The album only stretches to 35 minutes but its quality more than compensates. [July 2002, p.112]

Last Broadcast is visceral, pulsing, uplifting, widescreen but has none of the bluster that would tip its forbears into self-parody. [May 2002, p.108]

With The Private Press DJ Shadow ups even his own considerable ante. [May 2002, p.96]

High Society [proves] Schmersal capable of a good, straight-forward pop song. [July 2002, p.100]

Their pop peaks sound like an ecstatic communion of Mercury Rev, ELO and the cast of Hair. [Oct 2002, p.110]

An extraordinary album. [Aug 2002, p.95]

A pleasantly surprising step in the right direction. [May 2002, p.104]

A languorous, mid-paced affair that eschews visceral assault and pop nous for a raw, prowling, feline angularity. [June 2002, p.108]

A distinctly melancholic affair. [Aug 2002, p.102]

You finish listening to 18 feeling as if you've heard a decaffeinated version of Play. [June 2002, p.98]

For all his sour wit, however, Zevon remians a musical craftsman who's happy to leave the lyrics to others. [July 2002, p.102]

Charms on the surface yet stays in the memory. [Oct 2002, p.108]

Listen closely and you'll probably detect the likes of Wire, XTC and New Order but like contemporaries Hot Hot Heat and Ted Leo's Pharmacists, French Kicks are rocking their own joyfully addictive sound. [Jun 2003, p.101]

Vaporous, layered, beautifully evocative, with moments of discordant madness. [Co-Album Of The Month [with 'Blood Money'], May 2002, p.94]

Blood Money makes for an extravagant headphone experience if you're in the right frame of mind. If not, its clatter and blare and nihilism will genuinely jangle your nerves. [Co-Album Of The Month (with 'Alice'), May 2002, p.94]

The aural palette is as wide as ever... but in the service of songs that might be sung on the morning train, under stars on a moonless night or even in the bath. [Apr 2002, p.116]

The seemingly effortless confidence displayed throughout is startling. [Apr 2002, p.108]

When I Was Cruel is bursting with bile and romance, tricky lyrics and tantalising tunes, and finds him practically trampolining with the thrill of messing about with sounds. [May 2002, p.108]

The perfect vehicle for Eitzel's gorgeous, weary voice and wry, savage humour. [June 2002, p.106]

Exuberant and undeniable... if you don't own a Luna album, start here. [Aug 2002, p.112]

These songs move so languidly they seem self-pitying. [July 2002, p.104]

A masterpiece, exactly the sort of record that your average sentient pop genius should make in 2002. [May 2002, p.99]

Manages to provide a more coherent and enjoyable listening experience than mainstream dance bods like Daft Punk and Basement Jaxx have delivered of late. [Album of the Month, April 2002, p.94]

Half of Release feels like an old routine -- looming melancholy and not-quite-cheery disco by the pound. [Apr 2002, p.108]

Armstrong takes the Massive [Attack] approach to celebrity guests, utilising them in imaginative ways to avoid the pitfalls of self-parody. [May 2002, p.97]

Holmes's genius is to create a space in which these records are not only at home, but where they shine. [Apr 2002, p.128]

It's not perfect by any means, and having two of the weakest tracks in pole positions doesn't help. [May 2002, p.98]

An homage to Memphis soul and R&B that initially seems a pleasant lark but grows blander and more characterless the more it is heard. [Apr 2002, p.106]

There's enough happening here to perk up demanding ears. [June 2002, p.106]

Brings to mind the MC5, the Stones and Otis Redding. [Jun 2003, p.113]

A profoundly ordinary, deeply monotonous LP. [Apr 2002, p.100]

SFA's first truly flawless album.... Sad, lush, romantic, beautiful, heartbroken, crazy, this is an album powerful enough to make you shout out loud in public or cry alone at night. [Aug 2001, p.96]

An eccentric, genre-hopping tribute to the mutability of song-craft. [Mar 2002, p.101]

