Naturally, there are moments that regress into mere riffs on the band's million-old forerunners, but attitude intermixes with ambiance on Nouns in a special, timeless way. [Spring 2008, p.99]

A gorgeous, bona fide gem. [#11, p.92]

If this record doesn't break in a major way, it will not only be a shock, it will be a damn shame. [#17, p.99]

It's familiar but refreshing, evidence that a dinosaur genre like "post-rock" can still sound vital.

'Allelujah!'s symmetrical sequencing-two 20-minute suites, two 6-minute drones-is as stark and stout as anything the band have released to date, unflinching as it stares extreme horror dead in the eye.

Bradford Cox's jagged, swirling atmospherics reach an apotheosis on this hazy but blissful offering.

The Blue Album is buxomly abundant with the Orbital's usual cinemascopic electronic psychedelia. [#12, p.100]

Schizophrenic, stark, and even with its pretentious theatrics, this is an amazing record. [#9, p.104]

[Many] of the songs submerge the rock and roll swagger of Your Arsenal in dramatic atmospherics, making ofr an astonishingly immediate visceral experience. [#20, p.91]

Despite all of the concentrated production, these mellow, easy-going songs still sound completely effortless. [#15, p.97]

With lyrics appropriated from an e.e. cummings poem of the same name ["Dying is Fine"] contrasting with bouncy guitar riffs, the creation feels fresh; the past, unforgetable. [Summer 2008, p.91]

You have not only a Bjork that's fun again, but an album that is simultaneously politically charged, esoteric and glossy with mainstream appeal. [#25, p.88]

Like Animal Collective, though, this is a challeging and often times terrifying music for those who don't yet speak the language. Trying Hartz, which collects tracks from each Danielson-related release up to 2004's "Brother Is To Son," works like a language lab for those who want to walk around in Smith's cities. [Holiday 2008, p.98]

They arise triumphant with their own footprint in the soil of rock and roll. [Winter 2009, p.91]

You may say, with all its funky breaks and organ spells, that The Mix-Up is the last album you’d expect the Beastie Boys to make; but really, it could’ve been the first.

Let's just say the word "repulsion" doesn't fully sum it up. Enjoy the violence. [#16, p.96]

Annie is to Kylie Minogue as Kasabian is to Primal Scream: same song, different packaging. [#16, p.97]

It's exactly the record that everyone hoped Spoon would make. [#15, p.98]

Much more organic and live. [#25, p.100]

It is rare to come across a record that possesses such refinement and stylization, but The Seldom Seen Kid excels at both and was more than worth the wait. [Spring 2008, p.94]

Get Lost and stay lost.

Yet another firework-filled post-modern work of true art. [#24, p.89]

Trouble in Dreams pulls upon 2006's "Rubies'" emotional strings, and in fact, tugs deeper while still retaining the strange wall of declamatory description. [Winter 2008, p.91]

A masterful submersion in the pop allure of ambient and house music. [#16, p.94]

Random Spirit Lover even crushes "Beast Moans" at points, its arrangements meatier and more satisfying, with an off-kilter Disney otherworldliness and kudzu-dense overlapping keyboards.

Our six-string savior not only makes his guitar do things that will have you forgetting that Page and Plant are never to take to a stage together again; he is also keen to remind us in just whose hands now rests that Hammer of the Gods.

The album serves as an excellent chart of the band's evolution. [Holiday 2008, p.91]

For as much as this collection of songs feels like a band getting together to jam for fun, Break It also feels like one of the more cohesive albums in Bird's oeuvre.

Instead of eight people trying to make many noises as possible, this is the sound of a unified band trying to make the best noise possible. [Winter 2008, p.90]

From the propulsive 'What Would Wolves Do?' to the dub-styled 'Brace Yourself,' the album seems like something to play while driving across the desert at sunset, especially with all the wolf cries in the background from Islands’ Nicolas Thorburn.

With not a sound wasted, James Blake is everything we wanted James Blake to make.

You'd be right to uncover this one.

