Smith is least persuasive on the latter [unexpectedly aggressive, blues-based power ballads] - her delicate voices sounds strident when fronting heavy electric guitars, and those scattered tracks break the spell that her more restrained songs cast easily. [No.89, p.59]

Their fourth full-length has the band members grabbing snippets of musical influence from all over the Pitchfork-approved map. [No. 96, p.54]

As usual, it's mostly successful as a mood piece. [No. 132, p.57]

The Style Council-style blue-eyed soul and precise power pop of the debut now have some company that doesn't work, like the '70s Nashville countrypolitan exercise of the title track. [No. 100, p.51]

Some new ideas are welcome more than a decade into the Jersey outfit's career, but they could've been used to more exciting ends. [No. 150, p.59]

[Her high-pitched vocals] restricts her melodies a bit too much for their own good, and some more dynamic performances near the album's end can't save it from fading in a poof of uneasy effervescence. [No. 95, p.55]

The sound is more lush than usual and has clearly matured, but it does come across a lot like indie new age music. [No. 92, p.55]

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

Standout moments exist but the apparent slap across the face of preparedness results in meandering transitions, misplaced sax bleating that's part downtown jazz, part "Careless Whisper," and the feeling that there was a fair amount of sleepwalking through the process. [No. 119, p.55]

It's a bit mad, but what else would you expect from the Melvins, which in-and-of -itself is a shame. [No. 132, p.55]

There's an easy likeability to Great Lake Swimmer's latest release. [Yet] many songs don't hold up on repeated listens. [#86, p.54]

Flute and saxophone abound on this record, employed with a degree of schmaltz that works against the songs more often then not. [No. 95, p.57]

A few more tracks like ["Chicks, Man"] would have made Elvis Club great, rather than good. [No.99, p.54]

Among the filler that drags down the LP's second half, fulfills contractual obligations and pushes the Gwar story forward. [No. 149, p.57]

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]

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

Too much of Everybody's Coming Down limps along on wounded extremities, with quirky cleverness displaced in favor of sloppy indie-rock tropes that answer the eternal question about what Ween would sound like minus a sense of adventure. [No. 123, p.59]

Hold/Still tries so hard to be ominous that it almost always forgets to be interesting. [No. 130, p.61]

Williams pits his angst-y tendencies against grunge's proven, angst-coddling backdrop. [#82, p. 62]

An emphasis on instrumentals is intriguing, but they're the pleasantries you'd fear. All are pretty in a disconnected, band-that-hasn't-released-new-music-in-13-years way. [No. 147, p.58]

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

Many of these tracks are simply products of their time. [#71, p.91]

Much of this album comes surprisingly close to the woozy heights scaled by Barat's old gang--but not quite close enough because, if there are criticisms here, it's that there's too little light and shade. [No. 117, p.52]

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]

Beyond often rings with the bumbling awkwardness of a band taking itself too seriously for the first time. [No. 108, p.55]

If you're not fanatical about the racket created by unfathomable guitar noise, you'll find songs on Motion Set overly long and veering frequently toward incomprehensible. [No. 138, p.57]

The lack of focus and discernible melodies keeps CANT from being anything more than an interesting diversion. [#81, p. 53]

The back half gets slower, darker and weirder--integral ingredients all. But there isn't one track here that stands out from the rest. [No. 118, p.59]