Planet Earth marks a slight improvement on that one ["3121"], which is progress of a sort, but incremental advances like this almost guarantee that the marketing hoo-hah will get more attention anyway.

Absolute Garbage makes a fine reminiscence, a gift from a party that was fun for its time but left a nasty hangover.

The pared-down moments of The Con seem to long for the clusterfuckedness of the album’s meatier tracks, and for the most part, rightly so.

Is Is is over in eighteen minutes, not one is wasted.

Perhaps the biggest draw of the album--its sheer fragility and unlikeliness, amidst throngs of over-arranged pseudo-chamber indie records.

The album, like most of Vanderslice’s albums, meanders along like a pleasant afternoon: it is all fair weather and blithe breezes, fairly consistent in both tone and tempo.

We Are the Night isn’t awful, but you can hear the rigidity of its formula, like the motorik title tune that burps up its eponymy every few seconds along a signless, moody highway.

A record that's so deathly serious that each of it's ten songs could be associated with its very own biblical plague.

Nothing too dire mars Vega’s compositions, which remain as condensed and detailed as Victorian miniatures.

It’s all just too "over-" - overcooked, overheated, whatever you want to call it.

They ape New Order's "Movement," surely that combo's most static and dullest album. Dengler and rather good drummer Sam Fogarino don't get many chances to shine, letting guitarist Daniel Kessler create the kind of textures that often get mistaken for progress.

1997's "I Could See the Dude" was abrupt, intriguing, emotive, and obtuse - these have always been within Spoon’s grasp, but rarely have they felt as unified as they do now, a baby’s first word burped up five times.

Cross is a big party record with a few exciting beats, as well as one of the few examples of desirable audio clipping.

There's a sustained tone to Time on Earth that Finn's rarely mastered, and that alone comes closer than you might have thought possible to making the record an unqualified success.

The Else is their best whole album since, because it’s also the most melodic.

Goodbye contains both the best and the worst of Schnauss’ output until now.

This is more like their "Give ‘em Enough Rope," a perfectly fine extension of that first energy burst, one that deserved to be milked a bit.

I’d argue, though, that being an expert on the group’s verbose and ragged past wouldn’t help all that much. This is a different sounding band with pretty much the exact same lyrical concerns.

What Marry Me may lack in innovation, it makes up for in attitude and execution.

New Young Pony Club claim they can give us what we want, but they haven’t got a clue what we need.

Skills most often attributed to premiere MC’s like deft wordplay, vivid storytelling, emotional resonance, salient talking points? These are few and far between on T.I. vs. T.I.P., even if the man remains an impressive technician who sounds at home on any beat you can give him.

A couple of times on Uncle Dysfunktional the Mondays break out of their past and attempt to come to grips with more contemporary forms, but it’s less than convincing.

Other than a few cliched song titles and lyrics (this is rock 'n' roll after all), Twilight of the Innocents actually demonstrates a refreshing maturity and breadth; sure it rocks, but never in a clumsy or callous manner.

Easy Tiger sounds like the kind of album Adams could churn out every 18 months for the rest of his life.

The Mix-Up doesn’t present anything innovative, nor is it any sort of triumphant career coda; it just sounds good.

My December isn’t the kind of earth-shattering fuck-you accomplishment that would make this story too good to be true. However, it’s not nearly as bereft of good songs and great moments as some folks would have you believe either.

Desire’s successes stem chiefly from Pharoahe’s unimpeachably brilliant rhyme skills.

Astronomy sometimes sounds like a British invasion LP given the remaster and remix treatment: dance-ready, fit for a plush couch and extra-plush headspace, and oddly misfiled in time.