The singer has yet to discover a sound or sensibility that truly distinguishes her.
Like former blog darlings Annie and M.I.A., CSS doesn’t have an obvious analogue on either the mainstream or indie-pop scenes.
Blue Collar is paced so that the irreverent stuff offers some welcome comic relief without breaking the momentum of the more serious songs.
Martyr complexes rarely make for real art.
Cold As The Clay is Greg Graffin’s tribute to old-time American folk music.
The show reached a palpable climax with inspired renditions of three of the Walkmen’s best-known tracks.
To enjoy the first half of Madonna’s show, without reservation, is to condone the singer’s propensity for self-congratulation.
A thoroughly competent and enjoyable score, it never swats you with the “oomph” of the best hero-movie music.
Corinne Bailey Rae is a triumph of mood over tangible substance.
Papineau’s voice is paper-thin, and she’s usually only as good as her source material.
The Return of Dr. Octagon seems like false advertising.
The lines may not be as frequently “cutting” as before, but the Pet Shop Boys’s empathy for human suffering was never so concise.
Slowly, almost imperceptibly, Live has drained any sense of drama from its music.
The looming specter of death darkens every corner of American V: A Hundred Highways.
Fundamental may be the Pet Shop Boys’s most promising bid for commercial viability in years.
As far as dance music goes, tracks like “Apologies” are as dance-floor-ready as anything being produced by, say, Oakenfold these days.
Ganging Up on the Sun is easily Guster’s most sonically adventurous work to date.
Keane’s Under the Iron Sea is an uncanny impression of U2 and The Bends-era Radiohead.
One small step for the band’s back catalog, one giant leap for record collections everywhere.
While the album may not place the Handsome Family among their influences, they remain among the best of their contemporaries.
Western Dream is the sound of a borrowed credit card being swiped in a mall Hollister.