The last thing you'd expect from a roster of 27 is breathing room, but Son of Evil Reindeer is full of it; I've found a lot of unexpected touches in the short time I've had the disc.

There are times on this record, though, when the quaver fades for a few notes and [Oberst's] voice drops out of hysterical high range, and it's actually pleasant to listen to -- but that never lasts, and that's a shame.

Revealing itself slowly, like the mythic tales acknowledged by the album's title, Folklore is certainly Sixteen Horsepower's most stunning and accomplished work yet, and an easy nominee for one of 2002's best.

A rich, varied and emotionally resonant album that eschews AOR sugar fixes for smart, graceful songwriting and soulful but unshowy performances.

For as good as the majority of the tunes here are, the grandiose scope of Highly Evolved turns out to be a bit more than the young quartet could chew.

A perfect synthesis of modern studio manipulation and old-time pop craftsmanship, shattering all notions of what pop music can, or for that matter, should be.

Lacking the full-on roar of Motor City compatriots like the White Stripes and the Go, the 'Wings employ a more classic pop-oriented approach to their songcraft, resulting in songs that replace the aforementioned groups' immediacy and vigor with simple restraint and cultivated sophistication.

Their strongest effort to date.

Optometry's highlights throw expectation to the wind. They're more than jazz, more than hip-hop, more than whatever the hell "illbient" actually is.

Mid-tempo rocker follows mid-tempo rocker without any change of pace to keep things interesting.

Most of Loewenstein's work here simply puts a happier spin on Sub Pop's raw, rough-edged rock formula -- the sort of thing Kurt Cobain might have written if Prozac was free.

It's a dense, matte-black monoblock of furious sonic energy -- ultra-compressed riffs, barely controlled bursts of feedback, and lyrics more urgent and angry than anything Wire have done in the last twenty-odd years.

Whereas the band once seemed to dawdle and wander aimlessly through beds of noise, this new tight formation sees hooks, standard song structures and recognizable melodies.

A modern-rock radio record for folks with a few more brain cells to rub together than the Andrew WK set.

The Emotional Rescue LP asserts the fact that the band not only has exceptional songwriting talent, but has finally concocted a potent mixture of poppy melodies to complement their core of tranquil notes and minimalist orchestrations.

No more fancy studios, no more high priced producers; this is truly GBV as nature intended -- reckless, hook-laden and drunk as hell.

Kids, parents and nerdy long-time fans alike can take something out of this.

One hell of a good album.... [It] retains the intelligence of Prewitt's Sea and Cake work and melds it to rock and roll songcraft.

For all the divergent styles and blatant hero-worshipping to be found on High Society, the group never sounds derivative or misguided -- a rare feat, proving that despite numerous comparisons, Enon have indeed carved out their own fractured and unique musical identity.

While they consistently get dismissed as "generic indie rock" by folks who lack the patience to seriously dig into their oeuvre, they are as multi-layered and subtle a band as you'll find.

I'm used to hearing more layers in this type of music, and the simplicity here is surprising -- not necessarily in a good way.

A thump-and-groove driven Cadillac ride down the shadowy streets of Motown.

An excellent and memorable album.

Telepopmusik has all of the innovative approaches of their countrymen, and their attention to lyrics and prominent place for vocal styles means that their album is both accessible and deeply interesting.

This time around, the man actually sounds excited to be making music.

The short-but-sweet syrupiness of the past is gone, and the sound that has taken its place is heavier, mustier and a hell of a lot harder to swallow.

I defy you to find a more elegantly shambolic, soulfully homespun and, indeed, heartfelt album than this.

Like waking up one morning to discover you suddenly like coffee, this is one of those albums that feels natural; the discord and the overwrought weepiness, the experimentalism and the simplicity -- everything works. It fits.

I doubt the public at large is ready for a full-scale introduction to an artist who can mesh big bands and big beats, but those of us who are ready for such a union should be glad we have it all to ourselves, for now.

They might not have the lyrical substance necessary to be the new Manics, but Gay Dad's unpretentious take on modern glam makes snorting coke while wearing striped hot-pants and sprinkling stardust on passers by sound like a hell of a lot of fun.

It's encouraging to see Murphy, twenty-odd years into his career, moving so confidently in new directions rather than rehashing old glories.

