On Rainer Maria's fifth album, Catastrophe Keeps Us Together, the Wisconsin-born, Brooklyn-based band drapes songs in atmospheric echo while maintaining a steady, urgent beat—all of which provides a stage for Caithlin De Marrais' earnest, fully engaged voice.  Full text...

Catastrophe Keeps Us Together is, hands down, one of the best albums of the year thus far.  Full text...

Catastrophe Keeps Us Together is the most Rainer Maria has sounded like themselves since the Atlantic EP and is more daring than we could have hoped.   Full text...

Hopefully, the band will one day complete a record as exceptional from start to finish, but for now, Catastrophe Keeps Us Together is a terrific collection of thoughtful, energetic rock songs.   Full text...

Catastrophe Keeps Us Together skirts the subgenre, often echoing early R.E.M. with better articulation.  Full text...

On Catastrophe Keeps Us Together, the trio of Caithlin De Marrais, Kyle Fisher, and William Kuehn continue their shift to lean, vaguely punk-influenced pop music.  Full text...

On Catastrophe Keeps Us Together, the band is back with the building blocks that have elevated them to where they are today - Caithlin De Marrais' siren-like vocals and mediocre backing band work that always yields shyly to the superior singing.  Full text...

Rainer Maria may still be writing love songs, but the relationships of Catastrophe Keeps Us Together appear thematically and musically less complicated and knotty.  Full text...

Three years in the offing we find Catastrophe Keeps Us Together, as bland and timid a record as likely to come out in the strikingly boring year of 2006.  Full text...