It'll do just fine for now. But here's hoping for a torturously difficult third album. [Oct 2005, p.140]

Elbow's lifeblood is equal parts rain and alcohol. [Mar 2006, p.111]

The arrangements pound and lurch through acrid garage-punk riffs with crazy sureness. [Dec 2005, p.145]

In a style gentler and more richly textured than the crudely amplified minimalism of the series’ debut by Konono N°1, the songs swell in and out of expansive and hypnotic patterns, forming clouds of interwoven rhythms.

Yanqui U.X.O.'s five long tracks unfold in distinct movements, like symphonic '70s prog, but with rawer, emotional atmospherics. [#13, p.93]

They sounded great in the lounge; the garage suits them even better. [Oct 2006, p.130]

[Their] constant shifts in perspective aren't distracting, they're divine. [Oct 2004, p.126]

Strange, spooky and brilliant. [Apr 2006, p.114]

Ceaselessly enthusiastic European dance-pop that's deliriously colorful, vividly inane and usually about themselves. [Aug 2003, p.126]

They've given up on ugliness for its own sake, trading it in for prettiness, which allows McCracken to rest his throat. [Oct 2004, p.128]

Ladytron's doom-laden arrangements feel as accomplished as Radiohead jamming with the Pet Shop Boys. [#10, p.120]

The album is wonderfully cohesive. [May 2005, p.119]

THe music is scarily gripping... his best computer blues since 1994's The Downward Spiral. [May 2007, p.108]

Her music is exhilarating, enigma-packed and, despite the unceasing noise barrage, winningly sweet.

It's an attractive kind of stoner-folk, whose dimensions she controls on a minute level, with enough gradually shifting detail to get lost in. [#27, p.139]

3D's sheer creative vibrancy is itself a testament to Lopes's live-wire charisma. [#12, p.155]

Despite a short-circuited sequence of electroclash songs, the girls are winning throughout. [Apr 2005, p.116]

Literate and heartfelt, the album's also a sonic riot, with gutsy electro, dream-pop and feminist rap jostling for attention beneath Sarah Cracknell's creamy vocals. [#11, p.142]

Seal remains one of the best half-dozen male pop singers drawing breath. [Sep 2003, p.129]

The music is by turns atmospheric, quirky and joyous. [Aug/Sep 2001, p.126]

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

The most distinctive producer-rapper Britain has coughed up since Tricky. [#11, p.143]

Bejar's most accessible album yet. [Apr 2006, p.111]

The result is music that is excitingly in and out of time. [Aug 2008, p.88]

Valhalla, they are coming! [Jun 2005, p.114]

Much of [Sheets] sounds like a pop-punk update on Springsteen. [Nov 2004, p.137]

Its surging orchestrations and and acoustic subtelties seem willfully out of step with current trends, taking time to reveal their unique, and very British, charms.

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