Smith's third album since her mid-'90s comeback, might be a more orderly affair than one might have hoped for, but she's still capable of wreaking a little havoc.

The album's real trump card is its abiding sense of goggle-eyed imagination. [Nov 2002, p.98]

I know which post-millennial album I'll add to the Atlantic, Bell and gospel classics. [Apr 2005, p.96]

Smoother than last year's Sign, this capricious set also contains some finely crafted instrumental sections. [Mar 2003, p.114]

The cumulative effect is wildly narcotic. [Oct 2002, p.100]

At times, it's almost too tasteful a refinement of her work.... Yet there are some fabulous moments from both sides of Harvey's brain. [Jun 2004, p.100]

Easy listening with just enough unease to tease. [Nov 2003, p.125]

Farrar has rarely sounded so stirring on record. [Aug 2004, p.89]

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

Crowell employs his gift for setting complex ideas to twangy hooks. [Oct 2005, p.101]

A classic work...together [her collaborators] have created a near perfect, and wonderfully paced, stage for the singer. [Oct 2004, p.112]

Has much to recommend it. [Oct 2005, p.101]

Folds' songwriting continues to impress. [Oct 2001, p.130]

The third choice record from McIntyre in as many years. [Aug 2004, p.99]

The results are engaging without quite reaching flashover.

A classy veneration of the Byrds, Bob and Band, exquisitely seasoned with phlegmy harmonies and subtle instrumentation. [Mar 2004, p.108]

A worthy, determined salvo. [Jul 2006, p.102]

[A] breezy conflation of Beta Band-esque jollity, default indie guitar chime and High Llamas-style retro melody. [May 2003, p.95]

Innovative? No. Impeccable? Yes. [Apr 2004, p.114]

Modern without being self-conscious, metal without being stupid. [Mar 2004, p.106]

A worthy addition to the small Boys catalogue. [Dec 2002, p.122]

Many of the songs... are short, some feeling cut off in their prime, others a little undeveloped. [combined review of both discs; Feb 2004, p.90]

Delicate without being twee. [Jan 2004, p.98]

This is accessible, if sometimes austere, modern electronica, distinguished by passages of unmitigated prettiness. [May 2003, p.108]

The key problem lies in the album's occasional sense of underachieving drift. [Aug 2001, p.104]

Tightly packed with Eight Days A Week-style harmonies and immaculate, 12-string strumming. [Oct 2004, p.100]

Adheres to the simple formula that worked so successfully on her debut, combining fluid, mid-tempo grooves with infectious vocal hooks. [Sep 2003, p.110]

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

A worthy snapshot of a band at its peak. [Dec 2005, p.104]

Give it time and you'll be rewarded. [Oct 2006, p.102]

In every sense, committed rock'n'roll. [Jul 2005, p.105]

As ever, easy melodies pour from him. [Oct 2006, p.104]

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

It proves to be a violent, uncompromising record throughout...

Without ostentation, The Ragpicker's Dream draws his major sources together: R&B, country, North-East folk. [Oct 2002, p.106]

Superwolf's arrangements are pretty raw and understated--under-rehearsed, even--but for the better. [Feb 2005, p.102]

Starsailor find themselves in danger of being lumped in with the much-maligned 'Keaneplay' school of emote-u-like guitar rock. Yet judged on their own merits they are still producing the goods. [Nov 2005, p.104]

This is undoubtedly his best record...

Powerful and anthemic, the trio's driving, Goth-forsaken rock can also be overwhelming and cloying. [Sep 2003, p.99]

The strongest Chili's album since 1991's Blood Sugar Sex Magik.

Reveals a still intense and enthralling grittiness to her performances. [Feb 2006, p.93]

They've surpassed most of their contemporaries to climb right to the top of the chill-out tree. [Sep 2004, p.104]

Engaging, inventive and emotionally charged. [Nov 2005, p.96]

Echoboy nonchalantly pits twittering electronica and filmic ambiences against garage guitar riffing and sugary Europop: the result is an unpredictable 45-minute journey in sound. And it's an alluring trip for the most part.

Neptunes' grooves and collaborators score an impressive hit rate. [Sep 2003, p.111]

An album that, by turns, is lacerating and seductive. [Sep 2006, p.106]

An overreaching cathedral, designed by Spiritualized, Kris Kristoferson and John Barry, Human Conditions still somehow charms with its hungry troubadour's idealism. [Nov 2002, p.102]

lang's expansive delivery makes the album sound overblown in a few places. [Oct 2004, p.102]

His most satisfying album in a decade. [Dec 2006, p.106]

Should please any Stone Roses fan. [Mar 2004, p.108]

A collision of Dylanesque surrealism and Bert Janschian finger-picking. [Nov 2004, p.114]

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

As accomplished as anything in his storied catalogue. [Jul 2003, p.113]

Rocks and then rocks harder, launching wave after wave of vicious punk hooks. [Jul 2005, p.106]

They present a united, often more supple front. [Nov 2003, p.131]

The results can, surprisingly, prove as musically rewarding as they are entertaining.

