The fact that Comicopera is a masterpiece proves it all right nicely. [Fall 2007, p.113]

Welch and longtime partner David Rawlings weave a spellbinding mix of desperation and salvation across this album's 10 tracks. [#52, p.111]

The album proper already excellently spoke for itself 20 years ago. [No. 103, p.51]

The pure-pop masterpiece everyone knew McCaughey had in him. [#49, p.84]

A massively significant step forward.... Rock Action is so monumentally magisterial, it approaches near heretical status: the post-post-rock era's Sgt. Pet Sounds' Lonely Hearts Club Band.

While the album justifies the lavish bonuses, if you get caught up in the myth, you might miss what a weird, wild work it is. Beyond all the beautiful sadness, there's joyful nonsense, a noisy screed against the GOP and the most unabashedly erotic song R.E.M. had released up to that point. [No. 149, p.60]

Kudos to producer Tony Visconti and the tight jazz team around them for making Blackstar dynamic. If Bowie indeed knew time was tight and death’s release was imminent, this treatise to magic and loss is a gorgeous way to say goodbye. [No. 129, p.52]

Saint Etienne's latest album is masterful: fanatically detailed, intelligent and swimming in lovely melodies and delicious electronic bleeps... easily one of the year's standout albums. [#46, p.90]

As impressive as Savage Young Du is as a musical release--69 remastered songs over nearly three hours--it's equally impressive as a historical document. ... One of 2017's essential releases, no matter how you cut it. [No. 149, p.61]

This remains the Gallagher brothers' finest hour, and one of the great debuts of the last 20 years. [No. 109, p.57]

It's towering tuneful stuff. [No. 126, p.54]

A gravity-defying 23-minute take of "My Favorite Things" shows how far Coltrane had come in such a short time. [No. 116, p.57]

There's not an ounce of flab on this record. [No. 134, p.60]

This lavishly packaged box, comprising either 12 CDs or 13 LPs, observes Bowie's blossoming into a chameleon, ready to shed personae and styles the minute they strangle his artists needs. [No. 136, p.52]

A monumental record from a towering talent. [#59, p.103]

One of 2002's candidates for record-of-the-year honors.... Too Late is a top-to-bottom masterwork. [#54, p.85]

A masterpiece that flows brilliantly. [#75, p.97]

A twisted funk masterpiece that simultaneously evokes bad pornography and an outer-space barrio. Yeah, Change Is Coming is that good. [#52, p.97]

A truly brilliant recording. [#53, p.93]

At the remove of three decades, this album remains as fresh and unconventional as the day the songs were first committed to tape. [No. 147, p.60]

It's a treasure trove of listening pleasure. [No. 94, p.51]

Some of the most compelling, essential rock music of the era, period. [No.90, p.61]

This is 46 tracks of certifiably bonkers brilliance. [No. 111, p.55]

Sound System could well be a life changer, containing, as it does, the collected works of hands-down the greatest rock 'n' roll outfit the UK has produced in the last four decades. [No.102, p.51]

Although the quartet might not have topped Merriweather Post Pavillion, it did the next best thing: make an album that's entirely new and just as exciting. [No.91 p.52]

Beguiling and brilliant. [No. 89 p.51]

Cinema finds Czukay ins subtle freeform space-jazz jam mode without ever being tasteless or proggy. [No. 150, p.51]

Benji isn't for everyone--what great albums are?--but it's a career-defining statement by a brilliant songwriter. [No. 106, p.59]

The most trad of Williams trad-rock classics, as instantly recognizable as Sgt. Pepper. [No. 106, p.60]

What we're witnessing is a woman bowing down to nothing but her own muse. [No. 149, p.61]

The songs contained within make fellow travelers such as Dr. John or Tom Waits sound like eunuchs. Marvelous stuff. [No. 116, p.55]

Another low-key masterpiece wrapped in spooky twanging guitars, heartbroken harmonies, droning tempos and lyrics that often don't rhyme, delivered in Brett Sparks' deadpan, rumbling baritone. [No. 136, p.57]

There's nothing else like it, and once you listen, you'll never forget it. [No. 136, p.61]

