Fresh, funny and unpredictable. [Apr 2002, p.72]

The live drums and guitars show how the duo's chartbusting sound bears a surprising similarity to modern metal. [Mar 2002, p.86]

Sadly, Modulate comes off as a former punk's clumsy and unsuccessful attempt at diving into a genre that relies less on the organic than it does on the synthetic. [May 2002, p.96]

What could have been a second coming of Stone Roses or even a newer New Order comes off like one big Spiritualized remix, light on the hooks, numbed by its own beats. [Apr 2002, p.82]

As stylishly remote, timelessly constructed and challengingly intelligent as you'd expect from artists like these. [May 2002, p.83]

The U.K.'s Lo Fidelity Allstars are having the genre-smashing time of their lives. [Apr 2002, p.78]

Buffalo Daughter seem more concerned with emulating others than with creating their own niche. [Apr 2002, p.66]

Didn't It Rain may be simplistic compared to its more eclectic and haunting predecessor ['Ghost Tropic'], but it evokes the world-weary tones of Neil Young's 1970 masterpiece After The Gold Rush. [Jun 2002, p.86]

Clinic have evolved from a set of brilliantly mixed parts into a distinctive whole to be reckoned with. [Apr 2002, p.71]

Feels like a jam session--bluesy keyboard lines and guitar riffs busk with soul-inflected harmonies, world-music percussion and complex, exotic rhythms. [Apr 2002, p.68]

Has an infectious energy that keeps things from growing stale. [May 2002, p.84]

The Rev is still peddling a buoyant mix of rockabilly, surf and cow-punk aimed at covering life's sinful little pleasures. [Apr 2002, p.98]

The band's most obviously emo album to date. [Mar 2002, p.72]

Fila's prowess on bass and guitar keeps the music feeling more composerly than other, more sample-heavy excursions. [Apr 2002, p.74]

This disc contains some intriguing moments. [Apr 2002, p.74]

Lyrically keen and immediately catchy. [Mar 2002, p.84]

South are at their most compelling when they apply the aesthetics and methodology of dance music to their epic rock music. [Mar 2002, p.88]

It's clever, literate and pretty, but also boring as hell if you don't flip off the lights, clamp on your headphones and concentrate. [May 2002, p.88]

An album full of songs so lethargic, it sounds like it needs a nap halfway through. [Apr 2002, p.71]

Where Music flowed with a pastoral warmth, Geogaddi feels colder and more mortal, bound to the tension between its upper and lower registers. [May 2002, p.78]

Radio 4 evoke the Clash, Wire, Les Savy Fav and neo-new wave, jamming epileptic rhythms with chunks of white noise to get a restlessly eclectic sound. [Jun 2002, p.82]

The collaborations produce some occasional gems, but midway through the disc one gets the impression the X-men are no longer "in their own session." [Feb 2002, p.82]

The Chems have returned to the early-'90s acid-house exuberance that first inspired them. [Feb 2002, p.67]

A smart and occasionally gorgeous country-fried rock effort. [Mar 2002, p.77]

What emerges here isn't the new techno folk or even world music for the e-universe, but a rare portrait of technology with a human face. [Mar 2002, p.78]

Much like the bubbly permutations of recent Mouse on Mars discs, the four pieces on Sign feature over an hour's worth of rapturous electronic textures. [Mar 2002, p.90]

With this soft-spoken and delicate record of almost-drawling songs, he's moved his work one step closer to Nashville. [Mar 2002, p.81]

Your Majesty comes off as less gooey and precocious than your average Vagrant Records paramour. [May 2002, p.78]