Ambulance Ltd have good ears and an even better imagination: They run their influences through a filter of solid gold. [Apr 2004, p.126]

There's something about the precision of the gear changes and the crisp efficiency of Rob Schnapf's production that hits the spot, however derivatively. [Apr 2004, p.134]

A torrid album that marries old-school rap aesthetics to punk-rock concision. [May 2004, p.127]

It's music that's all cleverness and fury from a distance, but when studied up close, it turns out to be pretty hollow. [Apr 2004, p.126]

Lord’s voice is breathy and sweet without being tiresomely innocent or fragile -- it’s Candyland by way of Troubletown.

Since 1995, Jenkinson's been treating his laptop the way death-metal bands treat their guitars, and it's no longer radical, just annoying. [Apr 2004, p.136]

The ponderous lyrics sound cribbed straight from A Mighty Wind, and LeMaster's nasal whine is hard to take. [Apr 2004, p.134]

Though not as ambitious or original as the [White] Stripes at their best, the VB's indelible punk-rock blues parks a new car in the Motor City garage. [Apr 2004, p.136]

[Adebimpe's] singing is consistently riveting, and the oddball mix gives it room to flourish. [Apr 2004, p.138]

Destroyer's slickest synthesis yet of ornate hooks and cryptic poetics. [Apr 2004, p.127]

An unexpected delight. [Apr 2004, p.132]

The band's debut struts and flirts like the best-looking guy at the bar. [Apr 2004, p.126]

For computer music, it's all astoundingly warm. [Apr 2004, p.139]

Where his pals Outkast seem like genuine freaks of nature, he sometimes seems apologetically weird.

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

The electronic dance-rock gets the pop job done. [Mar 2003, p.119]

Too often... the results sound messy and carry a hint of prog-rock pomposity. [Mar 2004, p.115]

Many of the songs here could be Peppers tracks, except for the absence of Anthony Kiedis's vocals. [Apr 2004, p.128]

The crisp acoustic production is too unerringly tasteful... but that's forgiveable. [Mar 2004, p.120]

Often translates into little more than spliced Dubya soundbites and “spooky” found sounds (helicopter blades, police sirens) played over dour, noncommittal loops.

The best ’80s-revival funk made by white Canadian hip-hop kids since, like, ever.

Even Monsoon’s best moments are marred by barely audible vocals and dull lyrical abstractions.

Keeps the orchestral Americana on an ambient, after-hours simmer. [Mar 2004, p.123]

Funnier, angrier, weirder. [Mar 2004, p.123]

The mood of Jones's second album is more or less the same, if slightly friskier. [Mar 2004, p.118]

Her coy delivery suggests a seething everywoman concealing her rage under an ominously bright surface.

Etheridge backs up her verbal cliches with musical ones. [Mar 2004, p.117]

More mature, more focused, and a little less fun. [Mar 2004, p.115]

Unlike similar records... this has a unity of aesthetic purpose, a competitive wallop, even (kind of) a seriousness. [Mar 2004, p.127]

A suite of weak songs and half-finished ideas. [Mar 2004, p.120]

While Love's voice is as scratchy and corrosive as ever, unfaraid to veer off-pitch for a good sneer, the album is big-time Hollywood rock. [Mar 2004, p.112]

He has his own personality: not a gangsta or a player but a diligent pragmatist. [Apr 2004, p.124]

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

A heartfelt batch of art-pop that never sounds snobby. [Mar 2004, p.117]

They've adopted a crisp, unfussy style that assures the audibility of Darnielle's artful words. [Mar 2004, p.124]

Unrushed, spacious, and duller than a four-hour hayride. [Mar 2004, p.130]

A casual, mostly charming sketchbook of diffident alt-country laments. [Mar 2004, p.116]

So easygoing they're like going nowhere, his voyages to the beaches, beers and frathouse memories are easier journeys than the saccharine mountaineering that occupies the rest of the disc. [May 2004, p.119]

The Five... go for the high-flown pap of '70s singer-songwriters Dan Fogelberg and Dan Hill, playing off Ondrasik's fey falsetto and fondness for lush, string-sweetened arrangements. [Mar 2004, p.117]

As self-indulgent side projects go, this could be a whole lot worse. [Apr 2004, p.139]

If the vocal tracks sound irredeemably icky... the instrumentals are as dreamily engaging as ever. [#23, p.100]

Aside from their outsider appeal, Join the Dots proves that the Cure's other trump card was Smith's misery-drenched knack for gleaming pop melodies. [Mar 2004, p.138]

Over the course of an entire album Twista's gift proves his curse: Uniterrupted, it can get taxing. [Mar 2004, p.129]

Problem is, 23-year-old frontman James Walsh remains the same sap. [Jan 2004, p.109]

Rich, smooth, and speedily forgettable. [Mar 2004, p.128]

The surprise is that the realist rage of material they had barely thought about in years feels so right in the age of Dubya. [#23, p.106]

For all their wriggly noise details and fragmented language, their center of gravity is in their hips. [#23, p.101]

These songs don't rock; they squirm, shuffle and skulk. [#23, p.111]

These are among the most rivetingly unconventional vocal performances she's ever offered. [Mar 2004, p.116]

His hard-edged, dance-inflected debut makes East London sound like the new Dirty South. [Jan 2004, p.108]

The problem is not the lumbering, mid-tempo beats or the terrible lyrics (“Synthesizer, crystallizer, realizer”), although neither help. It’s the sense that you’ve heard every synthesized squelch and ambient breakdown before.

