An overpoweringly diverse record. [Aug 2003, p.92]

These songs of faith and endurance work because the singer/guitarist and his band play according to their album's title--with hearts of oak, which refers not to flesh turned stiff, but to spirits that are stout, strong, tall. [Apr 2003, p.112]

This is chic pop electronica. [Aug 2005, p.101]

Much sparser and looser than we are used to from David Sylvian. [Sep 2003, p.101]

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

Alluringly odd. [Mar 2002, p.112]

Cursive employ musical inventiveness and a healthy dose of self-awareness to set themselves apart. [Apr 2003, p.102]

Johns has finally learned how to cull from his influences without plagiarising them. [Sep 2002, p.95]

This concise yet rewarding selection... allies Beans' oft-celebrated intellectual rigour to commendably rock-solid beats. [Mar 2004, p.104]

Takes the most accessible aspects of the house-soaked, pre-Britpop scene and crafts a swaggering debut that places songwriting suss firmly above pointless posturing. [Oct 2004, p.97]

The core remains Roberts' discomfitingly pure way with diction. [May 2005, p.109]

They deliver breathless, urgent rifferama, elements of which can be traced to RATM, The Stooges and Placebo.

Courageous eccentricity it is, then. [Jun 2005, p.106]

A quirky yet coherent whole. [May 2002, p.97]

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]

More accessible than of old. [Mar 2003, p.108]

Joji draws dark arterial blood from backwoods bedrock, mining a country mile adjacent to My Morning Jacket's. [Jan 2005, p.105]

A compelling exercise in craft. [Jul 2005, p.96]

Windsor For The Derby have finally planed away the rough edges from their music. [Dec 2002, p.110]

OOIOO instill Boredoms' cosmic clatter with an air of genre-bursting adventure and mischief. [Nov 2005, p.108]

They're a group that believes in a thing called love. Happily, however, they don't believe in a thing called restraint. [Dec 2005, p.98]

Not a record for those prone to depression, but a varied, substantial and intriguing one. [June 2002, p.112]

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

A tendency to indulgence... undermines the album's overall potency. [Aug 2005, p.96]

His most commercial sounding material to date. [Nov 2002, p.106]

There's some startling songwriting on Let's Bottle Bohemia. [Oct 2004, p.104]

The results are urgent, direct yet cerebral, drawing on some familiar touchstones. [May 2007, p.114]

An elegant digital reverie. [Apr 2003, p.112]

Demanding, certainly, but a formidable and ambitious endeavour achieved with wit and passion. [Feb 2003, p.86]

P.O.D. have evolved into one of the more inventive bands among metal's dimwitted hierarchy. [Dec 2003, p.112]

Taken all together these songs pack a powerful punch and make for a much better record than we might have expected. [Dec 2002, p.108]

The autobiographical lyrics on offer here make for intimate listening. [Jun 2006, p.108]

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

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

An album of abundant, aberrant fun. [May 2005, p.102]

Mercifully, the venerable Big Star franchise emerges pretty much unsullied. [Oct 2005, p.108]

After the laboured Driving Rain, a welcome return of that definitive, love-it-or-hate-it McCartney effortlessness. [Oct 2005, p.98]

If The Rapture haven't quite transcended their influences yet, they are at least making a thrilling, febrile noise on the way. [Sep 2003, p.106]

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

A string quartet, reverby backing vocals, and Kraut keys crowd the songs like weeds strangling a once hearty plant. [May 2001, p.104]

As ever, this is a very knowing and authentic nod to retro chic, but one which occasionally crosses the line between infectious and neve-jangling pop, with just a little more style than content. [Jan 2001, p.94]

Stirring but sombre stuff. [Aug 2004, p.86]

Comes on like an evil Duran Duran making future music for damaged teens.... It's both disturbingly compelling and very, very wrong. [Jun 2003, p.112]

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]

As fine as anything he's done, but overall Grand Champ makes too many R&B concessions to be a fitting epitaph to his record-breaking career. [Nov 2003, p.129]

While it might've been more digestible as a single CD, Black strives for a wide scope that makes the album's elegant songcraft, musical telepathy and poetic unpredictability all the more satisfying. [Aug 2006, p.104]

On first listen Poses feels diffuse and unfocused. [Jul 2001, p.108]

[The] material [is] often so simple in construction that a check of the enclosed lyric sheet is sometimes necessary to ensure the songs really exist. [Jan 2003, p.102]

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]

