Represents an ultramodern rock masterpiece, low-key yet ominous, offering new yet comforting ways of singing familiar tunes. [Jul 2003, p.98]

These songs cut too deep to be pastiche.... A lovely record of enormous warmth. [Jun 2003, p.101]

Finds them fine-tuning their class act, Dickon Hinchcliffe's choice string arrangements underpinning a typically careworn set. [Jul 2003, p.107]

Unfortunately, on Soft Spot [Eef Barzelay] strays too often into the pleasantly nondescript. [Jul 2003, p.112]

Some of the songwriting is exceptional. [Dec 2003, p.114]

Their signature tension between black blues gestures adn white boy harmonies has never been more vividly exploited than here. It'll keep you busy for months. [Jun 2003, p.95]

Celebrates the little people with full powerpop majesty. [Jul 2003, p.108]

As the concerns that drive Lytle's lyrics lift out, the well-known tremulous quiver and fragile vocals become increasingly irreplaceable, the perfect medium for songs about articulating the intangible. [Jun 2003, p.94]

It recollects emotion with a raging tranquillity, artistic objectivity overruling self-pity. [Jul 2003, p.110]

Coheres as well as anything else in their canon. [Jun 2003, p.90]

This is miffed and exemplary metal. [Jul 2003, p.108]

Rice establishes an extraordinary intimacy here. [Oct 2003, p.107]

Aural absinthe. [Jul 2003, p.115]

These intimate hushes and lilts would be remarkable even as instrumentals.... Yet it's Nastasia's voice--and the words that it sings--that really sucks the air out of the room. [July 2003, p.102]

All in all, it's pretty much perfect. [Jul 2003, p.100]

An intriguing companion to DM's Songs of Faith and Devotion, heady with the lexicon of addiction and redemption. [Jun 2003, p.110]

Beats click and rumble while Jewel simpers baby-doll vocals which sound deflatingly calculated. [Oct 2003, p.114]

Sometimes their brutish irreverence works.... But Audio Bullys' vignettes of suburban lad-life can't quite equal Mike Skinner's deft way with a lyric. [Jul 2003, p.106]

This is nihilistic pop at its finest. [Jun 2003, p.113]

Sounds like an all-girl early Beastie Boys.... The politics, though, are somewhat sounder. [May 2003, p.99]

A persistently funny exercise in nonconformity. [May 2003, p.106]

Whether this leaves you head-scratching or dancing like an electrified monkey, it certainly won't bore you. [Jul 2003, p.109]

The empathy between the four is palpable. [Jun 2003, p.113]

The balance between Joe's resigned words and uplifting melodies remains sublime. [Aug 2003, p.100]

The result is ZZ Top's Eliminator meets The Best of Chic. [Jun 2003, p.112]

Occasionally gestures towards greatness, but remains earthbound for the most part. [Sep 2003, p.112]

Delivers some great tunes in tight, concentrated blasts, but sets them behind a gauze of distortion that gives the impression they are gradually fraying around the edges. [Apr 2004, p.102]

For every aching melodic twist and sagacious lyric, there's a lumpy, sub-Beach Boys dirge and dicing-with-doggerel couplet to negotiate. [Mar 2003, p.103]

On a couple of tracks here he feels the need to introduce some lame house beats and equally passe drum'n'bass, which is a shame because the rest of the time he creates a vocabulary that's utterly his own. [Jun 2003, p.100]

Better than the conceptual barf of its predecessor Holy Wood, but not as sharp as his best record to date, '98's glammy Mechanical Animals. [Jun 2003, p.100]

For a genre whose young bands are increasingly concerned with girls and girls only, the Alkaline Trio have delivered an album offering far more than the pink blush of awkward adolescence. [Jul 2003, p.108]

Paul proves this production pioneer can still turn in brilliant beats when he wants to. [Jul 2003, p.106]

Cex moves slightly away from his former snot and swagger towards more humble inflection. [Jun 2003, p.108]

Enjoy it before it all gets used in bank adverts. [May 2003, p.104]

Beth's vocals are startling. [Jun 2003, p.100]

There's no sonic trickery here, just Mac the balladeer. [May 2003, p.95]

A significant return to form. [Feb 2003, p.86]

The awe fades quickly as this album progresses. [Jun 2003, p.100]

The season's most deliriously funky beats. [Jun 2003, p.113]

Heaves with harmonic charm. [Oct 2003, p.111]

Glazed soul music that's both lucid and ambiguous, that chimes simultaneously with Donna Summer, John Barry and Suicide, beautifully schizophrenic and poised on the edge of ruin. [May 2003, p.91]

An ecclectic addendum. [Jun 2003, p.113]

It transcends gender and genre. [Apr 2003, p.98]

Invigorating and intriguing, as hummable as it is inventive... it's also possibly the best thing Blur have done. [May 2003, p.88]

In part gripping.... But Gore doesn't always push his voice to its brilliantly effete/effeminate extremes. [May 2003, p.104]

This record is full of surprises, roping in all manner of esoteria for a sweaty, beer-splattered and tune-drenched rock'n'roll party that rivals even Nevermind for balancing the pop sugar with the twisted underbelly and subtle smarts. [May 2003, p.90]