The songs on About a Boy are all exactly what we've come to expect from Gough, and the disc's lack of cohesion is its only real failing.

The songs are simpler, livelier, a little more direct and a lot more hummable.

Stereo/Mono is less polished than Westerberg's other solo efforts, but the song quality is consistent.

The sheer scope of Yankee Hotel Foxtrot is so utterly breathtaking that repeat airings only reinforce its stunning songcraft and otherworldly sonic splendor.

For all the divergent stylistic ground Wood/Water covers, nothing seems forced, signaling that the changes in the group's sound have come on their own terms and are not simply change for change's sake.

While Davis's performance draws from a broad and intriguing range of influences, she has the makings of a singer in a class of her own. And rather than allowing Davis's uniqueness to carry them, the other members of Denali clearly favor a similarly eclectic aesthetic, riddling their music with pleasant musical surprises.

Control stands apart from previous Pedro the Lion releases because its harder material is among its most satisfying.

Producer Jim Diamond has distilled the manic energy of one of the world's greatest live bands in Electric Sweat, and if the result is not letter-perfect, it is raw and true and powerful.

The album is never anything more or less than it pretends to be. It offers a good time, and it delivers. As a soundtrack to mindless partying, it is first-rate.

This is a solid (and yes, more polished) effort, not likely to disappoint their ardent fans, and I expect that it will draw many new listeners to the band's somber world.

Like Tindersticks without the strings, and with a better sense of vocal clarity, L'Altra is the kind of band whose releases would be best sold with some cheap red wine and a carton of cigarettes for those long, lonely nights in.

One of the year's best knock-down-drag-out rock 'n' roll records.

Take a Casio keyboard or any other early '80s dance machine, wheel it out and blow the dust off and you would most likely be able to produce an album at least as enjoyable as this one.

This is a welcome addition to the Giant Sand corpus, and an impressive demonstration of the continuing relevance of the band, more than two decades into its existence.

The quality is uniform, but below par.

A winning combination of hip-hop beats, horns, strings and cinematic soundscapes, the album is spiced with precise scratching and effectively abrupt changes in direction.

Hayden has released an album of magnificent proportions.

There wouldn't be a problem at all if Buzzkunst wasn't such a maddeningly forgettable record.

If you set the more gratuitous avant-gardities aside, you're left with a fair amount of haunting, beautiful and challenging music.

While Sha Sha is certainly ripe with hooks and strong in stylistic concept, the songs are woefully one-dimensional and marred by immaturity.

For all of Walking with Thee's obvious musical accomplishments, its most impressive facet is the ability to transcend all the hype, hoopla and haranguing surrounding its release.

This straightforward pop bias makes the disc sound more like a greatest hits package than an album.

Source Tags and Codes is phenomenal. It's one of those albums that starts the listener on a seeminlgly unsustainable high note, and uses that as a launching point.

Broder gently provokes your senses with curious combinations of divergent instruments, creating a collection of progressive musical oddities that is entertaining as well as musically fascinating.

As spectacularly successful as the Tindersticks have been in their tribute to the horror of Trouble Every Day, I'm hoping for a lighter confection from their next collaboration with Denis -- something more along the lines of Nenette et Boni.

You can listen to the disc over and over and never get bored; there's always a new musical idea to discover in a place that you didn't expect to hear it.

The album sounds full whether you're in the next room or sitting right beside the speakers. Details -- a horn here, a steel guitar there, a lilting piano figure that appears out of the ether -- fill every cranny in a sound that's still as spacious as Giant Sand's Southwestern soundtracks.

What this strange cast of characters eventually creates is a groovy mish-mash of up/down tempo breaks, hip-pop sound collages and the odd bout of guitar-driven frenzy that, while nearly impossibly to dance to, manages to expose most other DJs as the talentless, not to mention painfully derivative crate-raiders they truly are.

At times strong, at other times vulnerable, and invariably honest, Donelly both affirms and fulfills the promise of her songwriting talent with Beauty Sleep.

The joy of Lost in Revelry is its balance. It's assured, but freely flaunts its imperfections; it's polished, but clearly revels in its most amateurish moments.

Geogaddi isn't a classic.... Disappointing, however, it is not.

Only the dub-inflected excursion of "Pipe Bomb" and the Clash-style raver "Eyes Wide Open" manage to break from boredom and form long enough to feel somewhat genuine -- as long as you don't listen to any of the lyrics.