He puts down the rumour-mongers with an acid tongue. [Nov 2004, p.100]

Passionoia doesn't quite match [The Facts of Life], but the best bits are immaculate. [Mar 2003, p.109]

Chemist eschews masturbatory scratch showcases in favour of artfully constructed, utterly oddball 'songs'. [Aug 2006, p.103]

As nuts as they are, The Mars Volta recall the raw potential rock held before it was castrated by radio programmers and corporate control. [Aug 2003, p.99]

They've got groove, feeling, and they regurgitate these moods and riffs with the same gleeful spirit as did the people they're nicking 'em from. [Aug 2003, p.99]

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

Imagine Deerhoof without the jazzcore twist'n'turn or Stereolab with extra no-wave muscle and groove. [Jan 2006, p.126]

This is an album of winsome alt country charm, like a pleasant cousin of Ryan Adams. [Feb 2004, p.98]

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

She's still producing songs that stand comparison with those past and purloined classics. [Aug 2002, p.106]

This is a more consistent set, and, hopefully, a revelation for a few young metal heads. [Feb 2003, p.89]

Their horizons have broadened. [Feb 2005, p.102]

An entirely silly album. [Jan 2006, p.120]

Public Enemy are still making music of great substance and potency. [Dec 2002, p.122]

[A] fractiously funky but resolutely glum return. [Dec 2002, p.108]

Most of which 'works', all of which comes thick with a sense of joy and love for the denim and leather. [Mar 2004, p.106]

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

Their most primitive, intimate and vocally oriented [album] yet. [May 2005, p.108]

Top-down pop that sparkles like a lifeguard's teeth. [Jul 2003, p.109]

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

Pearl Jam sound reborn, vital. [Jul 2006, p.112]

Innovative it's not. [Oct 2006, p.112]

This is more than a nostalgia trip. [Apr 2005, p.102]

A razor sharp updating of previous themes. [Aug 2004, p.98]

Joni Mitchell's voice these days is as complex and adult as bourbon whiskey. [Dec 2002, p.116]

The lyrics veer towards simplistic, but Destiny pull it off, mainly through muscular production and stunning vocal interplay. [Jan 2005, p.97]

Fennesz excels when he squeezes something truly sublime and undeniably human through his gritty, labyrinthine microprocessors. [Jun 2004, p.112]

An evocative set of instrumentals, rich in texture and gentle, melancholic beauty. [May 2007, p.103]

It's perhaps a tad effortful here and there, but it's gloriously impolite. [Apr 2004, p.113]

The synth-laden tunes are relentlessly upbeat--sort of New Order on Prozac--with a Lightning Seeds blitheness.... Though no groundbreaker, 'Monaco' is catchy as flu.

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

Whereas Eno's purest ambient music has such an organic abstractness the listener stops thinking about what is actually producing the sounds, Lanois favours guitars, which links his music more to established styles. [Jul 2005, p.110]

While their material lacks the instant hooks of attention-snaring contemporaries like The Handsome Family, [it] rings with a robust authenticity. [Jul 2003, p.112]

An aptly schizophrenic alternative history. [May 2005, p.114]

Never less than fresh-sounding and curious. [Jun 2005, p.110]

Fruitful collaborations... invite the listener to keep that dial locked, despite the odd distracting lapse into free-form digital static. [Jul 2005, p.112]

What keeps him afloat is his unflagging pursuit of a good tune. [Nov 2002, p.102]

Pure gonzo blues-rock boogie. [Mar 2006, p.94]

Glistening, radio-friendly fare. [May 2003, p.108]

A further suite of touching vignettes, choice observations and killer lines. [Dec 2003, p.122]

Though couched in arrangements that sometimes camouflage their immediacy, the tunes are dependably strong. [Jul 2006, p.100]

His gifts remain undiminished. [Mar 2007, p.99]

The 'Lab's fondness for Latin exotica pushes the music well clear of egghead tedium.

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]

The Strokes come across as a world-sized band that's tethering itself.... Nonetheless, this record is good. [Nov 2003, p.124]

The influences here are smart, the music smarter. [Feb 2007, p.100]

The perfect album for cool, sequestered evenings in scary cities. [Sep 2001, p.102]

[The] eight covers [are] all imaginatively and emotionally committed, six of them brilliantly so. [July 2002, p.96]

An oddly experimental record, prioritising texture over tune and betraying a river-deep confessioinal streak. [Apr 2004, p.103]