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]

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

Amerie's heat is irresistible, in large part because it's subtle. [Jun 2005, p.108]

It's protest music gone gleefully psycho. [Jul 2005, p.122]

The momentum collapses with ballads that would suit not only his band but even the Backstreet Boys. [May 2005, 124]

A band of arty studio veterans give him a new set of choppers, and he knows what to do with them. [Jun 2005, p.116]

Sets the gold standard for diva records in 2005. [May 2005, p.118]

They sound like just another rock band. The thing is, they're a fine rock band. [May 2005, p.119]

When it works, his songs are intoxicating pop nuggets... But meandering instrumental interludes and clunky song titles are low on wink, high on wank. [May 2005, p.122]

She's just as acute as [Rufus] is, as centered on the poetry within the profane, as able to write songs whose meanings stay kept behind doors within doors. [May 2005, p.125]

Swells with grace and intrigue. [May 2005, p.116]

Jettisons their saving grace--a big, glitter-streaked wink--for limp stabs at profundity. [Apr 2005, p.117]

Elevator has the zing of classic pop--and its sureness too. [May 2005, p.115]

Intermittently great. [May 2005, p.117]

The big '80s-style production highlights her breathy-sexy vulnerability, but Presley's better when she rocks. [May 2005, p.123]

Bubbles with kooky sounds and melodic invention. [Apr 2005, p.112]

It's ultimately unconvincing. [Jun 2005, p.115]

This is dramatic, radio-loving rock primed to outlive the current I Love The '80s infatuation. [Apr 2005, p.113]

About as insular and pensive a rap record as anyone's ever made. [May 2005, p.120]

It doesn't feel like soapboxing; it feels like life. [Mar 2005, p.142]

He switches styles and moods nearly every song, but his caramel harmonies and swirling guitars are reliable constants. [Apr 2005, p.113]

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

[An] entertaining album. [Apr 2005, p.119]

Gleams with emotion. [Apr 2005, p.113]

Singing on nearly every song, the techno star gets more up-close-and-personal here--a ballsy move for someone the Lord didn't heap with vocal gifts, but one that pays off. [Apr 2005, p.124]

Out Hud don't write songs, they whip up grooves: streamlined throbs and pulses, transmitted live from Saturday night at the coolest club in town. [May 2005, p.123]

Sounds routine, obscure without much mystery. [Apr 2005, p.124]

They exult in a catchy send-up of swaggering retro-rock sleaze. [May 2005, p.121]

This album sends her style to rehab, cleaning up messy edges and emotional extremes. [May 2005, p.124]

When Cave is bad he's unbeatable, but when he's good he's darn near awful. [Apr 2005, p.133]

Feels desultory and numb, verging on autistic. [Apr 2005, p.116]

[Kaiser Chiefs] are smug, preening and shallow, and so eager to entertain that they nearly piss themselves with pizzazz and energy. [Apr 2005, p.119]

Despite its epic ambitions, this is a more streamlined, less colorful statement than TSOOL's 2001 Behind The Music, and only occasionally attains earth-moving power. [Apr 2005, p.125]

What makes this album slightly dry is its gorgeous conservatism. [Apr 2005, p.118]

This mix of gospel classics and classic-rock clunkers turns out to be a surprise keeper. [May 2005, p.116]

Their tedious bravado is more entertaining than their music. [Apr 2005, p.122]

The loudest record [Hersh] has ever made, and even if few individual compositions leap out of the general roar, it sounds fantastic. [Apr 2005, p.116]

The Kills have put some machine-generated flesh on their bare-bones style. [Apr 2005, p.123]

The songs are sincere without sappiness and orchestral without bombast. [Apr 2005, p.125]

He represents gangsta rap's evolution into pure entertainment. [May 2005, p.116]

Doves' best songs are full of life and genuinely moving, like an older, wiser Coldplay. [Apr 2005, p.113]

This is a visceral, powerful muso's record, a nerve-jangling explosion in a drum clinic. [Apr 2005, p.111]

Textured mood music. [Apr 2005, p.119]

Traces of Joni Mitchell, PJ Harvey, Björk and Cat Power are all proudly on display in the unpredictable arrangements and off-kilter emotions.

