More danceable (and vulgar) than previous releases.

Overreaches. [Jul 2006, p.88]

You'll find [it] either icky or inspirational. [Jul 2006, p.83]

There are interesting moments... but too often they're smothered in a formless buzz of guitar, samples, voilin, harmonica--you name it. [Jul 2006, p.87]

Her insights plumb poetic shallows. [Jun 2006, p.81]

They burden their appealing, childlike take on Brechtian cabaret's cold raunch with so much lush production... that it's as though Palmer is being drowned by a gallon jug of overpriced perfume. [Jun 2006, p.79]

The static beats of... Scott Storch and Trackmasters do little to freshen up his sound. [Jun 2006, p.78]

Sometimes [his] acoustic finger-plucking moves past half-angst into something boozier, but his solo debut is boxed wine at best. [May 2006, p.91]

Rich-guy gripes, Ying Yang booty boasts, and label-politics rundowns don't wear nearly as well as his amicable down-homey side. [Apr 2006, p.91]

More corny than convincing. [May 2006, p.91]

A stark, erratic, and perversely back-loaded collection. [Mar 2006, p.96]

The beats are so simplistic that their minimalist repetition occasionally teeters over into redundancy.

They vacillate between flotational devices and skull-crushers. [Apr 2006, p.91]

The racing tempos and Christian Hjelm's paranoid-sounding yelp push the songs to occasionally exhilarating heights, but beware the inevitable comedown. [Aug 2006, p.78]

Hawthorne Heights shun nuance altogether. Quiet equals depth; loud equals catharsis. And never the twain shall meet. [Mar 2006, p.94]

Until they ditch folksy archaisms... maybe it's best for 'em young indie-blues fellers... [to] work on the good ol'-fashioned songwriting. [Mar 2006, p.95]

[He] has a goofy sense of humor and an excellent feel for the dance floor but virtually no knack for song form. [Sep 2006, p.114]

It's weird how this spiral of genial melodic plaints can sound so weak and self-pitying when it's sung by a pushy dude and not a smart, empathetic woman with a voice. [Feb 2006, p.87]

It's too tepid to be offensive. [Feb 2006, p.87]

Flavorless chamber pop. [Jan 2006, p.91]

Though these faux-naif hipsters genuinely worship the wizard of Ozzfest, they don't have the chops to do much about it. [Nov 2005, p.101]

What passed for refreshing last year is merely rote here. [Dec 2005, p.105]

Banhart brings the peace and love, but not the understanding. [Sep 2005, p.104]

Odditorium... is a chance to repair their cred, and insofar as they have any, they do all right. [Sep 2005, p.102]

Vanderslice is tortured and diffuse even by Death Cab standards. [Sep 2005, p.109]

Songs like the predictably ribald "Porno Bitches" are little more than by-the-numbers, behind-the-music tracks. [Jul 2005, p.104]

The Peas give fun a bad name. [Jul 2005, p.104]

Uneven, overly reverential. [May 2005, p.110]