from several years in the future—2020 sounds about right.

This five-song EP is a pleasantly jumbled affair that shows Lekman's lyrical facility continues to improve, while his stylistic palette continues to broaden

Wire is as minimalist and direct as anything the group has done to date.

The album, by and large, plays like a live recording; somewhat endearingly sloppy performances add to the authenticity of a band whose honest songwriting is more important than any flash-in-the-pan posturing.

Not Dark Yet is too harrowing to pass for casual entertainment, and too good to ignore.

Spanning 22 tracks and the great sprawl of a nation, Big Wheel and Others compiles more of these vital impressions than any of McCombs’ previous releases, documenting something so damned beautifully alive--so restless and sensual and swinging and true--the album accrues power by virtue of its breadth.

A Wasteland Companion is Ward's seventh proper solo album, and it certainly has it moments, even if many of them are fairly derivative.

It's a monumental return-pure, unfiltered American rock 'n' roll--and has to be considered one of the party albums of the year.

At 61 years of age-a time in life when many people begin to consider retirement-Nick Lowe has put out his best album in many years and more than three decades into his career, the British tunesmith may be just beginning to hit his stride.

This reeled-in style seems like an extension of their exhaustion and desire to create something laid-back that would give them a chance to breathe and really examine what they’re doing and why, rather than trying to hustle and do everything at breakneck speed all the time.

Yumi Zouma play with a wider musical palette on these songs, which reach beyond the synth-pop sensibility that often characterized their earlier work. These songs are lusher, but in a low-key way

Strangely underwhelming. [Apr/May 2006, p.100]

It's a measured, thoughtful album befitting a group that has practically become a byword for consistency.

Ffor all its textural beauty, Glide too often does what the title suggests, with songs that float by without really sticking.

There is most certainly a parallel universe in which Emilana Torrini is the Next Big Thing.

The performances here stick too closely to the source material to offer anything truly exciting or gripping.

West has said she intended the album to resemble a “poem or a puzzle box,” and often, the obfuscation is part of the charm. Occasionally, though, there are too many barriers between West and what she wants to say.

Jade Bird is an album of loose change, a pocketful of shiny, well-written nuggets that might give off a lot of flash individually but when put together don’t equal the sum of their parts. Thankfully, Bird’s singular musical style--a chalky blend of roots-rock, country and pop--and her mighty, mighty roar cancel out any thematic fumbles entirely.

The very best kind of hot, front-porch music. [Apr/May 2005, p.134]

With phenomenal sound quality and scarcely a weak track in the lot, B-Sides & Rarities ought to satisfy Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds fans with its fascinating, if fairly familiar, tale.

Don’t expend too much mental energy on it, and you’ll dance through it all with a huge grin on your face.

Five Spanish Songs is clearly more than a mere genre exercise--it’s a respectful, and very much tuneful, tip of the cap from one songwriter to another, which transcends language.

Bitter Drink, Bitter Moon is Murder by Death's most beautiful album to date.

It finds Cronin stretching himself as a songwriter, taking risks in the arrangements and writing the best, most personal lyrics of his career. Just as importantly, Seeker finds him embracing a sort of sonic abandon that was lacking in his earlier work.

5EPs is the first time this seemingly interminable project has felt completely approachable, rather than yet another informational overload in this swirling year. And though it highlights each performer’s unique strengths, it sometimes obscures the new members’ talents under tried-and-true Dirty Projectors sounds.

[Title track "Recover" is] so freakishly great, there’s no way Chvrches can follow it--at least not on this EP.

For the most part, Cottrell reliably prevents the listener from getting engulfed in the aural haze that has become Hansen’s trademark. That said, with her distinct vocal character, it seems like she could invest her singing with more spiked edges if she chose to—or if the music called for it.

Hour of Green Evening remains engaging even at its most lethargic. ... There’s a mystical, almost hallucinatory quality to Becker’s songwriting.

This album isn't merely a single peak, but a whole mountain range.

This time instead of competing for the throne, if feels more like a party with open guest list.

Songs like these [“Killin’ Time” and closer “Motel Room”] showcase the best of Diamond Rugs’ penchant for big riffs and bawdy entertainment, but the rest of Cosmetics ends up sounding strikingly derivative.

Mosquito is where this band finally grooves, after long threatening.

Grace doesn’t graduate from punk on Bought To Rot--she expands and elevates it with explicit revelations, fervent melodies, head-banging chord progressions and unruffled tenacity.

Fortunately, they're still pushing energy and concision: OFF! is 16 songs in 16 white-knuckle minutes.

The slight disappointment of B-Sides and Rarities is that it won’t upend or startle anyone’s perceptions of Beach House. There is nothing remotely bad on here, but there is also nothing that finds the duo lightening up or straying too far from the warm glow of their trademark sound.

