By balancing progression with consolidation, technology with tradition, MMJ have created a work of stunningly expansive ambition. [15 Oct 2005, p.36]

The Fall are actually at their most settled, stable and plain rocking in years. [1 Oct 2005, p.47]

Despite questionable lyrics, it's a much more cohesive album. [8 Jul 2006, p.41]

Please Mr Eitzel, get to the bar and pour yourself another drink. [1 Oct 2005, p.45]

The beats are slick and the vocals flawless.

Adams could clearly make use of an editor here--but you can't possibly hate an album that uses pedal-steel on every track. [24 Sep 2005, p.43]

It's not perfect--but no Big Star album ever was. [24 Sep 2005, p.47]

If this is an indication of what to expect [on the next LP], things are going to get very hairy. [8 Oct 2005, p.43]

'Road To Rouen' is the sound of a band at last hitting their stride, finding out who they are and sounding like it's finally making them happy.

Sounds as if it were recorded on one perfectly wasted afternoon. [22 Oct 2005, p.43]

Laid-back and controlled, yet at times almost obsessively moody... [Collisions] hits all the peaks and troughs at just the right frequency. [4 Feb 2006, p.29]

The truth is that metal fans used to have a word for music like this, and that word is wimpy. [1 Oct 2005, p.45]

A bit less front and slightly more of her crazed, talon-nailed, plastic surgery-enhanced Bratz doll-persona would've made for a classic. [12 Nov 2005, p.41]

Terrific to get stoned to, the unfortunate upshot being that this is music that makes you fall asleep. [3 Sep 2005, p.74]

A bit of a winner. [17 Sep 2005, p.58]

There's now something a bit crumbly, a bit rattly about E&TB. [17 Sep 2005, p.58]

[He] returns with exactly the same sound he's been torturing us with for years. [9 Jul 2005, p.58]

You'll find nothing more despicable this year. [17 Sep 2005, p.58]

'Cripple Crow' is way too much, in a way we don't get given often enough these days. Take it all in at one sitting and you'll end up bloated. But little and often? It's a cut-and-come-again treat.

Full of fraught, frivolous fun. [11 Jun 2005, p.67]

For all there is to grind your teeth and hate about CocoRosie, there's much to love. [8 Oct 2005, p.45]

There's two ways for the devout Dandys fan to approach 'Odditorium...' . 1) it's their 'Kid A', a brave blunder into a new creed of experimentation into which they will hopefully one day re-work The Tunes. Or 2) what they really wanted to make was a week-long jazz opus played entirely on dying cats, but the record company made them put some proper songs on it.

These country-blues laments are seriously sleepy-eyed. [10 Sep 2005, p.66]

By teaming up with Godrich, McCartney has come out of his safety zone and challenged himself in a way not seen since his first solo album way back in 1970. But the feeling remains that the one person who could really inspire him to write one final classic record was tragically murdered in 1980.

His molasses-coated cooing works well along his sparse arrangements. [17 Sep 2005, p.58]

If you imagine the noise God makes just before he eats a slice of cheese on toast, then comparably, that’s how satisfyingly yearning the 65 minutes of 'Takk…' sounds.

The problem is Shawn Christensen's bellowingly unsubtle vocal style, which batters every last vestige of restraint out of its way as it strains for greater heights of veins-bulging volume-as-passion.

Just another mind-bendingly great, often dazzling SFA record. [20 Aug 2005, p.57]

Doesn't do a lot different from [Let Go]. [3 Sep 2005, p.74]

Covers all the same ground as albums by Le Tigre, Liars and The Rogers Sisters in the space of one spectacular 45-minute burst. [12 Nov 2005, p.45]

This is an album that you'll like rather than actually love.

Tinnitus never sounded so good. [3 Sep 2005, p.74]

His best yet. [3 Sep 2005, p.74]

So 'A Bigger Bang' is no masterpiece. As a loss leader to allow them to continue touring, it's not even as good as 'Don't Believe The Truth'. But it's the best record they were going to make, and a world with the Stones is better than one without them.

Freed of the need to sound how people expect them to, the seven piece get the chance to show that they can turn in proper, craft-standard pop when they need to.

'Plans' is produced within an inch of its shiny, whitebread life and the Cutie seem to have lost their faux-naive subtleties, becoming the non-thinking man's Coldplay along the way. [27 Aug 2005, p.74]

By freshening up his style without entirely abandoning it, West still has the rest of the rap world playing catch-up.

And though the change in volume might be ‘Howl’’s defining characteristic... it’s the shift in attitude that is its finest.

Completely lacking in imagination. [1 Oct 2005, p.47]

Inevitably, when the Prozac finally wears off the more 'thoughtful' numbers fall flat on their faces. [20 Aug 2005, p.58]

[An] impressive lo-fi debut. [27 Aug 2005, p.74]

Sounds like a collection of songs poised to steal the heart of anyone with a bruised soul. [17 Sep 2005, p.58]

Even when easing off the throttle, The Warlocks find ways to blow your mind. [10 Sep 2005, p.66]

Where 'The Remote Part' was their 'Green'-esque lunge into the spotlight, 'Warnings/Promises' is their full-blwon 'Out Of Time' spectacular. But with less twangle, more teeth. [5 Mar 2005, p.50]

All done in their trademark chirpy Camden ska way. [30 Jul 2005, p.49]

A record of sonic maturity and real beauty. [2 Jul 2005, p.64]

Taken as a full album in a single sitting, the drum-heavy tribal starkness of it all could be a little overwhelming; unrelenting, even; but the tracklist is just crying out to be dismembered and spread across your playlists like blood-spattering across a crisp white wall.

