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]