A phenomenal album.... As always, Wire embrace the technology of the day while always sounding somehow out of time. [May 2003, p.91]

The best solo album of her career. [May 2003, p.90]

Shine is an intriguing portrait of a civilised chap in turmoil. [Apr 2003, p.110]

At its best, Pole's new sound is winning. [May 2003, p.98]

Has a pronounced acoustic bent. [May 2003, p.95]

Baby I'm Bored's knotty guitars and ramshackle production values recall the Lemonheads' swansong, Car Button Cloth. [Mar 2003, p.94]

American Life is revealing and diverting -- no bad things in a record -- but in the end the brow-beating, finger-wagging and psycho-babbling take their toll. [May 2003, p.86]

She breathes the vocals as if she were drifting in and out of death's door. [May 2003, p.95]

Despite being accessible like an electricity pylon, this trio of art-punk hysterics are as righteous as they are ridiculous. [Jul 2003, p.108]

The result is laidback and chilled. [Apr 2003, p.104]

Sound[s] like a typical Elephant 6-related band--absolutely fantastic. [May 2003, p.108]

Mesmerising stuff. [Mar 2003, p.109]

If you think The Rutles' Double Back Alley is better than Penny Lane, then this just-over-35-minute's worth of semi-reverential fun is for you. [Aug 2003, p.95]

There are times... when the stripping-down of The Jayhawks' aesthetic reveals [Gary Louris'] designs to be uncomfortably slight. [Apr 2003, p.92]

Adult. add unflinching aggression to the razor-sharp beats and vaguely sinister lyrics first mapped out on 2001's Resuscitation. [May 2003, p.104]

The pleasure... is in hearing it unravel. [Aug 2003, p.98]

A dozen simple, beautiful dirges. [May 2003, p.108]

A set of busy beautiful whispers, 62 minutes of exquisite suspended animation. [Apr 2003, p.87]

It is all heart, it is truth and it is beautiful. [Jun 2003, p.94]

A claustrophobic, mesmeric soundscape akin to My Bloody Valentine and Spacemen 3's early work. [Apr 2003, p.114]

A rich, compelling album. [Jun 2003, p.93]

Diego Garcia has fallen hard for Interpol's diagonal guitar/bass chimes, but his band's debut also suggests The Cure's pop-conscious first album rather than Joy Division. [Jan 2005, p.102]

Where Elephant does differ from what has gone before is in terms of quality. It's just better all round. [Apr 2003, p.88]

A record of substance, one that stands head and shoulders above today's garage bashers. [May 2003, p.89]

There's some terrific and accessible stuff here.... but the result is still an album that retreads old Placebo themes. [Apr 2003, p.110]

These 10 tracks positively bristle with feral, street fighter 'tude. [May 2003, p.97]

The failing voice at its core would clearly be happier in the privacy of lo-fi. [Mar 2003, p.106]

Full and lush, yet somehow homey and direct. [May 2003, p.97]

Their atmospheric twist'n'drone merits more acclaim than they've received so far. [Mar 2003, p.112]

A compelling blend of 21st Century world music. [May 2003, p.106]

Sounding assured and triumphant, Scotland's finest finally have realised their true potential. [Aug 2002, p.112]

There's a moving intimacy and improvisational feel to the wistful, late night, piano songs. [Apr 2003, p.108]

Bold, stirring and so unfashionable it just might work. [Mar 2003, p.114]

While the comparisons to Springsteen's Nebraska and Gillian Welch's Time (The Revelator) are obvious, they don't do justice to Jurado's wholly original craft. [Jun 2003, p.98]

Pig Lib is full of as many little mysteries as it is revelations. [Apr 2003, p.91]

Nobody's idea of "the new rock'n'roll," certainly, but it rings seductively true. [Mar 2003, p.109]

At times positively fizzes into life. [Jun 2003, p.110]

The highest of hi-technicalia and lo-fi acoustic instruments alternately clash, embrace, or pull apart, but ultimately, like Siamese twins, can't be parted. [Jun 2003, p.110]

If the album has a weak point, it's a sense of congestion. [Mar 2003, p.110]

Their most accessible, and arguably best, long-player yet. [Apr 2003, p.112]

There are no punk-lite hits here, but cult stardom is knocking at the door. [Mar 2003, p.112]

Frustratingly short of utter genius, but largely lovely too. [May 2003, p.102]

This is thrilling, intelligent stuff. [Dec 2002, p.122]

Sadly, the results are soul-less. [Apr 2003, p.99]

An unconventional beauty. [March 2003, p.114]

While the music is a combination of old Smog and new... there's a freshness here, a sense of change, and most remarkable, a real empathy on display. [May 2003, p.89]

A real emotional rollercoaster ride. [Apr 2003, p.102]

He sounds like a cross between Sonic Youth and Massive Attack, and the results are immediately convincing. [Apr 2003, p.100]

The wit and intelligence rarely lets up. [May 2003, p.95]

A fine piece of work. [Mar 2003, p.106]

Harper offers nice lines in homages to Marley, Basement Tapes Dylan, and funky James Brown. [Apr 2003, p.106]

An album of relentless, aching beauty. [Mar 2003, p.96]