Where Shadow ultimately sutmbles is on the britpop tip. [Oct 2006, p.116]

Is similarly turn of the last century electronic, but in a darker and less slice and diced way. [May 2005, p.92]

If you’re in the mood to get pummeled by simplistic, yet oh-so-effective samples and melodies, Cross does so better than most rocker-ready dance records. However, if you’re expecting to be saved by some next-level shit, this one’s not gonna cut it.

The perfect record to spice up your closet. If you're not coming out, you might as well have some sexy fun while you're in there. [Mar 2006, p.116]

Is Dead Man's Bones' record necessarily as accomplished as either of the aforementioned? Maybe not. But when one half of your band is splitting his vocations by also brandishing his face onto big studio pieces of celluloid, it's still a mightily impressive debut.

Emo/indie/pop rock for people who don't like emo/indie/pop rock. [Mar 2006, p.123]

A solid [re]introduction to the scene. [Sep 2002, p.106]

It's almost a relief when the album hangs up, like talking to a crazy and exhausting friend who didn't get the memo that we're all supposed to be zombie-d out like it's 1982 right now. [Dec 2002, p.88]

[A] time warp of an album, which takes us back to a future where grunge never happened, glam is god, disco balls sit atop the world and glitter falls from the sky. [Sep 2006, p.129]

Where Air's previous album failed to ignite like their classic Moon Safari, they have made some amends on Talkie Walkie. [Jan 2004, p.74]

There is a certain rhythm that begins to form with constantly being pulled along and feeling as though this will be the moment everything crescendos. Prepare yourself To Realize presents a Sisyphus-esque journey that can be exhausting.

Has more in common with Oasis than anything else. [Mar 2005, p.110]

Disarmingly intimate. [Dec 2003, p.87]

Each release generates one or two hits and is never regarded as a classic, but 4:21...The Day After may be an exception. [Sep 2006, p.137]

Opener 'Time to Pretend' exemplifies this best, as the synths provide quirky cartoonish bounces to tales of fancy car whipping and coke snorting pipe-dreams. However, the record grows sluggish at certain points, particularly when they try to get super sentimental on that ass.

The results... rarely match up with the legend. [Apr 2007, p.107]

More style than substance. [#104, p.95]

For the most part, Dirty Vegas play up the notoriety by not straying too far from the template set by "Days Gone By." [Jul 2002, p.98]

The end result just isn't up to the standards of which either of these musical titans are capable. [Mar 2006, p.119]

While meticulously arranged, Mind Elevation contains its share of anonymous, carbon-copy beats. [Sep 2002, p.104]

The album feels like a series of diminishing returns. [Feb 2003, p.93]

Levi seemed to have a great idea for Never Never Love, but didn't execute it as well as he possibly could have; so in practice, the record does not flow as well as he may have liked it to.

Pennington’s soaring, Rufus Wainwright-esque croon may be the most distinctive element of the record but also one of its greatest weakness.

Albums such as Wake Up! – best intentions aside – run the risk of coming across as entirely cheesy and contrived. Unfortunately, John Legend and The Roots are no exception to the rule.

Eschews gauzy isolation to embrace the heartfelt immediacy of chiming, breezy pop in a Big Star way. [Jun 2006, p.119]

You've heard it before and frankly, you've heard it better. [Jun 2004, p.90]

No one can deny the Los Angeles group's enthusiasm. However as for Mika Miko's album, their creativity seems numbed by monotonous repetition.

Finds a band in utter denial of what is precisely its appeal. [Sep 2006, p.143]

Surfing The Void unfortunately isn't a break-through or even a repeat of the past success.

Too often Mr. Beast is dire sounding and dull, and nearing deadweight. [May 2006, p.86]

It's nice that a singer/songwriter can fit comfortably on a label known for abstract techno and heady hip-hop. It's not so great when she sounds like Dido. [Apr 2005, p.109]

Dissolver is a serviceable pop-rock record that would have benefited from being subject to more of the band’s experimental tendencies, a missed opportunity for the trio to release a cutting-edge yet accessible set of music.

Superfluous, the extra weight drains the raw intensity of the Furnaces’ famed live show and often leaves Remember sounding like a cheaply recorded album, rather than a live celebration.

