The songs rarely cohere into anything greater than the sum of their individual parts.
Listening to a Patti Smith album always feels like an invitation to glimpse her roster of influences.
Turner settles back into a comfortable and familiar style that balances traditional country conventions with slickly modern recording techniques.
While Kristian Matsson’s music is never that interesting, it at least remains solidly propulsive and catchy.
Ashes and Roses is so slight for so much of its overlong running time that it sounds like it actually could blow away.
Every song on Synthetica is a poker-faced exercise in resigned indifference.
“She Said OK” is a hip-hop Lars and the Real Girl.
If lyrically This Is PiL marks a step forward for Lydon, then musically the album seems caught in a mid-’90s production rut.
Too often the album glides on reputation when it should be tilting toward idiosyncrasy.
Ambition makes Amanda Mair a winning debut.
The album cements Kelly Hogan’s status as an interpretive singer with few equals.
WIXIW pulses with a strange, inimitable energy.
In attempting to honor the sounds of the past, Young ends up turning them into toxic sludge.
In retrospect, the greatest achievement of Doc Watson, who died yesterday at 89, might have been his endlessly curious middle-aged brand.
Resplendent chaos is usually the jurisdiction of Doldrums, a.k.a. Toronto producer Airick Woodhead.
If there’s one thing Scissor Sisters have never wanted for, it’s a distinct voice.
Beneath the yelps, gasps, and exaggerated accents, Regina Spektor is a romantic.
Valtari proves that Inni was more of an unfortunate blip than the sign of impending stagnation.
An album as tour diary, Among the Leaves finds Sun Kil Moon as glumly introspective as ever.
Ufabulum brings back the breakneck BPMs and glitchy textures that characterized Squarepusher’s earlier work.
Ice Choir pays tribute to Kurt Feldman’s longtime infatuation with the radio-ready new-wave bands of the ’80s and early ’90s.