[Several songs] sound way too much like Strokes castoffs, a situation little helped by... Fridmann's unusually heavy-handed production. [Mar 2004, p.125]

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

It's a declaration of independence, and she pulls it off stunningly. [Jan 2004, p.105]

Only on "Prison Song," a jokey fake-oldie, does the Offspring's weakness for novelty tunes lead them astray. [Dec 2003, p.145]

The most original spin on indie-pop in years. [Dec 2003, p.140]

An enthusiastic album full of masterful strokes and electrifying intensity. [#23, p.98]

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

Without the blue-eyed soul conviction of the original, it's enough to make even second-tier grunge has-beens like Seven Mary Three seem like innovators. [Dec 2003, p.145]

There's clearly imagination here, with strange little sonic tweaks and tics at every turn, but only once does it gel into something satisfying. [Dec 2003, p.141]

Korn are ultra-confident, forgoing the blandishments of heavy-rock virtuoso conceptualist Michael Beinhorn, who produced their last album. [Mar 2004, p.121]

Deconstructed sonics phase between absent-minded professor and glitch-craft. [#23, p.101]

A weak echo of those gloriously clean and spacious LPs [of the 70s]. [Dec 2003, p.136]

Marred only by incredibly pompous liner notes and a lack of worthy rarities. [#23, p.122]

Blink-182 have found a new, angrier way to never leave junior high. [Dec 2003, p.135]

This I'm-coming-out record is an unhesitant move from songs of the heart to songs of the groin. [Dec 2003, p.130]

Let It Be... Naked offers an experience its predecessor never could. [Dec 2003, p.154]

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

This is Jay-Z's suicide note and his glowing eulogy rolled into one. [Jan 2004, p.106]

With this kind of self-pity, Kid Rock was better off staying shallow. [Jan 2004, p.110]

The only thing missing is a killer pop hit to follow "Get the Pary Started." [Nov 2003, p.120]

The five new songs all feature Merritt's meaningfully inexpressive monotone, shrewdly minimal arrangements and flatly clever lyrics. [Jan 2004, p.107]

Dangerous Magical Noise is a great Friday night, and your ears will ring through Sunday. [Nov 2003, p.112]

The bleakness is stirring as often as it is enervating. [#23, p.100]

Jean's histrionic singing and simplistic lyrics can intensify his material... or derail it via self-parody. [Dec 2003, p.138]

It's quite a feat: crushing, weighty themes conveyed via music that floats in a netherworld a few steps off the ground. [Dec 2003, p.144]

With Rock N Roll, Ryan Adams has thrown off the trappings of underachievement and grabbed for the crown. [Dec 2003, p.132]

Pop has made more nuanced albums than this in recent years, but Skull Ring is about reclaiming the franchise as unselfconsciously as is possible. [Oct 2003, p.125]

Consists almost entirely of antagonistic digs at 50, Eminem and Dr Dre, none of which are terribly sharp. [Jan 2004, p.105]

The quartet fills out the album by executing almost eactly the same formula [as the first track] four more times... and the dramatic shock wears off quickly. [Jan 2004, p.103]

It's nicely done, but the relentless cheerfulness grates. [Nov 2003, p.122]

Keith has a gift for wrapping angry thoughts in man-of-the-people plain-speak, with a Lynyrd Skynyrd-meet-Jimmy Buffett friendliness. But underneath, there's often a set of mean cliches. [Dec 2003, p.138]

Wheat adopt a new, far breezier musical style for their first release since 1999. [#23, p.112]

Skimps on warmth and even grit except on a few blood-curdling screams--when, blessedly, you don't have to hear their words. [Nov 2003, p.119]

The fine distinction between cool and blase, aloof and distant, seems to have eluded them. [Nov 2003, p.106]

There are some surprising misfires here... but also some unexpected treats. [Dec 2003, p.147]

It's great fun, but Come Feel Me Tremble has more ballast. [Nov 2003, p.123]

Their most violently inventive album yet. [Nov 2003, p.109]

These are big songs, and Moore's voice fills them out spectacularly, without turning the enterprise into a retro stunt. [Nov 2003, p.117]

The record feels uneven, as the oscillation between frivolous and serious makes both less convincing. [Nov 2003, p.108]

Mope-rock never felt so good. [Nov 2003, p.121]

Regret comes in many shades, but Westerberg never makes it boring or mopey. [Nov 2003, p.123]

Without much international color or guest flourish. [Nov 2003, p.122]

With so many hip people in the studio, it's no wonder Echoes sounds like such a party. [Nov 2003, p.119]

Their second album is equally charming and more consistent. [Nov 2003, p.120]

The record's initial thrill comes from the confidence with which the Distillers and producer Gil Norton revive rock as a demolishing force. [Nov 2003, p.116]

Travis may have grown serious, but at least it hasn't gone to their heads. [Nov 2003, p.122]

Urgent, atonal post-punk. [Nov 2003, p.113]