The doggedly retro approach ultimately muzzles the Noise COnspiracy's radical bite. [Nov 2005, p.136]

Thompson's pure, effortlessly soaring vocals feel undimmed by time. [#9, p.156]

The best songs have concise melodies and a likeable punch. The worst just sound like sketches, riffs a more traditionally ambitious group would have discarded. [#8, p.116]

The bonus disc of dance remixes merely piles another layer of fastidiousness atop the already epically fussed-over tracks. [2007 Aug, p.120]

Think 1993's hit "Regret," but with tougher guitars, rockier grooves and a more up vibe. [Oct/Nov 2001, p.113]

Even though there's nothing new, the album offers enough in the way of big-beat guitar and sing-along choruses to keep Smash Mouth on the charts for another two years. [#4, p.123]

The results range from stupid to sexy to irresistably stupid. [Jan/Feb 2005, p.103]

Occasionally overblown... [Aug/Sep 2001, p.132]

Most of the tracks don't quite rise above their obvious influences, Radiohead and U2. [#10, p.118]

Continues Cash's no-fun, high-literary period. [#15, p.121]

The soundtrack is faultlessly authentic, though you might wish it weren't so damned reverent. [Mar 2004, p.130]

Paired with the Kids’ fidelity to verse/chorus pop, Pryor’s boyishly confident, hopeful delivery can sound pro forma, even mindless.

For an album almost four years in the making, it's frustratingly half-finished, like a series of preliminary sketches. [#27, p.142]

Sits squarely in the middle of B&S's comfort zone: never bad but rarely inspiring. [Mar 2006, p.109]

Exactly zero songs on Spirit come close to matching 'Bleeding Love.' On the album, she fares best when not allowed to overindulge in her sterling voice as on the haunting electro kiss-off 'Take a Bow' and the svelte power ballad 'I Will Be,' co-written by Avril Lavigne.

Occasional flashes of brilliance transcend the deja-vu pastiche. [Apr 2005, p.113]

The songs aren't strong enough to hold the disparate influences together. [#13, p.91]

This Is Not A Test lacks feeling--besides beats, what else what does she care about? [Jan 2004, p.102]

A letdown after Chicken-N-Beer. [Jan/Feb 2005, p.111]

While their new album never thrashes, it at least keeps its pretty bare feet on Mother Earth.

Negativland's chugging cacophony seems a fitting and grisly tribute to human road kill. [#11, p.138]

Split[s] the difference between guaranteed hook appeal and a decent simulation of emotional truth. [Oct 2004, p.129]

The title song is killer, but built of such familiar musical materials that when it comes around the third time, it’s plumb tuckered out. The track is one of three standouts that run over five minutes, and all three are too long.

Unfortunately, the ticked-off one breaks up the most consistently grooving album of his career with too many well-meaning but intrusive conspiracy-minded skits. [Jun/Jul 2001, p.110]

Osborne clearly believes that her love for this material gives her the right to make it her own--which she does, convincingly. [#10, p.125]

Brainwashed suggests that Harrison's last years were largely comfortable, slow-paced and unaffected by any worries about his relevance. [#12, p.144]

An instrument-juggling, one-man-band approach that recalls the romantic, psychedelic pop of the Zombies and the textured electronics of Radiohead.

His flat baritone suggests he’s still new at this whole “getting angry” thing, but the dude’s got the damaged part down.

[The instrumentals are] a curious bonus for his fans, but not much more. [Feb/Mar 2002, p.113]

Singer-guitarist Ryan and Gary Jarman comport themselves ably through these dozen distortion-cranked, rhapsodically sung bits of power pop. [2007 Aug, p.110]

This album about the seamy, scary side of Bushland, conceived after Davies was shot in New Orleans in 2004, is a mixed bag of pointed personal reflection (Good Ray) and facile social critique (Bad Ray).

Some sublime songs prevail over the adornments.

He's got some solid grooves... but a lot of them are borrowed. [Sep 2004, p.136]

Her lyrics drown in anti-gangsta correctives... but her best tracks transcend daily affirmations. [Jul 2006, p.96]

Generally, they’re smart and musical enough to turn rhetorical gestures into convincing rock & roll. But when they subtitle the whole schmear “A Love Vision!” you wonder who they’re trying to kid.

