A perfect slice of bedroom psychedelia. [9 Apr 2005, p.58]

It is, shudder to think, Nine Inch Nails' pop album. Or, at least, Reznor is returning to the more song-orientated territory of 'Pretty Hate Machine'. [23 Apr 2005, p.49]

Psychedelic craziness. [30 Apr 2005, p.64]

Just as their previous fetish for deep distortion and a limited set of chords did, pink-hued noir here can prove to be something of an acquired taste. However, it never sinks into unintentional parody, earning it the acclaim of sounding like nothing else currently out there.

They blend chiming, Television-style guitars and swooning miserabilism. [4 Jun 2005, p.58]

About as funny as pouring weedkiller on your genitals and then setting fire to them. [7 May 2005, p.66]

Touted as half 'Get Ready', half 'Technique', it lives up to every predictable stylistic retread that entails, to the point of self-parody.... Thank Christ, then, that the songs are so good. [26 Mar 2005, p.49]

The generous would suggest this is the album Oasis should be trying to make; the cynical that it's a collection the Inspiral Carpets did make over a decade ago. [7 May 2005, p.66]

A classic of sad pop. [23 Apr 2005, p.51]

Welcome home, The Boss. [30 Apr 2005, p.64]

If you've ever wondered what growing up in middle-class 1970s America would have been like, these deeply personal revelations are for you. [30 Apr 2005, p.64]

A dollop of deliberately sloppy post-grad college rock. [23 Apr 2005, p.51]

A set of immense maturity that never rubs your nose in its thematic complexity, compositional innovation and thunderous thump-beats. [29 Jan 2005, p.58]

So listener-unfriendly that it's almost amusing. [16 Apr 2005, p.51]

An odd album. [13 Aug 2005, p.58]

'Light' is let down by anaemic sound. [16 Apr 2005, p.51]

One of the best British rock albums of the year so far.

At its most euphoric, 'In Case We Die' is reminiscent of the cast of South Park forming a Polyphonic Spree tribute band after an all-night feast of sugarcubes and E numbers. [13 Aug 2005, p.58]

'Mimi' manages the unique trick of being self-indulgent without actually ever sounding much like Mariah. [16 Apr 2005, p.51]

An elegiac, neo-psychedelic collection of labyrinthine naive melodies that's the schizophrenic lovechild of Four Tet and The Magnetic Fields. [4 Jun 2005, p.58]

It's music for downhearted cattle rustlers to mournfully skin steers to. [9 Apr 2005, p.58]

An astonishing debut of cosmic country noir. [28 Aug 2004, p.57]

All of this unique oddness would not, of course, mean a thing without the music, and this is an album without a single duff track. More than that, it has plenty of exceptional ones. [2 Apr 2005, p.46]

As inviting and accessible as anything released this year. [2 Apr 2005, p.50]

'Breakdown' was a kicky little exercise in how to make a great pop record. 'Elevator' shows how to make one of substance. [23 Apr 2005, p.50]

Ineffectual hippy grumblings that will make you want to sleep. [4 Jun 2005, p.58]

A 30-track nonsense-o-paedia of speed-metal twatabouts. [9 Apr 2005, p.58]

Molina's retro-countrified songs of American redemption are not academic and studied, but human. [28 May 2005, p.64]

[Evans is] a sharp songwriter with an acute ear for melody and a voice that could bitch-slap any R&B wannabe into place. [21 May 2005, p.66]

Does nothing wrong but could do with a bit of meat. [13 Aug 2005, p.58]

'Guero' represents a very clever man being clever enough to recognise what he's good at. [19 Mar 2005, p.58]

An excellent modern rock record. Dense, intelligent, user-unfriendly and challenging. [12 Mar 2005, p.57]

It's bold, brash, trashy fun that will tempt Killers fans to fall in lust all over again. [19 Mar 2005, p.57]

It's like 'Pet Sounds' born and raised in the Bronx. [26 Mar 2005, p.51]

As defiant as ever. [23 Apr 2005, p.51]

Time has proved Morrissey to be just as powerful and alluring a performer at 45 as he was at 23. [2 Apr 2005, p.49]

Sound[s] pretty much the same as they did a decade ago. [19 Mar 2005, p.59]

There is a fatal flaw with 'Arular' which means it never makes the step up from 'solid debut' to all-time classic. MIA clears her throat, grabs your attention: and then has nothing to say. [16 Apr 2005, p.49]

