Harvey maybe a bit too in love with a crunchy delay/distortion footswitch combo, but the likes of "Space Monkeys," he and his younger guys make a creditable, spacey blues. [Jan 2017, p.27]

Silver Age revisits Sugar's thick-set pop style. [Nov 2012, p.79]

The Staten Island quartet blend the fixtures and fittings of noisy US slacker rock--Sonic Youth drones, Pavement squalls--but add a bubblegum pop sensibility. Their vocalist Joseph D'Agostino, however, remains something of an acquired taste. [Oct 2016, p.26]

His willingness to scribble over the pretty surfaces of his songs brings a bristling edge to his Beatlesque pop. [Feb 2008, p.79]

The finest moments... prove to be the same stripped-down verbally deft hip-hop that made their name. [Oct 2005, p.100]

Depending on your mood or generosity, these are either indulgently doleful or movingly ascetic in their dutiful repetitions--worth investigating either way. [Jan 2015, p.71]

Sundfor's first for Bella Union suffers from an occasional excess of affectations, her melismatic vocal style an acquired taste. Fortunately, she's best at her most intimate, this sixth collection's dominate quality. [Sep 2017, p.38]

The Trio's third album is similarly, unconventionally earnest, often doing for the New Romantics when Gayngs did for 10cc. [Nov 2011, p.84]

It ain't always pretty. [Oct 2009, p.104]

Plenty of liturgic rumbling, but it really works when she aims for something greater. [Dec 2020, p.39]

Wolf's twofold skillfulness and stirring guest performances compensate for the sometimes overcooked arrangements. [Apr 2010, p.109]

That it works at all is thanks to a dense, cartoonish production that sees dusty breaks. found sounds and snippets of conversation tossed together like the contents of an upturned toy box. [Jul 2005, p.96]

The results are alluring warped but this groovy nostalgia is now a well-trodden path. [Dec 2015, p.76]

Theirs is a sophisticated, finely nuanced sound, lynchpin Aaron Turner's vocals notwithstanding. [Jun 2009, p.88]

Lenses Alien harnesses the singular vision of singer and guitarist Joseph D'Agostino to finely nuanced, feedback-soused art-rock. [Nov 2011, p.83]

Ultimately it's a record that happily exists in something of a fog - wilfully embracing hazy, almost groggy textures. [Jul 2023, p.30]

Son's patchwork of fluttering loops and vocal delays align Molina with kindred spirits Animal Collective, though her listless delivery can dull proceedings. [Jun 2006, p.106]

This is pretty gloomy going, not rendered much easier by the lugubrious baritone in which Beck delivers his emotional autopsies, or the vague, amorphous melodies. [Nov 2002, p.116]

The album is most fun when it plays up to the contours of Karen O's idiosyncratic voice. [Apr 2019, p.32]

Over the full 82 minutes, though, 93696 can feel a little relentless, undone by the scale of its own ambition. [Apr 2023, p.32]

Fiendishly clever, but not easy to love. [Oct 2009, p.104]

May has a knack for hooks and titles. [Oct 2017, p.32]

Power pop without the escapism. [Apr 2005, p.105]

"Die" is generic glam riffage, and "Magic" is a tedious Britpop stomp, but there are many successes. [Oct 2011, p.86]

If there's a signpost that Cripple Crow isn't quite the record it could've been, it's that the most engaging moments here recall Banhart records past. [Oct 2005, p.96]

Too often La Vie Est Belle, produced by Boxed In's Oli Bayston, has all the flair of an Editors potboiler, so a potentially uplifiting record becomes quite draining. [Nov 2015, p.80]

At 15 tracks, it outstays its welcome, but in small does this is deliciously addictive. [June 2008, p.86]

He may be treading water a little until he really gets into his groove as the 21st century Sondheim, but Distortion at its best is beguiling and quietly devastating.