Overly somber. [Aug 2004, p.131]

Only on the album-closing "Summer Never Ends"... do the gals sound like they're relaxed and doing their own thing--not trying to make Paula's Boutique. [Sep 2004, p.140]

It feels like a record assembled by a focus group. [Oct 2007, p.107]

Unfortunately, most of The Eraser is half-finished sketches, dressed up with a few of Nigel Godrich's subtle production tricks. [Aug 2006, p.105]

Her haunting voice is perfect for these downcast dirges. [#11, p.139]

While Eyeball is essentially a breezy gloss on the blend of idiosyncratic pop chops and exotica that characterizes much of the Luaka roster, it's buoyantly lightweight nonetheless. [Jun/Jul 2001, p.106]

Lively and ingenious combinations of glockenspiel, theremin, tuba, accordion, strings and mariachi horns promise more emotional depth than Nick Urata's world-weary tenor warble delivers. [May 2008, p.75]

This follow-up isn't as clever or as caustic [As 2000's Life'll Kill Ya], but at least Zevon's now smiling as he goes his twisted way. [Jun/Jul 2002, p.116]

The mood is unsettling, exhausted and energetic at the same time. [Oct 2004, p.120]

The ceaselessly blistering tone does get overbearing. [Nov 2004, p.145]

Happily, [their] dogged consistency works in their favor. [Jul 2005, p.117]

Tempering his usually piqued voice and strumming with uncharacteristic restraint, Darnielle marinates in shadowy aloneness.

On the album’s best moments, he pours his hopeless longing into sweaty, inebriated celebrations of love’s boundless optimism.

Barat lacks Doherty's flash of unhinged genius, but his grasp of rock's basics is far firmer. [Sep 2006, p.139]

Zeitgeist’s orgy of avalanche rhythms, cascading riffs and sky-licking guitar is as grandiose as ever (the solo on "Tarantula" sounds like a nuke hitting a Guitar Center), but the bombast is softened as Corgan reaches out for shame-sharing community.

A sound that is almost vintage Bowie.... Even so, many of these 12 perfectly harmless songs plod where instead they should spring. [#8, p.115]

Their songiest record in more than a decade. [Jun 2006, p.145]

Filling the shoes of Jay-Z and R. Kelly--collaborators on two albums--is no easy feat, but thanks to slick production and stay-in-your-head melodies, the duo nearly rises to the challenge.

The best moments are [Jenner's] least intelligible. [Oct 2006, p.141]

He never quite rises to this lofty occasion, and without anything to prove other than that he can come back whenever he pleases, he reverts to gloating. [Jan/Feb 2007, p.81]

In updating the duo's dirty old sound, Ball makes the arrangements clunky, too clean and dangerously close to the blandness Almond bemoans. [#10, p.126]

Borrowing liberally and transparently from Bright Eyes, the Cure and mid-1960s chamber pop, the band sublimates familiar expressions of indie gloom with string flourishes and twink­ling piano lines, giving Olenius both a shoulder to cry on and, in soaring songs like 'Tonight I Have to Leave It,' a source of joy.

If Borrell's originality ever equals his confidence, Razorlight might be as good as he thinks they are. [Nov 2004, p.141]

The trilogy signals a deep strangeness in this tour through his psyche. Fortunately, it has a fairly shredding soundtrack.

Fireflies' best songs are varied-tempo singalongs--this isn't hardcore but anthemic country. [Oct 2005, p.138]

His guitar reinvigorates age-old lines on neat and tidy arrangements, but he's even busier exploring the limited expressive range of his singing voice. [May 2004, p.119]

Harder, denser, uglier. [#15, p.128]

Her wispily aspirational singing tugs hardest on 'Fall,' cowritten with Natasha Bedingfield, where escapism and realism do battle and her pretty pony of love rides a beautiful rainbow that may or may not lead to the glue factory of hobbled dreams. Stay tuned.