This is the band's most cohesive, accessible, melodic and lyrically viscous record to date. [#21, p.99]

The fuzzy grooves on the record stand out as sicker and more focused than anything the United States of America or Morricone ever splattered onto a canvas. [#21, p.93]

The new songs are some of the best they've ever recorded, and just finishing this collection is a big testament to their staying power. [#10, p.89]

Like a Lynchian vision, it's darkly mysterious and disconsolate, but essentially human--and it's that sense of the persistence of humanity that lends this work its majesty. [Summer 2009, p.91]

Sure politics can be a bit boring... but the intense symphonic crescedos and bombastic drums on this record are exciting enough to keep even the most apathetic of you on board. [#12, p.103]

Sound System drives home the foursome’s adeptness at boundary hopping, while never forgetting the value of a good hook and a politically righteous lyric.

Perkins is joined by a three-piece ensemble of multi-instrumentalists that do a great deal to boost his soulful ballads with circus-like arrangements, while putting a little extra pep in his step. [Winter 2009, p.96]

Though the sound can come off as aggressive, if not anxiety-inducing at times, it's the tiny revelations that make the vicious drumming, harsh guitars and freaky vocals worthwhile, summing up for an experience that is as delightfully fucked up as it is musically seamless...with unexpected steel drums making appearances in between.

A headphone masterpiece. [#25, p.94]

Another smartly executed step into the strange grandeur of Mr. Waits. [#12, p.94]

This is meat and 'taters rock mixed with the Devil's blood. [#24, p.90]

Steven Ellison (aka Flying Lotus) manages to ensnare 18 night visions on his latest psych-bass masterwork, Until the Quiet Comes.

Gorgeous. [#7, p.92]

Almost everything about this album is fragile and beautiful. [#24, p.94]

DCFC is becoming a band that's worth noticing apart from Ben. [#17, p.93]

A glorious, towering achievement. [#22, p.98]

On Shootenanny!, they take a solid first step toward crafting their opus a la Yankee Hotel Foxtrot or Soft Bulletin. [#6, p.81]

Any doubts that the Yeah Yeah Yeahs are a band for the ages are wiped from the face of the earth three fragile piano chimes into 'Runaway,' one of the most epic and heart-ripping mediations on loss and loneliness ever. [Sprin 2009, p.91]

For Now I Am Winter is filled with widescreen ambitions that deliver on every count.

Proves that Prekop really is one of the few musicians who can allude to the '70s, soul, jazz and fun--yet still sound sincere. [#14, p.99]

Like an aesthetic and visceral run through the hhistory of these most miraculous of musical visionaries. [#17, p.102]

There is something so honest about My Morning Jacket--something fresh and something Skynard. But in a good way. [#7, p.91]

Back is the blend of lo-fi and hi-fi, and back are the completely odd lyrics. [#22, p.94]

Just like with White Stripes albums, the music rattles your brain like no other and gets better with age. [#20, p.97]

The best element... isn't the driving guitars or relentless percussion, it's the ability to step up and actually better their sound. [#5, p.91]

There's an underlying transcendence in McCombs' work that acts as pure poetry, but it also can come across as direct storytelling when taken at surface value. [Summer 2009, p.96]

Incorporating harp, horn, clicks, clacks, reeds, bells and strings in other more "typical" Múm songs like 'Dancing Behind My Eyeballs,' they breathe a bit more breath and color into their swaying, hypnotic pop music.

Supernature will not assist you in unlocking life's great mysteries, but for a good bout of fashionable rutting, well... [#19, p.90]

Nine Black Alps' raucous nod to the early '90s sounds more heartfelt than the work of so many of their countrymen who can't get past the '80s. [#19, p.96]

She's traded in the "Morphine" and creepy, hillbilly-chic of Escondida for a sound that's a hint more melodic and just a touch less disturbed. [#20, p.104]

The Information is a truer return to the Odelay mentality--and surprisingly, the sound as well. [#22, p.92]

It's part frustration, part chase with moments where everything seems to, accidentally, come together in passing moments that strike with more emotional effect than a compilation of soulful tearjerkers.

