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]