Autechre's are notions are studied as they are transportive and on Exai, the duo fairly dares us not to lose ourselves. [No. 96, p.53]

Hamburg Demonstrations is the most carefully produced and executed music of his career. [No. 138, p.54]

All of it bears his precise touch, but the spectrum of moods he's able to conjure just got a lot wider. [No. 103, p.56]

An album chock-full of some of the most melodic and memorable work the band ever produced.... This reissue definitively covers the final chapter of Reed's time with the band that not only established his street cred, but launched him headfirst into his solo career. [No. 126, p.56]

Siberia recaptures the exciting invention and fire of a lost album recorded between Today's Active Lifestyles and Exploded Drawing without a hint of any decade but the one we now sit in, plus whatever is going to musically transpire in the future. [No. 103, p.58]

The group's warmest, most charitable album to date. [No. 98, p.61]

All of [the tracks are] meaty, beaty, big and bouncy. [No. 132, p.53]

Almost every inch of The Worse Things Get is stout and strong-willed. [No. 102, p.52]

A surprisingly accessible island of misfit pop songs. [No. 113, p.55]

The anthology does yield insights, especially where Mar is concerned. [#82, p.51]

In Conflict is his masterpiece--if not the best album of 2014, certainly the most profound. [No. 109, p.59]

The Membranes take on heady stuff. [No. 123, p.61]

Near-brilliant... smoldering slabs of sonic complexity... [#46, p.86]

This twisted, sublime, and otherwise genious U.K. pop outfit's toss-offs, b-sides and radio sessions border on surpassing the group's albums. [#48, p.92]

Every move this unit makes feels intrinsically and unaccountably right in all sorts of inexplicable ways. [No.92 p.57]

These recordings are the sound of a man back in the game and ready to pounce. [No. 100, p.52]

Every track here honors the spirit behind her perfromance style first and foremost. [No. 121, p.51]

What On really proves is that great albums aren't a thing of the past. [#54, p.94]

Bassist Dunn and drummer Stanier lay down weird sprightly grooves, while guitarist Denison arranges their melodies into something hard and densely poppy with arch-but-upbeat harmonics pulled from Pet Sounds. [No. 95, p.61]

They've managed to write one the hookiest, most satisfying albums of their career. [No. 119, p.53]

On [Her Majesty...], the whimsy and multicolored narrative threads that represented the best of the Decemberists' terrific first album are given room to breathe. [#60, p.96]

A wonderful album, with Coomes and Weiss at their very best. [#51, p.107]

It's pure pop for grown-ups, filled with smarts, experience and a faith in the power of four-quarter time, played with the kind of chemistry that's only possible in musicians who've spent their whole lives together, rocking out as if nothing else matters. [No.88 p.55]

Seven bonus cuts from the same project make it more than worth picking up even for those who've worn out the original. [No. 101, p.58]

[A] consistently nourishing collection. [No. 108, p.53]

The bona-fide masterpiece that Stevens' career has culminated in, and likely the one that will come to define his career. [No. 119, p.58]

[An] awesome, never-sappy snapshot of two people who drive each other wild. [No. 121, p.59]

With Foil Deer, Speedy Ortiz fully owns its style, quirks and neuroses on a level that would have been unimaginable circa 2013's Major Arcana. [No. 120, p.61]

It's that rare sort of just-about-perfect record that demands to be played over and over again. [#53, p.82]

A classic totem of those times, given just enough new life to merit a repurchase for original fans, and an exploration for those who weren't there. [No. 142, p.60]

[A] lovingly curated set. [No. 119, p.57]

That the feel throughout is cruel New England winter suggests July is one hell of a break-up record. [No. 106, p.57]

A full band plays behind Joyner's acoustic guitar and quiet vocals, but they employ the same restraint that marks his singing, making very quiet note resonate with low-key, understated emotion. [No. 119, p.57]

The whole bloody history of England's greatest cult act unfolds, rendering obscurity ultimately noble and rewarding. [No. 118, p.61]

