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]