Rolling Stone (10/19/95, p.148) - 3.5 Stars (out of 5) - "...a sardonic, wise-ass, indulgent, and totally captivating album..." Spin (12/95, pp.118-119) - 6 (out of 10) - "...their patented brand of scrappy avant-rock [is] simultaneously ahead of and behind the curve..." Entertainment Weekly (12/29/95-1/5/96, p.132) - Ranked #7 on EW's Top 10 Albums Of 1995. Entertainment Weekly (9/29/95, p.61) - "...these songs unfold over even-tempered rhythms and guitars that linger rather than attack. A splatter of distortion may enter, but the effect is mostly languid and wonderfully hypnotic..." - Rating: A- Melody Maker (10/7/95, p.41) - "...it's the sound of a band coming up with new noises....lovely for its delicate guitars and reflective, loose-laid ways, its tantalising hints of humankindness....10 tracks without a bad one..." Village Voice (2/20/96) - Ranked #18 in Village Voice's 1995 Pazz & Jop Critics' Poll. NME (Magazine) (12/23-30/95, pp.22-23) - Ranked #31 in NME's `Top 50 Albums Of the Year' for 1995. NME (Magazine) (9/30/95, p.53) - 8 (out of 10) - "...it flows and has an uncompromising edge you'd hardly expect after all this time--a sense of chances taken, of instruments being swapped, of playfulness as well as seriousness....`The Diamond Sea'...is probably the best song Sonic Youth have ever written..."