Often he makes a lot of noise without really connecting. [Oct 2004, p.100]

This is tough, honest, uncompromising beauty and the next great voice in music. [Apr 2005, p.86]

There's promise here if they can stay out of jail or the loony bin. [Feb 2005, p.94]

An album of straight-up, dazzlingly well-realised British pop. [May 2004 p.92]

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

For all that bombast, though, there's a disappointing, un-Texan restraint. [Feb 2005, p.94]

Ghastly. [Feb 2005, p.102]

Magic.... Its rhapsodies present a portait of an artist at an early height of his powers. [Feb 2005, p.102]

There are moments when Tom and Ed no longer sound like the baton is theirs to pass. [Feb 2005, p.101]

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

This is undeniably a better album than they've delivered in some while, but... there still seems to be a lack of conviction in their execution. [Feb 2005, p.100]

Though not an unqualified triumph... The Great Destroyer is the latest high from a band that routinely rewards the virtue of patience. [Feb 2005, p.94]

Showcases Prewitt as an original melodic writer and arranger. [Feb 2005, p.99]

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

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

For the most part still playing it breakneck and fuzz-covered, their trademark garage-scuzz-meets-hardcore blitzkreig is if anything more rough-riffed and faster. [Mar 2005, p.101]

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

Stamey makes the most of a limited vocal range. [Mar 2005, p.104]

Marrying the softest hushed-breath vocals with a lush musical sweep at once both intimate and panoramic, All Harm Ends Here captivates from the off. [Jan 2005, p.94]

Hard to avoid thinking of Neil Young and Crazy Horse at the peak of their '70s powers. [Feb 2005, p.95]

It's business as usual. [Mar 2005, p.106]

Tends to drift in one and out the other at times. [Jan 2005, p.102]

This is a very traditional U2 album, the sort of album people want U2 to make. [Dec 2004, p.96]

Not the Holy Grail that was promised... But considering what material is present, the set plays like a fairly compelling musical narrative. [Dec 2004, p.120]

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

Hilarious, stoned hip hop drooling with ideas. [Feb 2005, p.100]

A little too much. [Apr 2005, p.90]

An awkward faceoff between Mathers the prankster and Mathers the cultural and would-be political agitator. [Jan 2005, p.96]

Tread lightly past the handclaps and keyboard quacks to find a collection of uncomfortably honest damaged-goods love songs set in the cold hours of the a.m. [Dec 2004, p.102]

More attention seems to have been paid to assembling the cast than finding something for them to record. [Dec 2004, p.98]

One of Americana's most exquisite singers. [Dec 2004, p.114]

She seems to have a sound that needs more sophisticated compositions. [Nov 2004, p.95]

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

One of the most bizarre covers albums ever. [Dec 2004, p.102]

That [Psapp] completely circumvent high blood sugar whimsy is testament to the duo's songwriting ingenuity and Durant's silken vocal cords. [Apr 2005, p.89]

An album that nails its subtle-but-tenacious hooks with dignity and maturity. [Nov 2004, p.94]

Lyrically it's one of Cohen's least ambiguous albums... Musically it's melodic and memorable. [Nov 2004, p.96]

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

Bowel-rattling rhythmic rock that's as viscerally exciting as it is grubby. [Feb 2005, p.101]

The scope and breadth is startling. [Oct 2004, p.94]

At points UNKLE verge on Moby car advert territory, but judicious sampling and that deadpan sci-fi spirit keep the album the right side of experimental. [Sep 2003, p.113]

Another uniquely alluring Luna landing. [Nov 2004, p.110]

They've come within a hairclip's breadth of producing the rock'n'roll riot they always promised. [Dec 2004, p.114]

Quality control slumps toward the end, but when they're good the're grrreat. [Nov 2004, p.110]

The sound of Beans returning to the hip hop that hatched him, remaking it in his image. [Dec 2004, p.100]

Does little to extended their reputation beyond that of a band big on amp buckling bluster and low on pop harmonies. [Oct 2004, p.104]

As ever, his chord changes and arrangements betray an inventiveness seemingly borne of brilliant instinct. [Nov 2004, p.92]

The root of the malaise most surely [lies] in the protracted production, which appears to have sucked the life out of whatever good material there was. [Nov 2004, p.110]

Picks up where 2002's Impasse left off, with Buckner at large in a dusty, wide-screen landscape of brushed guitars, weeping pedal steel and decorous strings. [Dec 2004, p.114]

Arthur's delicious art is a potent, concentrated thing. [Oct 2004, p.96]

Gibb's voice--not to mention his lyrical outlook--is endearingly astringent. [Aug 2004, p.98]

