There's something far too aloof about Again. [#64, p.84]

Pop uses the strengths and weaknesses of his many guests to differing--and sometimes distracting--effect. [#61, p.88]

The first Wheat album that'll make you cringe through four or five listens before you can tolerate its artificial sweetness. [#61, p.111]

There's something undeniably mechanical about Room On Fire. [#61, p.107]

The tunes wear thin before the bluesman gimmick does. [#61, p.110]

Some songs here make more sense than others, and the musicianship, while spirited, isn't quite accomplished. [#61, p.92]

The endless Anglophilia gets boring, especially when Pulp, Blur and the Auteurs have all done it better. [#61, p.86]

Much of the material is mid-tempo and occasionally bland, but in its best moments... Kill Them With Kindness soars. [#60, p.105]

While all this sounds real pretty and is a pitch-perfect soundtrack for your hip cosmopolitan engagements, You Forgot doesn't have enough stick-to-your-gut songs to sustain a long-term, repeated-listening relationship. [#60, p.93]

The problem is that the half-hour Squares is as unfocused and repetitive as a double album. [#59, p.108]

The perfect soundtrack for winter 1996.... It's icy, robotic and just a little bit behind the Curve. [#58, p.88]

There are great moments that grasp for--and sometimes reach--the bombastic ground between Radiohead's pop days and Sunny Day Real Estate's proggier side; then there are long stretches that fail to push any buttons at all. [#59, p.90]

After a promising start, the album charts a steep and steady decline into ersatz Bowie and slapdash psychedelia. [#58, p.96]

He slouches in with "Sisters" and begins his album-long teetering on the brink of affectation, sounding like a teenager with restratint. [#59, p.89]

Keep On Your Mean Side suffers from the same-samey quicksand tha bogs down the overhyped Yeah Yeah Yeahs. [#58, p.95]

Just start at track six, where the getting gets good. [#58, p.97]

The misfires pale in comparison to the stomp and swagger of the record's best songs. [#58, p.91]

Sounds like classic overcompensation, a racket on wheels trying to live up to its hype by merely playing over it. [#59, p.98]

Play[s] like a remember-the-'90s rundown. [#58, p.98]

A half-hearted attempt to outshine 2001's A Better Version Of Me, but lacks all the "Spit And Fire" that made that album so human. [#58, p.105]

Predictable. [#57, p.105]

For all its attempts at hipster currency, Evil Heat reveals the needle-shaped creative hole where the drugs used to be. [#57, p.102]

She's a ghost in the machine; unfortunately, the machine is an Atari 2600. [#57, p.80]

Like a handful of Flinstones Chewables, Velocity is sugary, prehistoric and well-intentioned, but Apples don't make a meal. [#56, p.78]

The album fares best when Evelyn lets his sampler do the talking. [#56, p.101]

Fully realized tracks such as "Affection" and the peppy "I'm A Vampire" are so fetching that they eclipse the rest of Eternal Youth, which is padded with brief, blippy non-songs and is often top-heavy with (literal) bells and whistles. [#56, p.93]

The mixed results are troubling. [#55, p.86]

It runs longer than an hour, and no matter how much you liked the Smiths you probably don't hav ethe patience for that much Gene. [#56, p.89]