The album isn’t perfect. The pensive closer “Childhood” is too precious in its “where did the time go” wonderings. Lead single “Edging” is a mediocre punk number even Green Day might have left behind, and “When We Were Young” is undercooked and appears to battle its own time signature. But it’s still the band’s best work in 20 years, and rocket fuel for this new chapter and whatever follows.

It lands in the same general ballpark as 2003's new-wave homage Rock N Roll, loose-limbed and manic, with Adams indulging his riff-rock-and-holler side.

Like a lot of young artists who've been flash-fried by the Internet, these guys also aren't so much great as they are getting better, using public interest to spur themselves on. Bossalinis is cleaner and more varied than their mixtapes, but this album is also long.

Less an electronica CD than a dub album without any original sources--and it's all the freer for it. [Oct 2001, p.128]

Often lives up to its title, but they ought to find a kind way to break it off with the horn section. [Jul 2003, p.110]

God Forgives is a comedown--sporadically introspective, occasionally rousing, and sort of without purpose.

Rather than trying to replicate their off-the-cuff studio performances onstage, Gordon and Nace treat the songs as rough outlines for further improvisation, to be colored in as the musicians please.

If it sounds about as much fun as, say, watching CNBC, rest assured, dude's got a tighter flow than Larry Kudlow.

All texture and no text. [May 2004, p.108]

Endless Now was recorded in the same upstate church where Dinosaur Jr. made 1993's Where You Been, and it sounds like a happy refugee from that alt-rock era, all battering drums and youthful, melodic confusion.

Guru is as bluntly eloquent as ever. [Sep 2003, p.115]

A fresh, literate blast of nuanced screamers and mid-tempo heart purging. [Aug 2003, p.119]

II feels like the dance-music equivalent of a compost heap: warm, organic, funky, but a tad squishy.

The Bronx native's tenth LP is consumed by legacy: his lengthy career, his harrowing life, and his craft.

Early EPs were lumped in with math and prog bands, but those impulses recede on this debut full-length: Clearly there's some showing off on "Carrying the Wet Wood," with intricately intertwined fretwork and drumming, but it's all in service of sing-alongs, tied together by Dave Davison's pinched, inimitable voice.

Hints of folksy revelry may abound, but the dynamics are strictly library-level, and the lyrical focus is decidedly inward.

Little Me reveals a variety of textures over time, and when you can decode the lyrics, memorable scenes emerge.

There’s next to no tempo to speak of, and they assiduously cultivate a studied monotony, but one can’t escape the sense that this slab is, secretly, the ultimate grower.

Sholi deftly incorporates eerie groans, math-rock guitars, la-la sing-alongs, and frenetic drum lines.

Pleasure's ten tracks of gorgeously distorted, lo-fi pop glides languidly enough for '90s slowcore, but with woozy rhythms, lovelorn lyrics, and reverb-saturated textures that feel timeless.

The blunt-tipped guitar chop on the title tune, glassy music boxes and slurping synths of “Give Peace a Damn,” and the more-Stones-than-country “Honky Tonk Rules” are all genuine surprises that no other legacy act is giving up.

Infusing their music with real personality and humor, sexiness and humility, they've neatly transcended the air-quote graveyard. [Apr 2005, p.105]

Plundering the 1980s for inspiration (shock!), 27-year- old New Zealander Pip Brown emerges with a confection of synth-infused, mammoth-chorused tunes that sound surprisingly and thrillingly fresh.

Its disorienting aspects actually make it a compelling full-length experience, locking you into a maze of drum and echo.

Eve has moved her Ruff Ryders to the back half, scored some marquee-value collaborators, and found two guys who can mimic Swizz Beatz well enough to fill the spaces around Mr. Beatz's four tracks without too many seams showing. [5/2001, p.141]

Like running full-tilt through a fun house with smoke machines, tinsel-covered ceilings and a super-size disco ball. [Aug 2004, p.108]

If you're going to crossbreed Built To Spill and the Flaming Lips, then you might as well have fun doing it. [Jul 2004, p.110]

Offering a slightly subtler take on the style-shuffling of 2009′s Heartbeat Radio, Lerche somehow never loses cohesion.