Rising Down is tightly focused and appealingly modest in its ambitions.

Rubin pointed the direction, but credit goes to the band-which, for the first time on record, includes new bassist Robert Trujillo-for recapturing their old sound and reconciling it with what followed.

Charming and enrapturing, adrift in its own unique, invented world. [#11, p.142]

A worthy successor to Surrender.... This is dance music that still outstrips anything else in its class. [Feb/Mar 2002, p.113]

These 12 songs... cleave to the theme of hope-is-all-we-have, while stopping short of an unnecessary, pat moral. [Jun 2005, p.116]

A folk-rock anti-Midas, he reduces everything he touches to a molten core of sadness. [Dec 2005, p.151]

May be the best CD of his career. [Feb/Mar 2002, p.112]

Her effortless cool has gained range. [Sep 2004, p.144]

Lush and languorous, velvet-robe decadent and soft-focus steamy, Histoire is a make-out record and a gross-out record.

Two things save Electric Six from becoming the alt-rock Weird Al: Their jokes hit home and their music is convincingly ferocious. [#17, p.134]

The perfect introduction to Tindersticks' queasy, cinematic elegance. [Aug 2003, p.133]

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

When a guitar hero abandons guitar, it can be because he's bored or because he's a provocateur, or, in the case of Jack White, likely both. But he pulls it off. [Jul 2005, p.113]

Rancid find plenty of ways to bend punk's rules. [Sep 2003, p.127]

Only a central, three-track lull--where grooves are preferred over songs--sours this eclectic, irresistible stew. [Jul 2005, p.114]

Eagles of Death Metal aren't air-quote ironic like the Darkness; they're a passionately played goof for Homme. [May 2004, p.120]

These surging, wordy confessionals are sometimes redemptive but never maudlin. [May 2005, p.121]

A debut on par with the music of Massive Attack, Underworld or Kruder & Dorfmeister.

Refreshingly... [Northern State] would rather rhyme about feminism and softball than about hip-hop's tired polarities. [#17, p.139]

Feels positively grand in scope. [Aug/Sep 2001, p.120]

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

With steel guitars, fiddles, banjos and newspaper-scrap reports of floods and desolation, The Mountain is as fierce as any past Bastards recording, just more honed and hellbound.

15 thrilling highlights. [Jan/Feb 2006, p.93]

Fans of the Stooges' early-'70s masterpieces wondered what they would have sounded like with a big-league budget. Here's the answer: loud, surly and still barely civilized. [Apr 2007, p.120]

And if he occasionally errs on the side of self-indulgence... so be it; for every moment of youthful overreach, there's another that shows a promising new talent in first bloom. [Aug/Sep 2001, p.121]

Most of these concise, super-catchy tunes are as unself-consciously traditional, and fun, as an undiscovered cache of British Invasion rock. [#14, p.143]

The best thing she's done since winning the Grammy. [Jun 2005, p.110]

A stellar set. [Nov 2005, p.135]

She shows the breadth of her talent and the depth of her sentiment. [Nov 2003, p.118]

The concept is basic and brilliant: a song for every bitter month of a year of off-again/on-again romance, from splitting the record collection in January to “A token e-mail/ A drunken text/A sorry go-round of cell-phone sex” in October.

It's the group's continued synchronicity that makes puns like "Kissing Asphalt" both chat-room hip and roller-rink authentic. [Jun/Jul 2001, p.110]

Face Control is a small triumph of intoxicating claustrophobia, full of crumbling, poignant melodies spurred along by thecold, unfeeling whip-crack of a cheap drum machine.

Badly Drawn Boy pulls off the job with panache, tipping his hat to Nick Drake, Burt Bacharach and acoustic-era Bob Dylan. [Jun/Jul 2002, p.103]

Xavier de Rosnay and Gaspard Augé employ everything from ominous Christian iconography to slick future sounds to prop up their aura of overarching coolness.

He balances skill, style and comedy. [Dec 2003, p.142]

Clarkson has never sounded this depressive or spiteful. [Jul 2007, p.112]

They've toned down the distorted-guitar squall and ash gray skronk that blanketed their first two albums, the rhythms are friskier, more vigorous; the hooks accessible and easier to love. [Oct 2008, p.77]

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

The songs on Cuttin' Heads are his strongest since 1993's Human Wheels. [#4, p.120]

If this collection has a coherent theme, it's the cautious joy of a man making his emotional recovery. [#4, p.119]

The subtle, heartfelt results may not help them shed the "emo" tag, but should propel them beyond cult status. [Apr/May 2002, p.116]

Buck ingeniously borrows from dub, metal and country to capture his characters' woozy worlds. [Mar 2005, p.137]

His fire-and-brimstone confessionals are as complex as they are venomous. [Mar 2005, p.140]

Where his earlier music was a parade of bright primary colors, these plaintive melodies come in delicious shades of gray. [Oct 2006, p.138]

Filled with ambitious production and winsome nostalgia, Saturdays is an otherworldly chronicle of adolescence only a starry-eyed 20-something could make.