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

Their continued presence is reassuring, confirming that there are enough people sufficiently interested in old-fashioned rap music to ensure the group's survival. And this album, logically, is made for those listeners, not to pander to a theoretical multitude. [Aug 2003, p.94]

Michael Lockwood's production occasionally affects a sound akin to a Vonda Sheppard reared on black dreams and Russian literature. [Oct 2002, p.98]

Occasionally meanders into lift muzak for people who only ever travel in really cool lifts. [Mar 2003, p.103]

Ooz[es] between queasy fantasy and distorted reality. [Mar 2007, p.105]

[It] is largely unfettered by the dictates of genre. [Jul 2006, p.106]

Subtle string and brass arrangements add to the brooding, stylish swing, evidence that some things never go out of fashion. [Sep 2002, p.97]

The best of The Trouble With Being Myself finds Gray grinning. [Jun 2003, p.98]

The Smog's winning streak [is] intact. [Aug 2006, p.88]

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]

There's a confident, liberated spirit at play. [May 2005, p.95]

ESG are still creating music of eerie austerity. [Oct 2002, p.108]

More honed and richly-textured than former offerings. [Apr 2005, p.101]

[Pinback's] blend of warm and wistful is almost impossible to resist. [Jan 2005, p.104]

They have settled gracefully into the task of making a consistently glorious racket. [Oct 2002, p. 100]

Theirs is an ire that deserves to be heard. [Dec 2006, p.110]

A veritable treasure trove of electro-bubblegum, irresistible punk-funk, and hypnotic noise experiments. [Mar 2005, p.116]

Godhead take this '80's obsession one step further, crafting a sound so hypnotically synthetic it makes Heaven 17 sound like Robert Johnson. [Feb 2001, p.94]

[The Datsuns] do the rawk thing so well you can forgive them almost anything. [Dec 2002, p.106]

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

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

One Beat is not an album you slip into. You pick it up, study it, twist it, put it down, pick it up again. [Sep 2002, p.108]

Mostly, it works. [Aug 2005, p.102]

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

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

Their raucous, raw live show transfers effortlessly to record, justifying all three of those exclamation marks. [Jun 2004, p.116]

There are more retro-sounding pop-R&B numbers with "sha la la" backing vocals than the subject matter might indicate, a stadium rocker, some soulful ballads recalling early Van Morrison, and stirring gospel. [Sep 2002, p.94]

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

Neither miraculous nor wholly divine, but it does mark Corgan's return to form. [Mar 2003, p.102]

It's a record that benefits from a pervasive electro-melancholia induced by quaking analogue synths, dulcet arpeggios and fragile vocals, recalling fraternal, dark electro-pop mavens Disclosure. [May 2015, p.97]

Elbow... have let new-found bliss propel them to yet loftier heights. [Sep 2003, p.106]

A kaleidoscopic funfair of angloid psychedelia, baroque folk-pop and open-minded sonic exploration. [Mar 2005, p.96]

Some of it hisses and gurgles like early Future Sound Of London. [Oct 2003, p.118]

Singer Paul Smith's blend of dry and witty lines would make Jarvis smile, but disappointingly, the album still likes a Take Me Out-sized hit single to beat the floppy-fringed competition. [Jul 2005, p.96]

His sheer enthusiasm and peerless pop nous are enough to carry things along. [Jan 2006, p.124]

There's only fleeting glimpses of Jason's weakness for dimestore Minutemen angularity. [Sep 2002, p.104]

Overlong, but provocative and engaging. [Dec 2002, p.116]

An earthy, beat-oriented album... It ain't '3 Feet High'--or even 'De La Soul Is Dead'-- but it ain't half bad. (Sep 2000, p.96)

Gorky's play it spare and (mostly) live, placing further emphasis on their long-established pastoral bent. [Sep 2003, p.100]

Not their masterpiece, but a sizeable effort nonetheless. [Apr 2006, p.100]

The dignity and sharp poetic instincts on American V are all classic Cash. [Aug 2006, p.89]

This isn't a great departure from The Coral but mainman James Skelly's increasingly witty words and ear for a killer jig put this in a loveable place of its own. [Aug 2003, p.95]