Guitarist John Hill... generates enough raw power to mask the shortcomings of any old lead vocalist. Fortunately for this Denver foursome, it has one of the most exciting singers around today. [#68, p.91]

beyond his original albums lies three newly cobbled CDs of magic realist pop and frisky showboating folk that are endlessly fascinating. [No. 101, p.54]

Not since the Men dropped Leave Home last summer has a young band made an album of pure, hard-edged rock this good or entertainingly lacerating. [No. 92, p.56]

This is music that's instantly, wordlessly evocative while also invitingly open-ended. [No. 102, p.57]

The Marriage Of True Minds is pure late-model Matmos: perverse, urbane, crowded, hilarious, and efficient. [No. 95, p.55]

A flawless display. By turning former earache classics like "If You Want Blood" and "Love At First Feel" into beautiful acoustic ballads, much of The Moon sounds like his previous hits... [#49, p.86]

The Ship is delightful in every fashion. [No. 131, p.55]

This shining-up of the Sgt. Pepper grail is gorgeous. [No. 144, p.51]

Emphasizes melodic intention in a manner that transcends electronica or the outer reaches of experimental hip hop. [#68, p.92]

An epic, potentially epoch-making release. [No. 131, p.53]

Little short of brilliant. [#52, p.79]

If it takes another 36 years for something so sublime, I await the next 36 years. [#70, p.86]

It’s one of his best, a stunner that knocks you out without raising its voice. [No. 129, p.55]

From blunted bedroom nights with a drum machine to two decades down the line releasing one of the finest true hip-hop offerings since Moment Of Truth. Always listen to the Weathermen. [No. 131, p.53]

A genre-defying, glorious mess of an album. [#54, p.109]

Feels is layered as no other Collective album before it. [#70, p.87]

Oneida's most cohesive and beautiful record to date. [#68, p.105]

It's not until the third or fourth [listen] that you hear how smart it is. How organic. How rich in nutrients. How thoroughly these conservatory grads are digesting their jazz/pop/soul influences and squeezing them into something unforgettable. [No. 128, p.58]

Guitarists Gunn, Jim Elkington and Paul Sukeena channel their prodigious technique to fleeting textures and ingratiating hooks, and the arrangements update the template of 1970-vintage Velvet Underground and Grateful Dead with a half-century of judiciously applied production acumen. [No. 131, p.57]

This album, like its predecessor, is stunning. [Fall 2007, p.91]

Despite the heavy sonic resemblance, this road map back lands Jurado and Swift someplace new, slightly more thematic and worlds more dramatic. [No. 106, p.60]

Mould’s in a dark place right now: bile in his gut, pain in his heart, doom on his mind. It’s the end of days, people. He makes it sound so fun. [No. 129, p.56]

Utopia is the perfect whooshing winter record, just in time for the bitter chill. [No. 149, p.53]

The treat here, as with all of his Bootleg releases, is the rarities. [No. 149, p.54]

Touchstones like "No Depression" and "John Hardy," Farrar shows flair and dynamic skill, while Tweedy works the band's rocking formula on "Train" and guilelessly narrates small town life with "Screen Door." [No. 106, p.51]

The first two discs develop in a predictable but always rewarding and intelligently curated way.... The rest of the collection, by design or happy accident, chronicles the plummet and crash from visionary transcendence to the kind of dark Romanticism that the Bad Seeds were mining at about the same time in Australia. [No. 131, p.58]

The double-disc, dual volume album that results is one that finds the Canadian seven-piece sounding liberated, from stylistic and budgetary constraints both. [No. 105, p.52]

While it's hard not to hear Soul Of A Woman and mourn Jones' death, the joyful vibrancy and old-school expertise coursing through these tracks quickly supersede any hint of sadness. [No. 149, p.58]

Their best work. [#54, p.107]

With the release of Old Ramon, Kozelek shows he's capable of sustained inspiration.... It's Kozelek's most successful LP: consistent, heartbreakingly sad and filled with gems that will linger in his fans' psyches. [#49, p.85]

It's a place Dessner has visited before, both inside and outside the National, and though he's earned plenty of concert-hall cred over the last few years, these incomparable Kronos recordings represent a huge leap. [No. 105, p.56]