While her writing is often flattened by the ungainly toil of navvying away for the Big Idea, the flame of toriamosness burns through at times. [Nov 2002, p.114]

The album's real trump card is its abiding sense of goggle-eyed imagination. [Nov 2002, p.98]

Santana plays gloriously throughout. [Jan 2003, p.97]

Cracknell's straight '60s pop ballads sit oddly, but a clubbable Shower Scene and well-electroclash Amateur and New Thing suggest more than a fiar outlook for the weathering well threesome. [Oct 2002, p.110]

A very fine record. [Feb 2003, p.86]

They may have just failed to make a Great Rock Album--though it has many moments of greatness--but they have unquestionably become a Great Rock Band. [Album of the Month, Nov 2002, p.90]

Sure, Spend The Night's pile-up of head-nod riffs and fist-pumping chants gets a little repetitive, but the groove suits The Donnas so well, you can forgive them. [May 2003, p.106]

A winningly downbeat brand of urban realism, set to minimal, pounding drums. [Apr 2002, p.115]

[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]

Listening eventually becomes a test of endurance for anyone raised on the true country sounds of a Dolly Parton or Emmylou Harris. [Dec 2002, p.115]

It's a glorious entente of old and new technology. [Jul 2003, p.101]

The difference on this album is that their amps and tempos are turned up and their sound is pared down. [Jan 2003, p.102]

It's a little too long to sustain its fetid boudoir ambience; but that aside, this remains a deep red velvet swoon of an album. [Jan 2003, p.93]

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

When on their game -- about two-thirds of this to-the-point-set -- Hot Hot Heat are too breathlessly enjoyable to refuse. [Apr 2003, p.98]

What keeps him afloat is his unflagging pursuit of a good tune. [Nov 2002, p.102]

Great in places, but somehow not quite Ron. [Dec 2002, p.122]

An almost austere album, the production deliciously dry, forcing lyrics and beats to share the foreground. [Nov 2002, p.106]

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]

Without ostentation, The Ragpicker's Dream draws his major sources together: R&B, country, North-East folk. [Oct 2002, p.106]

Half existential joy'n'emptiness, half just empty. [Oct 2002, p.96]

A worthy addition to the small Boys catalogue. [Dec 2002, p.122]

Sea Change aches too thoroughly to be mere career shift. It's the kind of album that at times seems too sad for the singer's own good. [Album of the Month, Oct 2002, p.90]

A sometimes disturbing, but often breathtakingly lovely record. [Oct 2002, p.98]

Beam's evocation of elemental themes and dramas is too profound and affecting to deny. [Jan 2003, p.92]

A richly rewarding album. [Nov 2002, p.114]

They have settled gracefully into the task of making a consistently glorious racket. [Oct 2002, p. 100]

In replacing the stark natural timbre of recent albums with layers of reverb and oblique orchestration, the pure heart of the songs has been obscured, if not lost. [Oct 2002, p.96]