Clinic just aren't as sinister as they first seem. They're damaged, but friendly and worth visiting. [Mar 2002, p.105]

This is Billy Bragg as known and loved by many. The difference comes from the never more buoyant Blokes. [Mar 2002, p.114]

Astonishingly, her own production makes much of this guff zing along with dirty guitars or big drum beats and improbably insinuating choruses. [Apr 2002, p.100]

Not a crossover record, but invigorating. [Mar 2002, p.114]

The quirky rhythmic tics remain, as do the cheeky little melodies, but this is a tougher and funkier project altogether. [Feb 2002, p.100]

Challenging and sometimes extraordinarily beautiful. [Mar 2002, p.108]

Generally rawer than it's predecessor Home, Under Cold Blue Stars is as evocative as Rouse's much-lauded debut Dressed Up Like Nebraska, while reaching still further from the twang of his adopted Nashville. [Mar 2002, p.100]

This is a thing of deftly understated beauty from pillar to post. [Mar 2002, p.104]

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]

A few tracks sound blunt and under-realised, but mostly this is the sound of a champion artist getting good again. [Mar 2002, p.116]

There's an uncomfortable homogeneity about it all. [June 2002, p.100]

Fans are well served, but newcomers might tire waiting for the group's charms to percolate. [Feb 2002, p.93]

Every one of these 12 self-composed, played and produced tracks is absolutely stickled with hooks. [March 2002, p.108]

For the most part it's a genuinely thrilling, energy-charged adventure. [Feb 2002, p.98]

The same drifting mood is maintained from start to finish, all nine songs being gently eclectic acoustic musings with occasional electronic decorations. [Apr 2002, p.101]

Point is less a stylistic mash-up and more a stylish exploration of mood and groove. [Feb 2002, p.98]

The work of a genuine individualist. [Aug 2001, p.108]

Although [Future Songs] reveals no radical reinvention, it does see them stretching their creative legs. [Jul 2001, p.96]

Love Is Here is juvenalia -- persuasive, and suggesting greatness should the band have the courage (or the license) to cut loose. [Nov 2001]

An album as confrontational and consistent as Public Enemy's Apocalypse '91. [Feb 2002, p.93]

Holmes is scrabbling throught he ashes of Vegas strip supper-club jazz to craft a decidedly 21st century soundtrack, mourning its passing while happily rifling its pockets. [Album of the Month, Feb 2002, p.90]

The album takes on an airbrushed blandness that drowns out both the odd outbreak of compositional quality and the promise of adventure offered by the guests. [Dec 2001, p.104]

An enjoyably bad-ass record. [Feb 2002, p.102]

With a couple more new songs, this could have been a great second album rather than a stop-gap release. [Jan 2002, p.90]

A sprawling, instrumentally dazzling work which all but spurns pop songwriting. [Jan 2002, p.99]

The only gripe is that at 38 minutes, Insignificance is too short. [Feb 2002, p.92]

The thread which binds is Merchant's seductive, bittersweet voice, something which quickly finds the richer you, than nourishes it. [Dec 2001, p.104]

It's a puzzler.... Given brilliant execution, no doubt we'd still have come out with out hands up. Instead, it's patchy and the worst comes first. [Dec 2001, p.114]