A vapid yet relentlessly self-regarding solemnity prevails. [Feb 2004, p.95]

[Kozelek] has never sounded more inspired, achieving a rich balance of haunting atmosphere and twangy grit. [Feb 2004, p.101]

Mostly, a terrific piece of work. [Nov 2003, p.120]

The four tracks on which they collaborate are timely reminders of The Stooges' initial impact and their ongoing influence. [Oct 2003, p.106]

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

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

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

The tribute album of the year, a cavalcade of orch-pop joy, an object lesson in songwriting smarts. [Dec 2003, p.106]

An engaging genre exercise. [Dec 2003, p.112]

Truly, a glorious noise. [Nov 2003, p.128]

Rich, but foreboding stuff. [Mar 2003, p.106]

A similar osmosis of Bunneymen and Chameleons' dramarama as Interpol. [Mar 2004, p.106]

A collision of punk-fuelled cacophony, halting balladry and guttersnipe sensibility. [Dec 2003, p.112]

Streetcore is an amalgam of all that made Joe Strummer, the musician and the man, so great. [Nov 2003, p.131]

Their patchwork approach to psychedelia recalls the shoestring ingenuity of cult mid-'90s act Neutral Milk Hotel. [Jan 2005, p.104]

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]

It sears through the essence of what makes this band special, the brave voice and ebullient delivery of singer-songwriter-guitarist James Mercer. [Apr 2004, p.98]

Coral Fang finds The Distillers aping the bloodless Hollywood impotence of Hole's Celebrity Skin, their 'punk rock' inoffensive and utterly forgettable. [Dec 2003, p.113]

A clear rejuvenation, the occasional triteness that softened earlier work largely absent from these close-woven songs. [Nov 2003, p.125]

They're a little short on the kind of tunefulness necessary to make these chorus-less songs stand out. [Dec 2003, p.112]

An extended groove workout, akin to Erykah Badu's Worldwide Underground EP. [Jan 2004, p.102]

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

A modern soundtrack for city life--an aural survival pack that pulls out moments of delicate beauty from all the shit and cacophony. [Dec 2003, p.122]

A ghosts' convention set to music. [Nov 2003, p.130]

An amibitious record. [Dec 2003, p.113]

Less exotic perhaps than the West Coast, Brazilian, German and Franco-Italian musical forays of the past, but even more remarkably musical, intriguingly textured and affecting. [Nov 2003, p.130]

Arguably the band's most magical record to date. [Nov 2003, p.123]

Although Evening... has this unexpected core of angry commitment, she's still slick with Californian cruisers. [Nov 2003, p.123]

It's among the best albums ever made. [Nov 2002, p.92]

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

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

It's an honourable outcome for such overreaching ambition to fall inevitably short, but not flat on its face. [Oct 2003, p.110]

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

Using jaunty jigs and marches, [Matmos] mishandle flutes, bagpipes, violins and God knows what else to illustrate the mid-1800s battlefield. [Oct 2003, p.111]

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

Stalking drumbeats collide with lush chords and Joel Cadbury's smoky vocals for an emotionally fragile record. [May 2004, p.104]

Despite such flamboyant touches, the songs here are more caustic than camp. [Oct 2003, p.120]

A combination of fierce electro-clash, stabbing rock riffs, and the rudest raps on the planet. [Oct 2003, p.118]

Those who want their Emmylou full of sweet, sad longing will play a quarter of this album to death.... Elsewhere, there's righteous anger and an assertiveness and sexuality to the love songs. [Nov 2003, p.128]

Every time you think you've got to the bottom of a particular song, another layer of intrigue presents itself. [Oct 2003, p.118]

An odball masterpiece. [Oct 2003, p.110]

North radiates a humanity that wasn't altogether apparent on, say, The Juliet Letters or When I Was Cruel. [Oct 2003, p.104]

Represents a major leap forward. [Nov 2003, p.130]

The genius of past Outkast isn't diluted or diminished across these disks, rather it's doubled, expanded and explored. [Sep 2003, p.99]

It's messy, seductive stuff. [Dec 2003, p.113]

A vast, often splendid affair that recalls the lavish expanse of Roger Waters-era Pink Floyd alongside the psychedelic crash of The Who. [Dec 2003, p.122]

The dozen self-penned songs blend traditional genres rather than rewriting the style guide, but that weight of musical and emotional heritage only adds to the compelling effect of the whole. [Jan 2004, p.99]

An astonishing album... a nu soul master that should ride high on any 21st century 'best of' lists. [Dec 2003, p.109]

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]

