Unlike her major-label LPs, this is a stringently stripped-down, dark-side-of-the-mountain album that's near impossible to cozy up with. [Oct 2001, p.131]

The songs are more consistent, too, flashing a certain lyrical swagger, careening from terrific sex to celebratory violence to uncomfortable cultural realities.

The CD is like spending a cloudy afternoon on Jupiter with the old man, his quizzical sonic tricks at arms reach, his singing as ageless and haunting as the ammonia rain. [Dec 2007, p.128]

Remind Me Tomorrow turns on thoughts of growing older and reflecting on the past, resulting in some of Van Etten’s most mature lyrics to date. Most bittersweet is “Seventeen,” which applies radiant clarity to the hazy, faded production aesthetic of a band like the War on Drugs. Even when swamped in overproduction, Van Etten’s performances are uniformly the best of her career, and Congleton for once gives her the perfect amount of space.

At times the writing struggles to keep pace: The concepts behind songs like “needy” and “fake smile” are as relatable as they are predictable, and begin to stretch thin after a couple of minutes. Still, there is an awful lot to like.

The follow-up (without Chao) is a more straightforward Afro-pop record, with a few exceptions.

With Simpson self-producing Earth, and with the Dap-Kings always ready to land on the one with a bari-sax skronk, it feels like a Nashville album that’s been dudded up and funked out.

Rock that's both fist-pumping and forward-looking. [Jun 2007, p.90]

Vernon re-accesses that potent sense of self on Bon Iver, a stunning sophomore set whose landscape-painting cover art underscores the idea that his songs inhabit their own psychological space.

The title of the Roots' ninth studio full-length suggests a more fulfilled mood (Obama victory, gig as America's favorite late-night house band), at least compared to the screw-faced abyss of their last two records.

Like all of Four Tet’s work, New Energy can be viewed as an addition to this unlikely canon, whose practitioners share a desire to remove a listener from their surroundings and bring them someplace higher, no matter the means.

Sparrow transcends its own tastefulness, and odds are excellent you’ll find it gorgeous.

DJ/Producer Andrew Butler mixes the poetic Apollonian aspects of queer culture with the Dionysian party represented by left-field disco and hypnotic early house, and crafts an unsettlung masterpiece that yearns and churns and ultimately pulls the rug from under your dancing feet. [June 2008, p.116]

So assured of its luxuriance that it clocks in at a trim 46 minutes, blackSUMMERS’night nonetheless leaves one sated. This distillation is purest Maxwell.

Teens of Denial is an album that works until it doesn’t. That moment will come at a different time for every listener.

A couple of the drone bagatelles, though masterfully realized, break Gas’s signature hypnosis and could be mistaken for any number of Kompakt artists rather than being unmistakably his. But at best, Narkopop faithfully upgrades Gas’s murky fundamentals to HD.

Unlike many rockers who cherish childlike ideals only to fall prey to amateurism or whimsy, Ze is aware that kids are both complex in their inventions and earnest in their intentions. [May 2006, p.93]

Robyn achieves the sort of pure pop perfection that her more mainstream records never did. [May 2008, p.108]

He’s separated from some of his R&B peers, fellows who douse themselves with sorrow and express their angst through detached, self-centered screeds obsessed with how things should be. Sampha, meanwhile, has an uncanny ability to eloquently express the painful facts of life that we learn to internalize. ... What makes Process exceptional is its delicate focus on relationships corroded and fissured by time and unintentional neglect.

The best record they've made. [Apr 2003, p.107]

Given its songs' consistent strength, Rings' extravagant extras rarely seem excessive. [Apr 2002, p.125]

Optimistic, ambient indie rock that floats between the bubble bath and the deep blue sea. [Sep 2003, p.115]

Miguel has impeccable songwriting chops and a deceptively supple voice, not to mention total command of both.

It's a warm, lightly psychedelic sound reminiscent of British strum god Bert Jansch and the quieter moments on Led Zeppelin III, less a soundtrack for Sunday brunch and more a place to get lost in, though our host herself isn't interested in hiding.

Across nine tracks, singer/guitarist Niko Kapetan and drummer Bailey Minzenberger bounce effortlessly from fragile ballads to punk rippers to chamber-pop crescendos, somehow both fully in control and barely holding it together.

Alex G continues to find the sensitivity in rough edges, and offers uneven poetry for our own relentlessly uneven lives. ... An overarching commitment to juxtaposition and bricolage that’s palpable throughout the tracklist. In their brevity and slapdash composition, they feel like essential components of the Alex G m.o. It’s that m.o. that holds House of Sugar together, even as it rejects a single unified concept or “story.”

Grohl (back on drums for the first time on a Foos record since 2005’s In Your Honor), bassist Nate Mendel, guitarists Chris Shiflett and Pat Smear, and keyboardist Rami Jaffee have imbued But Here We Are with new levels of depth, maturity, songcraft, and storytelling, ensuring it is far more than just an album about grief.

The lyrics explore suburban everyguyism, but the choruses explode like fireworks over a church picnic. [Jul 2003, p.109]