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]