One of the most cerebral-yet-groovy hip hop albums you'll hear. [Apr 2002, p.104]

It is quizzical, troubled, socially concerned, compassionate, schizoid, retro-eclectic, strikingly modern, racially mixed--and even likes women. [Apr 2002, p.112]

Is not only utterly delectable but manages to find genuinely new ways to shape heartbreak. [Dec 2002, p.114]

Unfashionable and intensely melodic. [June 2002, p.110]

The actual tunes may not be particularly strong, but crucially, at the centre of it all Natalie croons and sighs with all the clear-eyed moonfaced sweetness of Juliette Binoche baking cakes. [Dec 2001, p.116]

The results are mesmeric in their stately extrapolation of gloom. [May 2002, p.102]

Ten years from now, someone will stumble across this in a thift shop, buy on a whim and be thrilled. [Sep 2002, p.96]

Clinic just aren't as sinister as they first seem. They're damaged, but friendly and worth visiting. [Mar 2002, p.105]

This is Billy Bragg as known and loved by many. The difference comes from the never more buoyant Blokes. [Mar 2002, p.114]

Astonishingly, her own production makes much of this guff zing along with dirty guitars or big drum beats and improbably insinuating choruses. [Apr 2002, p.100]

Not a crossover record, but invigorating. [Mar 2002, p.114]

The quirky rhythmic tics remain, as do the cheeky little melodies, but this is a tougher and funkier project altogether. [Feb 2002, p.100]

Challenging and sometimes extraordinarily beautiful. [Mar 2002, p.108]

Generally rawer than it's predecessor Home, Under Cold Blue Stars is as evocative as Rouse's much-lauded debut Dressed Up Like Nebraska, while reaching still further from the twang of his adopted Nashville. [Mar 2002, p.100]

This is a thing of deftly understated beauty from pillar to post. [Mar 2002, p.104]

These gradual pleasures fly in the face of today's pop/rock hardsell, for sure, but inexorably you are drawn into Kurt's world. [Mar 2002, p.100]

A few tracks sound blunt and under-realised, but mostly this is the sound of a champion artist getting good again. [Mar 2002, p.116]

There's an uncomfortable homogeneity about it all. [June 2002, p.100]

Fans are well served, but newcomers might tire waiting for the group's charms to percolate. [Feb 2002, p.93]

Every one of these 12 self-composed, played and produced tracks is absolutely stickled with hooks. [March 2002, p.108]

For the most part it's a genuinely thrilling, energy-charged adventure. [Feb 2002, p.98]

The same drifting mood is maintained from start to finish, all nine songs being gently eclectic acoustic musings with occasional electronic decorations. [Apr 2002, p.101]

Point is less a stylistic mash-up and more a stylish exploration of mood and groove. [Feb 2002, p.98]

The work of a genuine individualist. [Aug 2001, p.108]

Although [Future Songs] reveals no radical reinvention, it does see them stretching their creative legs. [Jul 2001, p.96]

Love Is Here is juvenalia -- persuasive, and suggesting greatness should the band have the courage (or the license) to cut loose. [Nov 2001]

An album as confrontational and consistent as Public Enemy's Apocalypse '91. [Feb 2002, p.93]

Holmes is scrabbling throught he ashes of Vegas strip supper-club jazz to craft a decidedly 21st century soundtrack, mourning its passing while happily rifling its pockets. [Album of the Month, Feb 2002, p.90]

The album takes on an airbrushed blandness that drowns out both the odd outbreak of compositional quality and the promise of adventure offered by the guests. [Dec 2001, p.104]

An enjoyably bad-ass record. [Feb 2002, p.102]

With a couple more new songs, this could have been a great second album rather than a stop-gap release. [Jan 2002, p.90]

A sprawling, instrumentally dazzling work which all but spurns pop songwriting. [Jan 2002, p.99]

The only gripe is that at 38 minutes, Insignificance is too short. [Feb 2002, p.92]