They sound poppy and upbeat and melancholy all at once.

While my inclination is to recommend A Feather in the Engine to everyone without reservation, the disc is actually best suited to more advanced listeners -- that is, those of you for whom sing-along pop songs are not a prerequisite for enjoying an album.

Though marred by a few missteps, it's mostly enjoyable, if unchallenging.

A truly solid album.

The album is gorgeous and richly textured, but it seems as if McKay can't decide whether he wants to focus on groovy, downtempo space-pop or more experimental, melodramatic soundscapes.

Seldom has "laptop" music been more magical or more joyful.

Sleeping on Roads is both more subdued and more universally poppy than anything Mojave 3 has released to date.

While devoid of the manic energy and double-time rhythms that were almost the group's trademark, songs like "Sweet Marie" and "Tu-Whitt Tu-Whoo" maintain a fiercely rocking edge via slowly evolving song structures and explosive, crunch guitar-driven choruses.

It's another Merritt CD that's so good, it could radically alter the world if it was broadcast from the moon.

Teenage Fanclub has absorbed the Britpop successes and failures of the past decade and made an album that celebrates everything that can go right when musicians listen to far too many Beatles records.

While Point may be less viscerally invasive than any of its recorded counterparts, it remains a beautifully orchestrated exercise in modern pop construction.

The music here is never outright parody, and there's evidence that real work went into creating this record -- it isn't a lightweight effort designed to cash in on retro-trendiness.

They so precisely meet your expectations that no matter how good the music might be, you can't help but be disappointed by the sheer dearth of surprises.

A meticulously crafted pop album that's as well suited for curling up on a bleak winter night as it is for driving with the top down on a bright summer day.

The album is solid, though hardly anything spectacular.

You have to admire Hefner's artistic spirit -- but Dead Media is too flawed and derivative to earn serious praise.

Rarely has the indulgence of rock ‘n roll dreams sounded this concise.

Elegant, downbeat orchestral pop songs.

In a hip-hop world ruled by clichéd production and watered-down beats, a sound so simultaneously funky and strange is, to say the least, a welcome change.

Those of you who choose to get in on the ground floor of this superlative venture they call Music to Make Love to Your Old Lady By will not be disappointed.

Titles & Idols' songs solve the same acoustic guitars + electronica beats equation as do the songs of Beth Orton and Everything But the Girl, adding up to adult pop with just enough jitter to give it a tinge of hipness.

While the nervous energy that has always been a key ingredient of the group’s sound (on record and otherwise) remains firmly intact, a newfound sense of responsibility and road-worn weariness occasionally rears its head, putting a bit of a damper on this otherwise upbeat record.

Bavarian Fruit Bread comes with the same warning as most of the winter season's baked goods -- it's rich, warm and full of flavor, but overindulgence will result in unplanned napping.

While the music behind the lyrics doesn't exactly bristle with innovation, it's the best blend of acoustic and electronic instruments I've heard.

It's a refinement of James' existing art form rather than an exploration of startlingly new concepts

While The Argument may not be as bracing as their groundbreaking work from a decade ago, it crystallizes the strengths of four musicians hitting every mark.

From a new band, Get Ready would seem like an accomplished if uneven effort.

Imagine a less sardonic John Wesley Harding, prone to occasional bouts of husky, Peter Gabriel-style vocal sincerity, and you'll have the basic idea.

Rejected Unknown is a musically rich, catchy-as-hell, sad-as-all-fucking-get-out journey.

There's a definite demand for FLA's art, and on Epitaph, they're at the top of their game.

The only thing keeping Is This It from being absolutely storming is the questionable production work of Gordon Raphael, whose primordial approach lacks the necessary punch to really bring these tunes to life.

The band has revealed a seething, visceral, rocking side of their music.... a shimmering Album Of The Year contender.

It's a good-natured and engaging mix of subtle sample manipulation, music concrete, downtempo dance beats and pop experiments.

Les Savy Fav is quite conscious of what you want, and they keenly deliver the goods on their latest batch of solid tunes.

As entertainment, Tenacious D succeeds surprisingly well -- for the first few listens.... The only long-term replay value you'll get from this record will come from playing it for friends who haven't heard it.