If the comfy, mostly acoustic, fiddle-inflected tunes are pure Nashville craft, the lyrics speak bluntly about personal dislocation and loneliness. [May 2004, p.119]

The pie-in-the-sky ambitions may be a little much, but credit Franti for dreaming up a kinder, gentler new world order. [Sep 2003, p.122]

Lauper hasn’t sounded this relevant since her 1983 debut, when she celebrated female masturbation.

With music that evokes cheesy early-’70s MOR and the modern Hollywood-hipster songbook invented by Beck, this is pop that gets out and moves, and has you rooting for the wallflower with the yawny voice to do the same.

It's conceptually daring, but beyond a few ecstatic moments... the sound is familiarly Bjorkish. [Oct 2004, p.113]

At times, the writing feels almost too weightless. But repeat listening makes these songs reliably addictive. [Oct 2005, p.133]

A daring and triumphant concoction. [#27, p.140]

This dense noise assault may not sustain the feeling of ecstasy from beginning to end, but its percolating trance rhythms... and captivating space experiments... connect on a visceral level that's rare in the cerebral world of electronic music. [Jun 2005, p.109]

Muscially adventurous and fun. [Nov 2003, p.114]

The arrangements are lean but wonderfully evocative... while Chapman's lyrics remain memorable and affecting. [Oct 2005, p.136]

The Kings sound huger, less moonshine-slurry, even more romantic.

The result is unkempt and challenging, but it works. [Jan/Feb 2005, p.109]

Denser and more scuzzed-up than Fallen, the album amps everything up to gloriously epic, over-the-top proportions. [Oct 2006, p.129]

Compared with the Pixies, this is conservative and gentlemanly. [Aug 2005, p.109]

Too bad about the self-important, chanted lyrics, which rattle on even when the band's trying to stretch out and groove. [Apr 2007, p.110]

More proof of RZA's eccentric genius. [Dec 2003, p.146]

These songs create a series of vivid but minimal soundscapes. [Sep 2004, p.140]

The craziest moment on this debut LP is 'Fucked Up,' where they beg to have their pussies eaten one second, their teeth smashed the next.

There's nothing here that sticks to the ribs very long. [#17, p.136]

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

Pink is their fastest, most instantly gratifying album.

Their 14th studio album is a fierce nostalgia­fest full of cascading jangle, candied power chords, lonesome harmonies, Southern-gothic protest poetry and roundhouse drum bash.

None of the album rocks, or gets particularly rootsy. [July 2008, p.72]

The sound quality is appropriately assy, and guitarist Ira Kaplan has fun playing a pissed-off leather-jacket pimplehead. But Yo La’s gentle side naturally peeks out.

A condensed, highly disciplined work. [#17, p.147]

These oddballs have chops aplenty, and the balancing act they pull off on Quebec is no joke. [Sep 2003, p.132]

It’s an immersive, art-school-bred aesthetic that, three or four times on the band’s debut album, makes for some very good music, too.

This is a credible update on the classic Killing Joke sound. [Oct 2003, p.118]

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

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

If she lacks [Fiona] Apple's emotional complexity, her lovely and original debut finds the romance in despair. [Jun/Jul 2004, p.149]

The unhurried, full-retail rock arrangements are splashed with lite-R&B syncopations and snazzy-jazz harmonies. [Apr 2006, p.111]

Whether he’s lamenting immigration hassles or imagining himself a depressed American kid fighting in Iraq, this Muslim fan of Biggie and Bruce Lee has a common touch. He’s a universal soldier, not an exotic novelty.

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

Their weaponry is wrought from comedy gold.

Intermittently great. [May 2005, p.117]

Fans of the TV show will have heard versions of almost all these songs before. The problem is, they've also seen these songs before.

A gorgeous, streamlined piece of acoustic Americana, beautiful and fully realized. [May 2003, p.120]

It's at once a distillation of all that drew tweeners to Dashboard... and a messy, multidimensional celebration of romance and regret. [Jul 2006, p.99]

These bluesy spirituals are so raw they bleed. [Mar 2005, p.136]

Most of the album is more fun than a folkie could stand. [Jun 2006, p.147]

The Pretenders’ ninth studio album is a pleasant roots record.

Though lighter on star power than its predecessor, this compilation... still packs weird extraterrestrial punch. [Apr 2006, p.118]

This is beautiful, baffling late-night music for shy boys and robots. [Aug 2006, p.108]

Kweli’s rigid delivery and obsession with self-empowerment remain liabilities.

Since avant-punk often has more “limits” than its creators recognize, respect and then some to No Age for keeping theirs interesting.

A raw, passionate record. [#14, p.135]

They are still greasy rock & rollers who know how to keep a party going. [Oct 2004, p.120]

A gentle, reflective and often gorgeous album. [Nov 2005, p.132]

While their protest cries tilt feebly into goofball psychedelic funk, a lush poignancy bubbles up on the more ruminative tracks. [May 2006, p.110]

Flaunts their va-va-voom and their depth. [Aug 2004, p.139]

What's most frustrating about them is precisely what's most appealing: Their refusal to write traditional songs, coupled with their giggling nature-child personas, adds an air of mystery and makes for some beautifully offbeat melodies. [Nov 2005, p.131]