The album doesn’t see the rapper experimenting with his skull-rattling sound very much.
Shut Down the Streets, continues to spotlight Newman’s talents as a cerebral balladeer.
Born to Sing: No Plan B is a recession album that’s four years too late.
Alfur buzzes with optimism while maintaining the spikiness of its predecessors.
Tori Amos’s Gold Dust has the feel of a concert album, and is thus inessential to everyone but her die-hard fans.
Greater variety in its production may have elevated Traveling Alone above some of its more staid genre trappings.
Paranoia is a recurring theme throughout Nookie Wood.
Love songs and brazen nostalgia are the album’s bread and butter.
In a perfect world, the shoegaze-esque “Capsule,” with its endlessly catchy, fuzzy guitar riff, would be a radio hit.
The insights that John Darnielle offers here are something of a piece with John Lennon’s own post-heroin advice on Plastic Ono Band
White keeps us on our toes, thanks to magician-worthy stage surprises and to the consistent vitality of tunes both new and old.
The songs that work on Bodyparts are those on which the band embraces its progressive sexual politics.
Much like Sigh No More before it, Babel is just too serious.
At its best, this five-song EP summarizes the band’s strengths better than any of their work so far.
On their ninth album, Uno, Green Day returns to the basics.
West is still working out the contradictions in his evangelist-cum-hustler persona, comparing himself to Jesus, Moses, and Mike Tyson.
There’s a pall of maturity over The Sound of the Life of the Mind that both unifies and wrecks it.
St. Peter & 57th St. shows the current Preservation Hall lineup in a flattering light.
True to their name, the Sea and Cake really are as sweet as meringue and as soothing as warm waves breaking over one’s toes.
The guys and gal of No Doubt have never been bashful about their arduous songwriting process.
Fish shouldn’t be out of water and birds have no business in the water.