From the get-go the album announces itself through insidious emotive aural effects, which through a blistering barrage of time-travel sounds, encompass the listener in a feeling that although intense, evaporates rather instantly.

The Saints' talent seems lost in the mix as they fall victim to their signature technique and sound. [Sep 2001, p.154]

While Hello Everything is everything you'd expect a Squarepusher LP to be, therein lies the problem: It's exactly everything you'd expect a Squarepusher album to be. [Oct 2006, p.130]

A hard one to wrap your head around. [Oct 2005, p.84]

Sam's Town is bloated with verses that helplessly swipe at capturing something, anything, significantly American. [Oct 2006, p.129]

Walk It Off does offer a few highlights, but it fails to yield a comprehensive sense of T&T's sound, and blatantly lacks any cohesive progression.

Much of the album fails to make sparks. [Nov/Dec 2001, p.142]

As a whole, Colonia takes on a very operatic, larger than life, almost ABBA-esque quality, which grows a bit tired as the album winds down.

Too much of Wood lumbers on and on and on... [May 2006, p.95]

Overall, Listening Tree is all about Tim, and his deep closeted skeletons and inner demons, which are far too abstract to be even remotely relatable or fun to sweat it out to their exorcisms.

With hardly a breakbeat in sight, RJ's sophomore effort plays like an homage to '80s-era easy listening.... An ambitious effort, but a failure all the same. [May 2004, p.86]

Their vocals sound more unenthused and bored than detached or sinister. [Sep 2003, p.101]

With a handful of good moments, and one standout track, this sophomore effort by one Sally Shapiro and her producer Johan Agebjörn, is mediocre.

While it’s commendable, if unnecessary, that Whitney and Votolato are exploring new musical areas, there’s no denying the fact that if Take Me to the Sea ever ran into Hologram Jams in a dark alley, Hologram would be down for the count.

An album full of interesting possibilities, but only a few memorable songs. [Mar 2002, p.120]

Fist of God is surprisingly decent if you can manage to divorce it from its lame context.

If American Supreme showed up today as the product of youngsters, Suicide would be called electro-clash. [Dec 2002, p.92]

His electro sound [cannot] stand out through the chaff of a million imitators over two decades. [Dec 2004, p.118]

When there are moments, they strike and wittingly pull bodies off seats. [Oct 2001, p.128]

This is what Nelly's Brass Knuckles is best summarized as...a club jam.

Thorburn’s second record writing songs with the group Islands shows admirable ambition and eclectic musicianship. What hinders this release, however, is a matter of composition.

Notwithstanding a few guaranteed pop hits, the new album will probably leave most dance diehards cold... the album's dance cuts stick to the typical sampling-and-looping aesthetic that's been a bit tired for a while. [#79, p.123]

The tactic [of increased vocals] hits and misses, as the album's standout tracks owe their success to the crew's innovative and polished production, not their lyrical prowess. [Jul/Aug 2005, p.104]

Incessantly innovative, it's charming as hell for about the duration of a sidelong glance. [Aug 2003, p.89]

Most of Creature Comforts is hypnotic, if hardly soothing, noisemaking. [Jul/Aug 2004, p.124]

The rest of her songs on Anjulie are really hit and miss. Some are catchy enough to enjoy, others are boring enough to forget about.

It's hard to care, to jump, jive and join the cause, when singer-guitarist Jenny Hoysten barely musters anything above flat, monotonous speak-singing. [Jul/Aug 2006, p.118]

It appears they have emulated themselves on their sophomore (and sophomoric sounding) effort.

Painfully unexciting. [Mar 2006, p.122]

Musically, this record definitely shoots what it was aiming for, but I wouldn't listen to it unless you are, or want to be, severely depressed or disturbed.

Everything Last Winter loses itself slightly in the oversaturated field of worthy emulators, the record could find its place soundtracking the ABC drama you call a life.

M.I.A.'s schizophrenic style does not please this time around. The industrial and mechanical soundscape lacks both genuine protest songs or club jams.

Brazilian Girl has the ability to give audiences a world band sound because of its mixture of different languages and live band sound. It also has a certain level of pop appeal.

