Skinner seems both edgier and more contemplative.

A dandy little 36-minute album of simple pop tunes with all the right moves and no real motion.

This song cycle is less about a particular state than it is about Stevens' elegant façade of cleverness.

[A] blindingly good debut.

An energetic and original statement.... Essential.

This music has the serene lilt of pop and the hope of sentimentality but also the gravity of unconventional responsibility. Rather than roaring, this music sears.

The only complaint to be lodged against Bachelor No. 2, other than its partially duplicated track listing, is the mid-tempo groove from which Mann rarely extricates herself.

[The opening] quartet of tunes blows the band's wad, leaving the rest of the album scattered with only moderately cool mid- tempo metal, all of it delivered with gusto but not enough serious hooks to make anything stand out.

As music for airports, the album hums along like a tension-age sedative, but if it was meant to be a grand artistic statement by an acclaimed band with a distinctive vision, it's pretty much static.

Where Shall You Take Me? brings Jurado back to familiar, minimalist territory.

In Rainbows is a richly textured and resonant record. In a career marked by dramatic reinvention, Radiohead’s latest phase — growing old gracefully--is going quite well.

Cave has hinted at a more mature sound on the last few records; here, it comes across in richer, bolder arrangements, the result of his band's more active role in developing the songs.

Antony and the talented Johnsons brilliantly evoke the grandeur and dolor of cocktail hour ennui.

This is probably as close as anyone has yet come to achieving the visions of revolutionary global pop once advanced by the Clash and Afrika Bambaataa; it's equally enlightening to urban street kids and university eggheads.

Beyond the musical unevenness of an album whose finer qualities interleave those mounting miscalculations, a rising suspicion that misery is of more comfort to her than happiness makes the tenor of Williams' songs increasingly hard to bear.

When the music is fully operational... the potential for greatness is obvious.

A rewarding, resonant album, Neon Bible ranks among the best indie rock recordings of all time.

More time spent in the songwriting lab might have yielded material more suitable to the evident studio effort invested and brought Wilco closer to making a truly great album.

Stevens' most personal and focused album.

A second disc which recaps some of the prior singles and B-sides resonates wonderfully, and provides a contrast for the new material, which is the same only better, faster and harder.

Phenomenal, with nary a bum track.

Their worst album so far.... Too much of the album ("Expecting," "Aluminum," "I Can't Wait," "I Can Learn") wallows in an odd, crusty hard-rock haze.

The production is lush and detailed but the songs are strong enough to withstand all the fuss, making this a most ambitious and accomplished record.

By so clearly rejecting the terms and expectations of rock and pop, The Drift asks fairly explicitly to be taken as a serious work of art. However, for all its highbrow aspirations, it seems to fall between two realms, lacking the innovative reach that would make it a credible presence among contemporary avant-garde compositions.

It's hard to imagine any other band with as much indie cred that could succeed with this material; it would be too audacious.

Two albums of E musings is a bit much, but, on the whole, Blinking Lights does stand as a resounding return to form.

It's like being stuck in the seat next to a chatty, batshit backwoods pixie for an 18-hour plane ride.

The propensities for treacle and brimstone are cut by the realism of his portraits and the certitude in his voice. A Nick Drake-like wonder here, it is sonorous, even-keeled and assured.