[A] ceaselessly grim set. [Apr 2007, p.118]

Turns out there's a functioning soul beneath the smirk. [Apr 2007, p.115]

Is there another "Float On"? It scarcely matters: 10 years into their career, Modest Mouse have stumbled into their best album yet. [Mar 2007, p.137]

What elevates this power trio above any number of punk revivalists... are precision and craft. [Apr 2007, p.115]

The music's intellectualism obscures as many truths as it unveils. [Mar 2007, p.130]

For the first time in El-P's career, he's realized you don't need to be loud to get your point across. [Apr 2007, p.110]

There's nothing remotely original about any of it. [Apr 2007, p.111]

Gummere’s voice is no one’s idea of pretty, and his lyrics are sometimes hard to decipher over the squall. But they’re both secondary to the nose-bloodying sonic punch.

The quartet has the virtues of youth... and some of the drawbacks. [May 2007, p.106]

[It] sounds fantastic--partly because the production nails sample-ready '60s soul right down to the drum sound' and partly because Winehouse is one hell of an impressive singer. [Apr 2007, p.121]

The lightness and clarity that once set Hales apart is here squashed by overwrought arrangements of lesser melodies that replace pop classicism with conventional rock bluster.

What Hammond... lacks in attitude, he makes up for in old-school pop charm. [Apr 2007, p.111]

Too bad about the self-important, chanted lyrics, which rattle on even when the band's trying to stretch out and groove. [Apr 2007, p.110]

What was once joyful, now sounds careworn and overly precious.

You can only discover fire once, though, so instead of a revolutionary blueprint, Neon Bible makes a triumphant clamor that's nearly as cathartic. [Apr 2007, p.109]

The saggy country-rock complaints about corporatization and alienation [Farrar] offers... sound like submissions to an Air America poetry contest. [Apr 2007, p.121]

Fans of the Stooges' early-'70s masterpieces wondered what they would have sounded like with a big-league budget. Here's the answer: loud, surly and still barely civilized. [Apr 2007, p.120]

An instrument-juggling, one-man-band approach that recalls the romantic, psychedelic pop of the Zombies and the textured electronics of Radiohead.

Many songs start out as radio-friendly rockets before shooting off into a disorienting psychedelic haze. [May 2007, p.106]

The band’s fourth album turns down the roiling boil of 2004’s What Is This America? to a seductive simmer.

Coldplay barely scratch these levels of exultation and agony. [Apr 2007, p.111]

The album is often duller than its predecessors, with bummed-out banalities repeated from previous records; at times, she seems to be dragging herself through her own songs.

Pretty, weird and tricky to get a handle on. [Mar 2007, p.136]

At Bloc Party’s best, music and message collide with astounding force.

While none of the new album’s hooks match the taurine-mainlining rush of “Sugar, We’re Goin Down,” there’s still lots to love.

[She] displays the true grit of a younger Bonnie Raitt.

If the students sound like masters, then Yoko’s generous legacy is secure.

When these Swedes get whacked by romance, they cushion the blow with a reed-kneed bedroom boogie that shimmies while evoking decades of great escapist groove music. [Mar 2007, p.141]