A boring reminder of past work. [Dec 2005, p.104]

Overall, Sexor has four great tracks and 10 cuts that run the gamut from passable to forgettable. [Sep 2006, p.140]

M83's new effort saunters like a slow dance from "Sixteen Candles." [Mar/Apr 2008, p.109]

The fractious tension producer [Barlow] normally whips up to counter [Rhodes] is almost completely absent, thus allowing the run of tracks to discreetly slide off into the background. [Mar 2004, p.110]

Filtered drum patterns, neo-gospel arrangements and plaintive piano jams, along with curious and catchy enough melodies, obscure Cudi's guttural talk-raps for a bit.

Again and Again is an atmospheric album, but it suffers under often nonsense lyrics, uninspired vocals and borrowed production. It doesn't leave a lasting impression.

Super Animal Brothers III sounds exactly as expected; a dorm room drum machine experiment attempting to capture the zeitgeist of Generation Ritalin, permanently jacked to eleven with no real idea as to why.

Even listeners who retreat to the "experimental" defense will only mixtape the five decent tracks and torch the rest. [May 2006, p.84]

It's clever and interesting, but it's hard to escape the feeling that an opportunity to expand and mutate his sound even more went partially wasted. [Apr 2005, p.104]

It’s not just his vaguely interesting falsetto or all the emoting on his debut; it’s that all those emotions are under the guise of some real heaviosity but really aren’t saying shit.

It might be difficult to differentiate after nine full-lengths, but Mixed Race may be the least engaging album we've heard from Tricky to date.

The results have a better chance of ending up in mom's Volvo than your iPod. [Jan 2003, p.76]

It's a promising thought to know there are musicians this deft and so easily able to push themselves through so many sonic boundaries at once--but in the end, the overt and ultimately, stifling seriousness surrounding it proves to be the largest boundary BLK JKS stand before.

It sounds like Drew would still benefit from having his Canadian ragtag team behind him though, because his solo effort just isn't very strong.

Mind plays like a collection of tracks destined for car commercials, Hollywood movies and Superbowl half-time shows. [Apr 2006, p.90]

Galore sounds like the stock "empowering dance pop" library compilations that music publishers bombard film music supervisors with.

It's hottest moments are tepid at best. [Feb 2004, p.77]

A failed merger of trip-hop's smoky grooves and psychedelic rock's galactic textures. [Mar 2003, p.94]

Doesn't fit comfortably into either the current musical landscape or the leftfield. [Mar 2004, p.109]

It's hard to explain the mindless metal riffing that weighs down this completely disappointing album. [May 2005, p.84]

A lot of these tracks sound like either near-misses or music made to play when your roomate's pissing you off. [Jan/Feb 2005, p.102]

If you bought Daybreaker, stop! You're done. [Dec 2003, p.89]

Hammond, Jr. paints an awfully pretentious portrait of a dude caught playing with his best friend’s b-sides.

The frustrating saving grace is a bonus disc of fluid, pain-killing Brian Eno pastiche. [Jun 2005, p.75]

It's an album crying out for one ounce of originality. [Oct 2004, p.103]

If The Bran Flakes managed to cleverly juxtapose their weird samples against each other in order to make a satirical point, maybe they'd get a pass. However, most of the tracks come off like two kids selfishly goofing off in the studio with long lost gems of nostalgia from their childhood.

The occasional slow track turned power ballad and the single quirky pop tune are not nearly enough to rescue this record from the depths of the depressing ditch it dug itself into.

A group this weird and quirky should be able to produce dozens of albums that never loose their delicious twee taste. Perhaps what FF should try next is trying nothing at all.

Is not a very interesting album for a number of reasons. [Jun 2003, p.94]

Thankfully this album is only 10 tracks long, otherwise I don't think I could have sat all the way through it. I had trouble enough as it is.

The big idea of real instruments and real people is a step backwards. [Oct 2004, p.102]

CYHSY seem to have set out to make their "important" sophomore record... which is only truly important if you believe that songs gain weight at the hand of bulbous studio wankage (they don't) and that unnecessarily inflated melodrama equals more fun (it doesn't). [Jan/Feb 2007, p.76]