If the album is frustratingly uneven--if, despite moments of exuberance, it can also feel like a mundane grind--well, I suspect that also mirrors life in Mali. And almost everywhere else, too.

45:33 is as much gallery-crawl as beach-run; purpose-built in gliding tempos and warm-down synth shimmers for iPod-strapped runners, yet appropriate for a cruise through the Whitney, too. [Review of UK release]

Here, most gestures remain a bit too consciously panoramic—elegant enough for comfort but often not chancy enough to be breathtaking.

Case... still approximates a Northwestern Patsy Cline with a graduate degree, and while the stories she tells are mournful, her delivery remains buoyant. [Apr/May 2006, p.101]

For diehard Elliott Smith fans, New Moon is an absolute must... For remaining listeners, it's merely instructive, sublime in parts but not solid enough or surprising enough or interesting enough, musically, to merit multiple listens. [May 2007, p.58]

The two discs offered here brim with ideas, some more navel-gazing than others. [#16, p.143]

On songs like these, she resists the temptation to play the spurned frontierswoman out for revenge. She’s a little wounded, a little scared, a little less of a caricature and a little more human.

A preciously solemn soundtrack for blustery days. [Dec 2005, p.124]

While any given song on the album contains a memorable melodic passage or a compelling idea, some of them are more mixed in their results.

The urgency and bile are palpable. [Oct 2006, p.84]

In a year that has also brought the envelope-pushing production work of Edan’s album Beauty and the Beast, the rehashed soul sometimes comes off limp, too content with itself and its well-worn form to challenge the genre’s status quo.

Aside from better production values, little has changed about the Scotsmen’s formula.

Andorra belongs on a hip continuum but something about it still feels slightly cold--it's a druggy album that's too precise to be made with drugs, a lush album that’s too filigreed to be emotional.

Other artists, such as Florence and the Machine are creating better, more interesting music with the same techniques. Seek them out instead of wasting your time on this one.

Throughout Father of the Bride, a record with half-baked political commentary (“Something’s happening in the country / And the government’s to blame”) and lazy wordplay (“All I do is lose but baby / All I want’s to win”), it feels as if Koenig turned away from what made his band so great in the first place, instead electing to adopt a sound that doesn’t necessarily fit him, one that comes off as derivative and frequently boring.

A sidestep that’s as easy to admire as it is hard to love.

Prewitt's songs take their time unfolding, giving the album a meditative quality that's pretty admirable. [#14, p.105]

It’s an ideal time to simultaneously start over and glance back, which Walker does on Sycamore Meadows, trading the glammy style of his prior solo work for competent, traditional radio rock....Then again, you’ll need a high threshold for boorishness to enjoy his frequent autobiographical nostalgia for substance abuse, pubescent defloration and venereal disease.

In terms of mere diversion, though, the perfectly titled Hold On Now, Youngster… is best administered in small amounts; otherwise, you run the risk of overdose.

By track four, a whimsical-by-numbers reverie called “Dinosaurs on the Mountain,” American Head starts to fall off an American cliff. The tempos are slow enough to deflate even Coyne’s considerable charm, and the record’s rootsy, pastoral spin on the Lips’ sound is undermined by the band’s maximalist production ethos. Nearly every song is overstuffed with queasy synth textures and sleek, digitized strings, and Coyne can’t resist warping his vocals in a grab-bag of ugly processors.

It’s not terrible, it’s mostly pleasant to listen to, it’s beautifully produced and it’s easy to recognize the skill it takes to craft their saintly, synth-driven sound. But when you couple a critical reputation like theirs with the band’s own claim of making a big artistic jump, mostly pleasant to listen to shouldn’t cut it.

Some of Brad Albetta's production veers toward generic pop and threatens to bury both Wainwright's distinctive voice and her lyrics. [Apr/May 2005, p.131]

Most of Songs balances caustic lyrics with beautiful power-pop interludes. [Jun/Jul 2006, p.119]

Put in context, White Chalk serves her purposes, much as Bruce Springsteen’s "Nebraska" served his. On initial listen, the album is not a step forward, nor is it a step back, but rather a lateral move intended to leave breathing room for her next attack.

Citrus is the crossroads where My Bloody Valentine and Sonic Youth mingle. [Aug 2006, p.88]

It's on solo turns like "High Days"... that the elder statesman resounds much like... Bob Dylan recently did, stymieing a new generation with his continued craftsmanship. [Dec 2006, p.93]

This album rocks harder than 2003's The Earth Is Not A Cold Dead Place, and it's more sinister, too. [Mar 2007, p.67]

On the heels of 2011’s critically hailed D, Corsicana Lemonade is a plain, uninspiring disappointment.