It seems they’ve found land for their sea legs, regaining footing with a more profound focus by the likes of Cambria Goodwin, whose vocals nod toward Régine Chassagne’s sadness and the haunting of Victoria Legrand.

An album confident enough in its substance to not force profound stylistic changes. [#21, p.100]

Possesses a rare beauty and a singluar honesty. [#9, p.111]

This is Cat Power as strong and mature as we know her today.

A production gem. [#19, p.91]

By not making sense as we know it, cLOUDDEAD creat music that is open to interpretation. [#10, p.96]

The urgency of the music and the quality vocal and guitar hooks make this one of the best rock albums of the year. [#13, p.98]

It takes willpower and endurance to swim down these dark, dimly lit streams of misery. Even as a listener. [#11, p.98]

This is a new Clientele--very similar to the old; just happier, brighter and, yes, better. [#25, p.98]

Born Ruffians is just as rambunctious, not to mention far more likely to induce vehicular intercourse (or break your heart). [Winter 2008, p.92]

May be one of their best. [#5, p.90]

Her countrified songs often begin as gothic lullabies, swallowed up in darkness and longing, as if the instruments themselves were suffering heartbreak. [#6, p.82]

Paranoid Cocoon is a Sunday morning treat. [Holiday 2008, p.105]

It's everything we love about Blackalicious, but with a little more neo-soul vibe than we're used to. [#17, p.94]

Track-for-track, Herren's stuttering production and Technicolor glitch madness turns the whole thing into some insane dance party. [#15, p.93]

Boroughs' greatest strength is its aural cohesiveness, fueled by a litany of Golden Age samples... and the heavy, often dark, bass-driven soundscapes. [#11, p.90]

Comprised of tracks recorded with Rick Rubin right up until Cash's death in late 2003, American VI is a fitting send-off for the Man in Black.

The lyrics on Carrier stand as the most meaningful in their catalog, making their newest album stand once again as the band’s best yet.

Fans will love it; hipster kids can hear what the Strokes would sound like if they suddenly had the subtlety bludgeoned out of them. [#21, p.100]

Fun the way a dance floor should be. [#22, p.102]

It's this balance of aggression and harmony that make El-P so engaging--and Cancer for Cure so triumphant.

This is freaky, transcendent stuff. [Spring 2008, p.94]

The reasons we love the Parisians-by-way-of-London rockers are only partially for their adolescent kitsch and filth. [Winter 2008, p.97]

A study in subtly, Tamer Animals proves that more of less isn't just memorable--it's damn near magical.

Loyalty To Loyalty proves that, through it all, the Cold War Kids are a keeper. [Fall 2008, p.90]

Raw, crunchy beats and ugly, monster flows delivered in a punk album format. [#9, p.110]

Ranging from the epic to the understated, Menomena manages to be innovative and accessible.

Broder has created his own brand of amalgamated Americana: moody, mixed up and damn beautiful. [#6, p.85]

Goddamn if the entire mess doesn't sound great. [#12, p.93]

Though Maps is ona simple level known for James Chapman's spacey and cinematic sound, the new direction--or variety of directions--are all equally as wonderful, even if they are unrelated. [Fall 2009, p.106]

The Prodigy has been treading water for a few years, most likely looking for the inspiration, sentiment and spooky samples which they now unleash on Invader Must Die--a treat for anyone with a thirst for the twisted and ferocious. [Winter 2009, p.92]

Rather than coming across as note-for-note recreations, each song takes on a new, softer life with Houck's delicate vocals. [Winter 2009, p.98]

No, this is the real shit--classic lightning riffage, hearkening dub rhythms, and a perfectly insane H.R. and Co. following the great spirit to hardcore heaven

While it’s likely that Push the Sky Away will not cause the seas to part before him, it will surely ephemerally deliver us from this evil wasteland of vacant contemporary culture and mutilated morality.