[A] perplexing, 'is it irritating or is it glorious?' album that meshes the oddball with the serious in a quirky, plastic-punk manner not entirely unlike that of The B-52's and Devo. [Mar 2004, p.108]

There's no denying the intuitive understanding Stone has of the often daunting material she tackles. [Mar 2004, p.104]

The Darkness swoop dangerously close to parody, but pull off the dizzying, sublime soprano hi-jinks of I Believe In A Thing Called Love, the deft pop-rock of Friday Night and Love On The Rocks WIth Ice's overbearing machismo with the grace of seasoned circus acrobats. [Aug 2003, p.98]

Bowie's best album for 20 years. [Oct 2003, p.104]

With greater degrees of deliberate construction than Mers De Noms, Thirteenth Step is more cohesive band effort, less ad hoc side project. [Nov 2003, p.132]

As Mayaer talks himself in circles you hear an artist facing massive success, and retreating from it. [Dec 2003, p.112]

This is an album of stadium sized melodies and exquisite songwriting, allied with almost too many ideas. [Jun 2003, p.110]

This is music you can lose yourself in. [Oct 2003, p.110]

Epic, lyrical, and as ultimately old-fashioned as those words suggest. [Oct 2003, p.106]

For every song that reacts against the last album, another chimes perfectly with its mood of epic redemption. [Sep 2003, p.101]

Enough memorable moments to make this the first Catholics album worthy of your love and attention. [Sep 2003, p.113]

The lyrics are full of fleeting assignations and gruff, bumper-sticker wisdoms, apparently seeking to draw hard-bitten romance from the business of being in a band. [Jul 2003, p.107]

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

They've perfected their emo pop. [Jan 2006, p.132]

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

The results career from interesting to neglibile. [Aug 2003, p.95]

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

The danger with this kind of project is sounding like a '70s revue, but Rouse avoids that with his intimate vocal style and quirky songwriting. [Sep 2003, p.104]

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

There's a real sense of party-beneath-the-scaffold much of the time--a looseness you don't often get on these star-studded affairs. [Nov 2003, p.122]

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]

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

No huge amounts of new ground broken... but even a mediocre Kraftwerk album is still a work of near-genius. [Sep 2003, p.101]

Earthquake Glue sees a return to the satisfyingly stylistic cohesion of 2001's Isolation Drills, ... while retaining the impressionistic aural fug that's so key to the band's appeal. [Sep 2003, p.98]

Musically and vocally, this is Franti's most confident and varied work to date. [Jul 2003, p.106]

An album ragged with last-ditch lunges of fuzz-noise and burnished vocals. [Feb 2004, p.99]

The story feels thrown together in two seconds, and much of it is irredeemably hokey.... In the end, despite its kooky charms, Greendale is just one more lazy Neil Young album. [Sep 2003, p.96]

Faced with the Kings of Leon's musical savvy, however, it's easy to believe the hype. [Sep 2003, p.104]

Ha Ha Sound reveals that the band still have a penchant for 3/4 time, still transcend their cinematic influences effortlessly, and Trish Keenan still conjures wondrous lyrical evocations of unspecific tenderness and yearning. [Aug 2003, p.98]

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]

Ultimately, though, the resolutely rubbish recordings--distorted, trebly drum breaks, scratchy guitars, monotonous voices--and near-total absence of melody, might test your stamina for mindless entertainment. [May 2003, p.104]

Grohl's pounding presence throughout lifts Killing Joke right back to the savage intensity of their early records.... The best punk album in years. [Aug 2003, p.106]

Plenty of smokey psychedelia, country-rockin' fun and damn fine tunes. [Oct 2003, p.122]

Her sultry rasp--think Nancy Sinatra meets Bettye Lavette--delivers disquieting, brooding self-penned originals over warped, folk-tinged, electric blues. [Sep 2003, p.110]

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

They sound great on it. [Aug 2003, p.90]

A fabulous record, a baffling, joyful, touching, frustrating, silly, totally seductive album that you can lose yourself in for an hour, a day, a week. [Aug 2003, p.92]

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

[A] sensual, endlessly inventive record. [Aug 2003, p.106]

Some may bemoan the lack of scope in these hushed meditations.... But more will find comfort in the warm surrender of The Clientele's aesthetic. [Sep 2003, p.113]

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]

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]

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]

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

Disappoints big time. [Oct 2003, p.110]

Mostly you're left with the sensation that the quickie you so hotly anticipated wasn't what you were looking for after all. [Sep 2003, p.104]

It's not so much that the most singularly talented and important soul singer of now has let us down, more she's tried too hard to please. [Sep 2003, p.105]

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

Exotic, deep, unique. [Oct 2002, p.110]