For scholarly inclined fans, the 1987 demo is a fascinating document. [Nov 2004, p.110]

Few other bands could provide properly sympathetic backing for a singer who delivers his roiling emotions in such sad, sleepy tones. [Oct 2004, p.112]

A grimier, more uncomfortable listen. [Nov 2004, p.100]

Fails on multiple fronts. [Dec 2004, p.116]

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

A drizzly doomsday masterpiece. [Nov 2004, p.108]

He sings with committed restraint and plays outspoken guitar. [Feb 2005, p.95]

These stark, sweet confessionals easily rank among the best of his career. [Nov 2004, p.108]

While there's some inspired moments, much should've been discarded on son Woody's bedroom floor. [Oct 2004, p.104]

The first out-and-out dull R.E.M. album. [Oct 2004, p.97]

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

His first, full-tilt protest record... he comes out swinging, in every respect. [Oct 2004, p.110]

Big issues... are chewed over with bittersweet humour and musical sophistication. [Nov 2004, p.110]

Profoundly disappointing. [Jan 2005, p.105]

The perkiness and quirkiness are paper-thin. [Dec 2004, p.112]

A masterpiece of controlled electronic violence. [Nov 2004, p.102]

She can carry a tune, sure, but as far as expressing emotion goes, she's relentlessly, huskily one-note. [Oct 2004, p.112]

As overdriven and mutated a noise as ever they've managed, Damage also retains Blues Explosion's trademark sweat-drenched feel for soul. [Oct 2004, p.101]

Like a cookie full of arsenic, Universal Audio's indie sweetness conceals a dark, deathly heart. [Nov 2004, p.114]

As for her voice, that's still a remarkably sassy tool. [Nov 2004, p.108]

Revives the windswept drama of Porcupine-vintage Echo & The Bunnymen. [Dec 2004, p.99]

Annoyingly, [the] high marks are all too infrequent. [Oct 2004, p.116]

There is genius in here... [but] Shangri-La does sometimes drift into lazily delivered Knopfler history lessons. [Nov 2004, p.96]

There is a remarkable consistency about Smile's complex tapestry of delights. [Oct 2004, p.98]

It is Kweli's diligently intelligent worldview, dextrous wordplay and often breathtaking flow that enrapture. [Jan 2005, p.96]

Tender dream-pop which is simulataneously familiar and novel. [Aug 2004, p.96]

Songs terrific, band sensational, and -- big plus -- Costello's voice late-developing way beyond that pinched whine into an instrument of substance and character. [Oct 2004, p.97]

It's exhilarating stuff, the kind of record that sets new parameters as to what is possible from a punk rock'n'roll band in the 21st century. [Oct 2004, p.106]

Whether you consider London Calling to be the last great rock album of the '70s or the first great rock album of the '80s, the extent to which it fully merits its cultural and aesthetic status is utterly beyond question. [Oct 2004, p.123]

Nino Rojo is no mere best-of-the-rest affair, but a sibling piece of equal intimacy and inspiration. [Oct 2004, p.102]

Has lingering '80s elements, with some pompous lyrics, laborious arrangements and long, drawn-out vowel sounds, yet it is also fresher and less strenuous than before. [Apr 2004, p.114]

A noble addition to the Giant Sand canon. [Sep 2004, p.96]

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

A covers album supreme. [Dec 2004, p.114]

Lacks the hooks and memorable vocals... that formerly made this band so effective at marrying the pop and the underground. [Sep 2004, p.92]

What Dizzee Rascal has done with this record is find his own - profoundly satisfying - balance between grime's digital vortex of ringtones and car alarms and an older more contemplative electronic tradition. [Oct 2004, p.104]

Their candour is as refreshing as it is revealing. [May 2005, p.108]

There's little attempt to get under the skin of these songs, or really bend them into new shapes. [Oct 2004, p.100]

All the components that make the Arcade Fire such a gripping live proposition remain intact on this full-length debut. [Apr 2005, p.96]

This is well-muscled, heavily mascara'd dance music. [Sep 2004, p.99]

That voice remains intact, warm, ever communicative, ahead of the game. [Oct 2004, p.112]

Heyes has polished the band into tedium, with live guitars and drums drowned out by high sheen studio gloss and painfully dated loops. [Sep 2004, p.104]

This is some coming-of-age classic. [Sep 2004, p.96]

As complex, compelling, and at times unsettling a record as Cale has unleashed since 1982's Music For A New Society. [Oct 2003, p.105]

Marks a major leap along the road to recovery. [Nov 2004, p.96]

The duo-only, no bass required songs don't lack for sonic depth. [Sep 2004, p.98]

An extraordinary record... It's not, nor is it intended to be, easy listening. [Sep 2004, p.94]