My Better Self finds singer-songwriter Dar Williams in typically fine voice and form.
Gretchen Wilson’s All Jacked Up sounds like a collection of b-sides and outtakes from last year’s Here For The Party.
What Alive & Wired does best is reconcile the considerable charms of the band’s studio output with the immediacy of their live shows’ energy.
Takk… often sounds like a faithful reproduction of the outsized pop of Radiohead’s The Bends.
Even on the album’s best moments, the band is overwhelmed by its rather obvious influences.
Loveless has found a comfortable middle-ground between her peerless brand of mountain soul and the sunny pop-country of her commercial heyday.
The album illustrates that coming up with an airtight, fascinating thesis can present an unclearable hurdle of its own.
Beth Hart’s recorded performances match the weight of her best-written material.
The album attempts to reconcile the often disparate elements that constituted the considerable charms of Grandaddy’s previous releases.
The songs that form the core of Oh No cohere into a consistently engaging take on modern rock.
The album affirms that Miller has the potential to make quite a name for himself on the strength of his songwriting.
Nada Surf have handled their newfound expectations for quality output with refreshing confidence.
Blame It on the Youth provides yet another piece of evidence as to why “garage” failed to reinvigorate modern rock.
Classical allusions notwithstanding, there’s not a trace of pretense in Crowell’s writing.
The Invisible Invasion is a pleasant enough album that ultimately does nothing to distinguish itself from the efforts of countless other bands.
The individual songs run just a measure or two too long, and at 14 tracks there are simply too many soundalike songs on the album.
It’s all the more miraculous because it lacks the suffocating pretense of so many deliberately meticulous, would-be literary indie-rock albums.
The album establishes a solid foundation for what should be an artistically rich career.
Time Well Wasted at least has the decency to provide an excess of material, both for better and for worse.
Godson of Soul is an album that sounds organic in the best possible sense of the word.