Pom pom is probably the most accessible, easy-on-the-ear and enjoyable music of his career, without any asterisks.

Despite its bleak, blustery façade, In The Marrow is a pop album at its core, and further testament to how tortured souls often write the sweetest hooks.

SAP does not contain a single bad song, but the record is lengthy.

If all seven of their previous studio works represent a layer in Wynona's castor Taco-Bell repast, then it's appropriate to say that Green Naugahyde takes a big bite of the whole thing.

Soccer Mommy mirrors the melancholic joy of Death Cab For Cutie with the emotive songwriting of Now, Now, reworking some older demos into mournful indie-pop that are introspective, yet intensely relatable.

In short, it's a modern blues record that even non-blues fans can love and that blues fans can outright cherish.

On Close to the Glass, the results are more fractured and schizophrenic than ever.

Destroyer starts thumping with the first track and never stops; the tone might change, but the listener’s desire to stomp the accelerator on the open road won’t.

One can be a grower: The sleepy and skippable "Worship" (featuring an obtrusive duet vocal from Jose Gonzalez) finds Brun approaching a more accessible vocal territory-one annoyingly reminiscent of Feist. But it's a mostly stellar experience.

Burnett's production is well-intentioned, but the vibe is a little too restrained, the burn a little too controlled.

Ultimately, B4.DA.$$ is a lackluster album with little appeal beyond its dry technical flourish and fleeting moments of vulnerability.

It’s great headphone music.

Tatum doesn't offer anything game-changing, but he does serve up a platter of breathless, sometimes mindless synth-pop fun.

What an enormous room’s production reaches the same high watermark as prior efforts like Three Futures and Silver Tongue, but struggles to land with the same impact.

At least the tension between his addiction to depression and his longing to escape it has, on this record, produced a music that’s not defeated, but appropriately tense.

Though it has its moments, Fear of the Dawn isn’t quite wild enough.

Even songs which seem at first like throwaways take turns which end up redeeming their back-to-basics structure.

A career milestone and one of the year's strongest rock albums. [Sep 2006, p.73]

His grittiest, least-ethereal long-player to date. [Feb 2007, p.58]

On his latest, El Turista, Rouse takes things a step further, diving headfirst into jazzy, lushly orchestrated, early-’60s-indebted Spanish-language tunes that play like a cross between Astrud Gilberto’s bossa-nova classics and Vince Guaraldi’s A Charlie Brown Christmas.

The music is possibly the duo's best, though it's a little uniform compared to their competing peak The Con, which had shrewder tunelets and weirder sonics.

Despite its many nostalgic elements, Floating Features represents a new start in a new city, and though it often looks inward, it’s grounded in the present and glances towards the future.

On Songs for You, Tinashe shows off how adept she is at flitting between genres, hopping on moody, woozy R&B, sun-dappled G-funk, ’80s pop, acoustic devotionals, club-worthy drum ’n’ bass and skittering trap, sometimes in the span of a single song without so much as straining her airy, but substantial soprano. There are a few songs left over from a scrapped album with RCA, but here, they feel part and parcel of the vision Tinashe has for herself.

If Silver Landings isn’t a world-beating collection of songs, it’s a promising return for an artist who is rediscovering her voice, and what she can do with it.

Far Enough would have likely benefited from shifting toward shorter, more undeniably riotous songs like these and away from the several more complex, seven-minute-or-so songs present, but when you’re fighting the good fight, is there really time to fret about the little things?

What You Gonna Do When The Grid Goes Down? is mostly Public Enemy doing what they’ve always done—offering insight about what’s happening in the world around us and prodding folks to wake up and do the right thing. It’s a space they’ve held for over three decades, and one where they’re always welcome.

People Who Aren’t There Anymore is an extensive portrait of an “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” mentality. But even then, Future Islands are still finding new ways to polish a diamond on this album.

While One Day is a passable throwback rock recrod, it doesn't rise to the level of a true celebration of the Doll's legacy. [Sep 2006, p.80]

It’s far from terrible, but it’s equidistant from that and “worth a dozen more spins.”

The album’s sequencing is impeccable, as the band segues into airy atmospherics for 'Night of Joy' and 'We’re Gonna Rise,' the album’s most tender, melancholy and meditative tracks.

These are solidly constructed pop jams, sometimes introspective but never insular, occasionally caustic in a way that’s more resigned than snotty, and always smart but with an appreciation for the simple pleasures of a good rock song.

Though cast from Niblett’s typical primary elements, It’s Up To Emma sounds richer and fuller than past records, the lyrical directness adding one more driving force in a mix balanced out by taut strings, bone-shake tambourine and railcar blasts of EBow.