More over-produced introspection. [6 Aug 2005, p.56]

It's fair to say you won't hear another album like this in 2005. Or probably until 3005. [30 Jul 2005, p.49]

In the end, this can't even make you feel angry; just desperately sad. [16 Jul 2005, p.50]

So, ‘Clor’: an antidote, should you want one, to the let-it-all-out emotional blokeism of Oasis and the oak-lined authenticity of The White Stripes; the sound of a group goofing off because sometimes that’s what life demands.

[He] flips his hip-hop, rave and reggae on their head, using them to produce cute, beautiful tracks rather than ear-shattering junglist uproar. [20 Aug 2005, p.58]

Elegantly-strummed slices of lo-fi Americana.

Like Sabbath in a washing machine during a power surge. [16 Jul 2005, p.50]

Gorgeous.

Farrar has the passion to carry the songs beyond any hackneyed themes. [6 Aug 2005, p.56]

This is one helluva party LP.

Too gloopily uniform. [16 Jul 2005, p.50]

It’s his masterpiece so far; a staggering collection of unspeakably precious music.

Some of 'Free The Bees' could have been recorded 40 years ago and some of it could have been beamed down from an orbiting space station 3,000 years further along the pipe than us. [26 Jun 2004, p.54]

His skill rests in the realisation that you can't airbrush soul: so, instead of smoothing rough edges, these cuts of cyborg funk fidget with digital tics and gasps. [11 Jun 2005, p.67]

A veritable swoon of a record. [7 Jan 2006, p.28]

Manages to contain enough surprise turns and twists... to keep you interested. [25 Jun 2005, p.64]

He continues his obsession with broken-hearted collages and interstellar folk music. [25 Jun 2005, p.64]

In their relentless slavery to the groove, the songs fall hopelessly flat. [12 Feb 2005, p.51]

It's all as comfortable as a favourite battered chair, but give it a chance and you'll discover a gem of a record. [2 Jul 2005, p.64]

Lyrically lucid and sonically exciting. [11 Jun 2005, p.67]

The thing that's not missing here is songs. [18 Jun 2005]

This is big, epic, widescreen music, albeit wonderfully understated. [5 Mar 2005, p.51]

As if the macho posturing wasn't bad enough, 'Haunted Cities' is also a mess musically. [2 Jul 2005, p.64]

Had the entirety of ‘Brassbound’ been as polished as these final two tracks, the Boys would be closer to the promise they exhibited on their debut. Instead, they’ve produced – and have the frightening candour to admit to – their “second debut”.

DB's spry, Breeders-style way of recasting '60s and '70s rawk is enough to rescue it--and us--from tedium. [23 Jul 2005, p.50]

Feels a bit like your bedroom partner trying on all kinds of flash costumes and gadgets to try and excite you, and the realisation that it wasn’t really necessary and they wouldn’t have had to bother had you just shown them a little more love in the first place.

Somewhere between a funk soul Killers and an Interpol with lyrics that actually make sense. [11 Jun 2005, p.67]

Confident, bold, ambitious, bunged with singles and impossible to contain, ‘X&Y’ doesn’t reinvent the wheel but it does reinforce Coldplay as the band of their time.

Ultimately, the album is weighed down by its very gentleness. [30 Apr 2005, p.64]

A very strange album, which shreds the old White Stripes rulebook (no bass, just guitar and drums) and pushes into territories way beyond the blues and rock of their previous four records.

One of the best live albums that NME has ever heard.

Talk about a fall from grace. [4 Jun 2005, p.58]

It is raw, emotionally stirring, and the best album you’ll hear this year, by a mile.

Typically minimal and monochrome but beyond the dirge-like pace of tracks like 'Say Valley Maker' lies an unlikely optimism. [28 May 2005, p.64]

There's certainly nothing here that'll match 'Wonderwall' or 'Live Forever' for pub karaoke ubiquity, but with this record Oasis are at least tentatively stretching themselves in new directions. [28 May 2005, p.61]

Hebden has recalibrated his sound to something darker and more rhythmic, without losing a note of melody. [21 May 2005, p.66]

Energetic and cleverly crafted.

Dead-eyed, malevolent and alluring. [9 Oct 2004, p.57]

Before you even consider the sonic and melodic innovation paraded through the album there’s so much crammed into each of these fifteen songs (without any one of them sounding overproduced or cluttered) that repeated listening is a must.

Undoubtedly the one Sleater-Kinney album that everyone should have. [21 May 2005, p.66]

On the one hand it's easy to knock; on the other it's difficult to dismiss. [4 Jun 2005, p.58]

Does a new generation of music lovers really need a third solo album from [Malkmus] which includes songs that house guitar wig-outs and last up to eight minutes? Not really. [28 May 2005, p.64]

It's a delight to hear. [18 Jun 2005, p.64]

Gives hope to a hip-hop stuck in a mire of mediocrity. [18 Jun 2005, p.64]

If you want to know about the Glasgow scene which spawned Franz Ferdinand, 'Push Barman To Open Old Wounds' is pretty much essential. [21 May 2005, p.66]

If there's a problem, it's that... it all sounds rather familiar and comfortable. [22 Jan 2005, p.51]

If you want it to be, it's brilliant. It's also a record so ambitious, so angry, and so mad-as-a-goose that there are otherwise intelligent people who will hear it once and straight away deem it an interminable racket. [30 Apr 2005, p.61]

The problem for Athlete is that Coldplay are returning in a matter of weeks to show how it's really done. [29 Jan 2005, p.59]

Electrelane could do with tightening their concentration spans, but everything else is just fine and dandy thank you. [7 May 2005, p.66]

Far from the unpredictable genius of old, it seems that Rivers Cuomo has returned lacking both edge and sparkle.