An assured yet curiously unsatisfying shamble. [Apr 2005, p.119]

The more her follow-up slugs [Lucinda] Williams' bourbon'n'romance on the rocks, the drier it gets.... When she shakes it up just right on the sinister libido-rocker "Back To Me," she sounds familiar and like no one else. [Apr 2005, p.116]

You can find kids playing harder and faster in the cut-out bins at Hot Topic, but if you're lookin' for trouble, you came to the right place. [Apr 2005, p.119]

If their debut was a night of chasing skirts and drinking Jim Beam from the bottle, Heartbreak is the bitter, worn-out morning after. [Mar 2005, p.138]

If shards of symbolist vision and baroque virtuosity remain, they're smoothed out on the beekeeping tip, avoiding any sharp stings, leaving barely a spoonful of honey. [Apr 2005, p.112]

At once intimate and far-off... like a beautiful broadcast from a room down the hall. [Apr 2005, p.125]

Green's cutesy Bacharach-ish chamber pop loses all novelty after a few spins. [Apr 2005, p.118]

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]

He can go from dazzling to deadeningly dense over LP lengths, so this smaller dose is appealing. [Apr 2005, p.112]

A set of piano-based chamber rock so tense and acidic they need to let off steam every two or three songs. [Apr 2005, p.124]

Murphy pushes the near-immaculate music into the realm of genius with witty lyrics and wonderfully tetchy vocals. [Mar 2005, p.141]

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

Maps... swap[s] the band's trademark dreariness for the U2-style arena-rock sweep that makes their live shows... so exciting. [Mar 2005, p.140]

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

Retains electronica's futuristic rhythm-science and weird textures while still kicking out the jams. [May 2005, p.121]

The music is cheery even when the feelings are miserable; it's like rainy-day Smiths driven by pianos instead of guitars. [Mar 2005, p.140]

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

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

Unexpectedly clean-cut... the time-signature shifts and feedback swirls that earned them minor adulation are sidelined in favor of pushy, arena-sized choruses. [Mar 2005, p.136]

Mostly, these electro trances... sound like an ill-advised quest to make a Williamsburg version of Dark Side Of The Moon. [Mar 2005, p.132]

Despite all the lonely missives and political outrage, Oberst comes off more like a troubadour of hope. [Mar 2005, p.132]

The missing links between club night, rock show and 2001-style cosmic experience, these boys are still worth digging. [Mar 2005, p.138]

DiFranco seems less the compulsive confessor here, more the storyteller. [Mar 2005, p.139]

One can't help but miss Erasure's old-school glee. [Apr 2005, p.116]

The boldest album of their career. [Mar 2005, p.141]

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

The tone of these literate tunes remains as light as Chesney's singing of them stays soulful. [Mar 2005, p.136]

Her woodwind-like voice and lucid sensiblity are hardly weird, but Andrews pushes her toward a dreamy and daring edge. [Apr 2005, p.117]

The Documentary is like a hip-hop Jurassic Park: a big-budget homage to a place most of us thought was ancient history. [Apr 2005, p.118]

Austere in its beauty and a little wearying. [Mar 2005, p.143]

Xzibit reinvents himself as a rapper invigorated by current events. [Nov 2004, p.146]

Monotonous in its R&B pleasantry. [Mar 2005, p.137]

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

Exhaustingly awful. [Dec 2004, p.140]

The beats throughout are deliriously varied. [Dec 2004, p.138]

The utterly flavorless repertoire she sings here... steers her toward Lite FM. [Jan/Feb 2005, p.106]

It nearly always feels fresh, the way a new flame does. [Dec 2004, p.132]

An only sometime thing. [Jan/Feb 2005, p.112]

With 81 chronologically ordered tracks... With the Lights Out can be a slog. But for Nirvana fans, it's also a necessary rite. [Jan/Feb 2005, p.119]

The lack of pretense on his second album makes him an approachable Everypimp, and he gets nothing but love from [his] guests. [Dec 2004, p.138]

It's fun enough, until the interminable breakup theme that drags down the second half. [Dec 2004, p.136]

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

The mood is so uniformly droopy it seems to be affecting Wainwright's drowsier-than-ever vocals. [Jan/Feb 2005, p.113]

His flirtations are mostly asinine, autopilot-Lothario stuff... but his voice is, as always, a hypnotic melt of menace and charisma. [Dec 2004, p.145]

With Encore, Eminem rediscovers his sense of play and lets it run naked and screaming across the stage. [Jan/Feb 2005, p.100]

Expert, tuneful and profoundly inoffensive. [Dec 2004, p.134]

As eclectic as these 13 songs are, they all sound of a piece: Experlty cut and finished with fine details. [Nov 2004, p.135]

[Case] settles into a relaxed dive-bar groove. [Nov 2004, p.130]

With help from someone who’s been through it all and had time to think about it twice, Carlton has made music for growing-ups that is neither cloying nor pretentious.... Yet a sneaking sense remains that she can reach deeper.

Picture a protest of the World Trade Organization led by Bananarama. [Nov 2004, p.131]

The samey, smothering beats make it inaccessible to anyone without a pacifier in their mouth. [Jan/Feb 2005, p.111]

Around the midway point, just as APC seem handcuffed to despair, they remember that a good protest song should stir the spirit rather than sink it. [Dec 2004, p.140]

Dear Heather is top Cohen. [Nov 2004, p.131]

Disparate dance genres mesh with impressive (and infectious) ease. [Oct 2004, p.113]