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

Consider this a Zen disc: sit with it awhile, and it will come to you. [Nov 2002, p.105]

In many ways, My Love is an excessive, ludicrous - no, make that brazen, unapologetic - record; vital because it wasn't born out of a painfully self-conscious view of its maker's place in the world.

Not exactly a comfortable listen, but Darnielle's candour can't be faulted. [Jun 2005, p.109]

While this delicately wistful set is hardly a great leap forward for Zero 7, one thing is certain: you'll be hearing it everywhere this year. [Mar 2004, p.104]

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

On a couple of tracks neither hard-working studio team nor visiting vocalist get it right, but the impression is of all ego finally set aside in favour of engaging musical honesty.

A Healthy Distrust turns his scouring insight upon America's turbulent recent history, the response of a vulnerable, impassioned, imperfect man. [Mar 2005, p.106]

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

Hiatt's misfortune is your guaranteed entertainment.

Given her almost unremittingly bleak subject matter, it helps enormously that she's blessed with a unique voice. [Oct 2005, p.108]

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

Finds [Wolf] firmly ensconced within a four-piece-band format, but still coming up with the lyrical goods on a regular basis. [Dec 2005, p.102]

Their most challenging record to date. [Nov 2004, p.102]

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

Ambitious in scope and abundantly stocked with viral melody, Silent Alarm is hugely impressive--flawed certainly... but nonetheless blessed with outbreaks of great flair. [Mar 2005, p.100]

This is the far meaner, angrier and punkier [of the two post-Libertines albums] [Jun 2006, p.98]

Bold, stirring and so unfashionable it just might work. [Mar 2003, p.114]

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

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]

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

Typically, there are also infuriating moments... but overall, this marks a welcome return to form. [Jun 2005, p.106]

Nothing sounds quite as expected. [Nov 2002, p.108]

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]