Savage punk rock that shifts and shakes like the bleachers during a homecoming orgy. [Jan 2005, p.98]

Patrick Stickles screams and moans amid the swirling, lo-fi racket, and although he sounds a helluva lot like Conor Oberst, this is no Bright Eyes knockoff. The Airing of Grievances is more inviting, fraternal, and widely referential.

Wonderfully unsentimental, beautifully tuneful.

Finn infuses his windy tales of youthful debauchery with a mixture of detective-fiction luridness and first-club-show romanticism. [Nov 2006, p.100]

As Shepherd’s confidence grows in his compositions, he gives each element of the song enough time to stand on its own, without the bells and whistles of the Ensemble’s (slightly more) enormous orchestra.

It’s as good a model of modern folk music as has come along in some time.

He’s not really in a fun mood, and the music follows. The lushness has diminished, and the work evokes increasing comparisons to ‘70s singer-songwriters like Randy Newman and Harry Nilsson, who hid their acidic commentary within sturdy pop structures.

Throughout the album, Newsom's language is more colorful than on Mender; at its best, it works as music even on the page. [Dec 2006, p.95]

Where Basement Jaxx's diversity used to serve a club-DJ flow, here they let it off the leash, with mixed results. [Dec 2003, p.126]

Lambert is still at her bubbliest playing a guntoting, wisecracking, catfighting gal next door who cusses like a sailor, or at least brags that she does, plotting revenge on lying boyfriends and town hypocrites--preferably at cowpunk tempo.

Almost every track on The Impossible Kid is indistinguishable from the next, blending together in a way that converts the man’s talent into his fatal flaw, due in part to the forgettable beats.

Despite the resourcefulness of Kronos’ contributions, though, Anderson is Landfall’s most crucial actor and its saving grace; the humility, naturalism, and humor of her recitations justify the scale of the project.

With Tomorrow's Harvest, the Sandisons' return feels natural. Rather than resort to hiring disco session musicians or citing Judith Butler to add a new kink to their sound, they've done something even rarer in the modern era: They’ve aged with grace.

The project is very human and certainly the band’s most dynamic effort to date. Never has Paramore left so much space in its productions or allowed Williams to sound so sparse in moments, like her tiny frame might finally shatter. Nor has the band ever played so deftly with sounds of comfort and alarm, like a clock radio slicing through the most blissful dream.

Clark's complex femininity, both self-possessed and keenly evolving, is what makes her music so powerful and fascinating.

It is his most fully realized album, but also the one that most strikingly situates Scott as secondary to his collaborators. ... For all the interesting things that can be found on Astroworld, it is still way too long and can sound so uniform that it loses your attention.

New Bermuda both expands their range and sees them coming further into their own.... Bermuda is ace metal.

One Beat's hooks require a few passes to take hold. [Sep 2002, p.127]

Though Kool Herc is just eight songs and 27 minutes long, it's plenty challenging and weighty.

I Don’t Live Here Anymore is The War on Drugs’ poppiest, most bombastic work yet.

That's the National's insidious brilliance: No other band makes dark and stormy seem like ideal weather.

Welcome to the Dirty North, y'all. [Feb 2005, p.88]

The result is artistic click bait, and its genius and connective power is that it doesn’t treat music fans as factions. This one is for everyone, all at once.

She ascends further into the pantheon of songwriters who consistently deliver despite unimaginable expectations. For all its mayhem, 2020 has unlocked the best work of her career.

R.A.P. Music, the sixth album by from Atlanta firebrand Killer Mike, is a stunning anachronism.

The album feels epic in scope, imbuing the banality of everyday life with stunning tension and emotional weight in a way few producers can hope to touch.

Before Today still sounds like it was dubbed to cassette and left on the dash of a 1983 Datsun for an entire summer. Every aspect seems faded and warped, but that doesn't obscure Pink's savvy maneuvering.

Long on cryptic references (you mean you haven't read Curzio Malaparte's 1944 novel Kaputt?) and Euro-weary mood, the vintage electronic-pop ambience of Destroyer's ninth album recalls the days when MTV emphasized music.