The thread which binds is Merchant's seductive, bittersweet voice, something which quickly finds the richer you, than nourishes it. [Dec 2001, p.104]

It's a puzzler.... Given brilliant execution, no doubt we'd still have come out with out hands up. Instead, it's patchy and the worst comes first. [Dec 2001, p.114]

This album stumbles on the lower slopes of her ambitions. [Mar 2002, p.101]

Hood have crafted a singular meeting of modern electronics, carefully layered arrangements and more conventional rock melancholia. [Dec 2001, p.96]

A satisfying, and often very moving, body of work. [Dec 2001, p.100]

Since I Left You fuses dozens of different styles -- and over 600 lovingly reconfigured samples -- into one riotously enthusiastic, awesomely seamless whole. [May 2001, p.116]

Tired, frightened-sounding and hopelessly misjudged.... Hugely disappointing. [Dec 2001, p.116]

There's a narcotic quality to these drifting ballads, one that perfectly suits these shell shocked, terrorised times. As the world gears up for the Apocalypse, I shall take comfort in Bavarian Fruit Bread -- a very haunting, beautiful record. [Nov 2001]

Listening to Bob Wratten is as necessary as a good cry. [Jan 2002, p.91]

Represents a giant leap backwards. [Nov 2001, p.112]

It's a pleasant place to hang out, though it occasionally feels like you're listening to a piece of fake history, a one-for-ourselves indulgence by a big band whose major work you've not heard. [Nov 2001]

Instrumentally complex and inventive. [Nov 2001, p.98]

Much of Get Ready is less a call to arms than the sound of an old man wheezing out of a creaky armchair. [Sep 2001, p.108]

Protest music that doesn't protest too much -- a music with such a joy and wit to its outrage that it acquires a universality beyond its subject matter. [Nov 2001, p.98]

The Sparks take the nascent country rock of their obvious influence and extraploate every last ounce of plangent guitar chime and yearing vocal polyphony until they ring afresh. [Nov 2001, p.100]

Like the band's best '80s output, Lilac6 is the work of a bona fide songsmith. [Nov 2001, p.108]

A heartily uplifting brew of scruffy street style, swear words and stammering pop tunes which sweat musical history. [Sep 2001, p.99]

His relentless intelligence is itself a consolation, bearing gifts of order and sly humour -- though not so many haunting tunes as on, say I'm Your Man. [Nov 2001, p.100]

Death Cab weave together smartly taut guitars with vivid observational lyrics to create perfectly crafted pop songs, stunning in their simplicity and beauty. [Apr 2002, p.96]

We could probably live without at least one of the three lengthy, slightly prosaic tracks that tail-end proceedings, but stand-outs Cup Of Coffee and Androgyny more than compensate. [Nov 2001, p.116]

Somewhere in there Brown's murmurous vocals and the lyrics tend to get lost. [Sep 2001, p.99]

Could well be her finest yet. [Oct 2001, p.128]

It is an unconvincing record as a whole, and parts of it are profoundly dull. [Oct 2001, p.124]

Their most affecting and cohesive statement to date. [Oct 2001, p.108]

Dour, sub-Velvets melodies and droll, haiku-like lyrics tinged with desperation. [Sep 2001, p.110]

The Id simply turns up the levels on what made her debut so big, in the process overshadowing the background detail that made that album so special. [Oct 2001, p.128]

The power and import of the record is undeniable. [Oct 2001, p.112]

Great tunes delivered in ways you'd never dreamed of. [Oct 2001, p.122]

A triumph, possessing a universal appeal that extends beyond the dancefloor straight to the heart. [Sep 2001, p.100]

An album virtually bereft of fluff and filler. [Album Of The Month] [Oct 2001, p.104]

If anything, surpasses its illustrious predecessor. [Sep 2001, p.98]

Most tracks succumb to unambitious disco stylings. [Sep 2001, p.108]