Merritt's lyrics are typically playful, and Claudia Gonson coos them with dreamy detachment. [#9, p.146]

50's signature wit is notably absent, so the fate of G-Unit hinges largely on his posse. [Jan 2004, p.104]

The anti-sentimentality gets a bit relentless over 18 songs. [Aug 2006, p.118]

It improves on the debut, slightly. [#10, p.114]

His bandmates... elevate Boyd's self-indulgent nonsense with rich noodling and searing flashes of metal. [Mar 2004, p.120]

While Banks's wicked wordplay is impressive, his one-liners get him only so far. [Jun/Jul 2004, p.134]

13 tracks of Disney-channel-ready pop, buffed and Pro-Tooled almost beyond recognition--and it's not half bad. [Apr 2007, p.111]

All too earnest. [May 2007, p.105]

Finally, an album that bridges the gaping chasm between hipsters and Rennaisance Faires. [Jun 2005, p.112]

The dark spaciousness that boosted BRMC's uneven 2001 debut is replaced with garage-rock fist pumpers, which are all catchy but cramped. [Sep 2003, p.119]

It's always peculiar, and often a mess; it's also occasionally brilliant. [Jun 2006, p.142]

The softening of his hardcore tendencies makes for a fruitful middle ground between his threats to foes and his pleas to Allah.

Tweekend lacks the immediacy of Vegas, but it works better the further it strays from Ecstasy-fueled breakbeats and squawking electro-hooks. Unfortunately, it doesn't stray too far. [Aug/Sep 2001, p.122]

When he's not being sour, Folds' flair for melody and simple, economical arrangements can create wonderful moments. [Aug/Sep 2001, p.122]

It's better written than her previous CDs... But this new old style is far less suited to her talents. [Jun 2007, p.110]

Combines guitar-driven, slightly Weezer-esque songs with the odd moment of touching musical beauty. [#17, p.133]

If his subject matter is getting stranger, however, his semiacoustic music is comfortingly familiar and expert. [#11, p.135]

There's a surefootedness and subtlety here to shame many elders. [Mar 2005, p.139]

For [O'Connor] to record a full reggae set, covering each song exactly like the original, rivals Gus Van Sant's odd shot-for-shot remake of Hitchcock's Psycho. [Oct 2005, p.141]

At worst, Matsuzaki's delviery can make this manic style-juggling sound irritating where it might otherwise be captivating. [Mar 2007, p.134]

Overall, Dig Out Your Soul is a dark, heavy, chart-snubbing record that acts Oasis’s age (main songwriter Noel Gallagher is 42) and is their first in eons that doesn’t seem desperate to please. Oasis have their devil back.

Trying to express her actual feelings, instead of inhabiting a fantasy, she leaves us looking for an authenticity and vulnerability that isn’t in her skill set.

Faithfull could use more stories to work with: she's a better singer of narratives than exotic phrases. [Mar 2005, p.140]

Lyrically, Nashville... is about as insightful as a Hee Haw rerun. But... his warm, reedy voice gives comfort where his words can't. [Apr 2005, p.125]

The group's unreconstructed P-funk would sound tired were it not so irresistibly spry. [May 2006, p.105]

Problem is, Blood Mountain's hail of convoluted riffs and abrupt time-signature changes never settles into one of Leviathan's mammoth grooves. [Oct 2006, p.137]

Too bad, then, the album drifts off into the ambient sighs and murmurs of their recent movie-soundtrack work, minus the diverting visuals.

It's all clever and overstuffed with ideas, guaranteed to bug dance-music purists just as much as it annoys their parents. [Aug/Sep 2001, p.130]

Sometimes the sumptuousness feels a little excessive, like an ice-cream headache. But most of these love songs are uncommon, illuminating and elevating, just like the real thing at its best.

This is a transitional album: Mould sprinting away from his past. [Apr/May 2002, p.116]

A slice of British street life with strut, and guitars. [Apr 2006, p.112]

Works both as satire and actual make-out fare. [Feb/Mar 2002, p.113]

It's not as good as 1988's South of Heaven, but there's enough speaker-shredding guitar noise to make up for any vocal deficiencies. [Aug/Sep 2001, p.128]

Essentially Californication 2, a reprise of their last album. [#9, p.142]

Showcases the melodramatic but never overstated croon of a showman who, in another era, might've been a Las Vegas legend. [#14, p.135]