This is a lovely record. [12 Mar 2005, p.58]

'Silent Alarm' is no 'Franz Ferdinand'. In fact, listen to it with the words 'popular' and 'arty' in mind and its spirit is closer to the Manic Street Preachers' 'The Holy Bible'. [5 Feb 2005, p.49]

Over-produced and under-inspired. [26 Mar 2005, p.51]

Resembles the Arcade Fire if they were from the Renaissance era and rubbish. [23 Jul 2005, p.50]

Recall[s] dance music's pre-superclub adventures in electronica and bleepy house. [19 Mar 2005, p.59]

Will only sound sweeter as summer draws nearer. [19 Mar 2005, p.59]

Where 'Songs For The Deaf' was about jumping up and down until your eardrums burst, 'Lullabies To Paralyze' will use its enigmatic mysticism to lull you into a blissful daze so you don't at first notice that the riffs have broken your neck. [12 Mar 2005, p.55]

The most achingly trendy record you'll hear this year. [1 Oct 2005, p.45]

A horrible, hysterical splurge of splenetic punk rock, processed beats and whimsical experimental chaos. Which is no bad thing. [5 Feb 2005, p.51]

Even their B-sides are full of dark magic. [2 Apr 2005, p.50]

These sparsely arranged folk songs are hauntingly pretty. [19 Mar 2005, p.59]

Decent, but delivered with all the enthusiasm usually reserved for stool samples. [26 Mar 2005, p.51]

Understated, ramshackle garage-pop treats. [22 Jan 2005, p.51]

There's a squelchy warmth at the heart of 'Human After All' that's been well masked since their arrival. [19 Mar 2005, p.59]

Sadly, though, there's just not enough forward thinking on 'Origin 1' to give TSOOL the ammunition for a second attempted coup of the rock revolution. [23 Oct 2004, p.51]

If 'Wind In The Wires' is not exactly an innocent record, then, it is certainly sincere. And that sincerity, allied to such extraordinary sounding songs, makes for an exhilarating experience. [12 Feb 2005, p.49]

A union of intelligence and passion. [26 Mar 2005, p.51]

Kasabian's paranoid mindset is so in tune with the zeitgeist you almost imagine singer Tom Meighan has a sell-by date stamped on the arse of his corduroy strides. [4 Sep 2004, p.71]

A marvellous little menagerie of smart, eccentric guitar pop full of arty tics and tricks. [13 Aug 2005, p.58]

All pastel tones and carefree (minutely detailed) complexity. [5 Mar 2005, p.51]

There's a new depth to the murderous lyricism here that discounts any possibility he's renounced violence. [12 Mar 2005, p.58]

Within this impressive, ambitious, often stupid whole, are moments of melthing human beauty. [29 Feb 2005, p.65]

Nothing here comes close to the claustrophobic, urgent brilliance of the early work. [26 Feb 2005, p.66]

It would seem from the evidence presented here that [King Of Leon] are intent on rebuilding themselves from scratch, drawing on whatever wild and wonderful influences they've tripped over in their race to live five lifetimes in every day. [30 Oct 2004, p.63]

Another set of unassuming Americana. [19 Mar 2005, p.59]

'Gemstones' sees Adam go much deeper into cabaret territory. [22 Jan 2005, p.51]

An essential Mogwai purchase. [26 Feb 2005, p.66]

Mesmerisingly beautiful. [2 Apr 2005, p.50]

If he carries on writing songs as deliciously sour as this, dance music will end up needing to be saved from James Murphy, not by him. [22 Jan 2005, p.50]

There's little musically that will startle the faithful or convert the doubtful, but the Present's gift was always for words. [12 Feb 2005, p.51]

Genre-bridging should excite, thrill, agitate; yet... Hood are--still--hipster-miserablist Pet Shop Boys fans threatening suicide during rainy countryside walks. [15 Jan 2005, p.43]

Reek[s] of overt smugness and wilful obliqueness. [16 Apr 2005, p.51]

It's often hugely clever... but tends to forget that the best metaphors are the ones that make you crack involuntary smiles, not the ones that require five minutes and a dictionary. [26 Feb 2005, p.66]

Harcourt... has done the unthinkable: fallen in love with a laydee and made his "happy" album. Luckily for us, it's the best of his career. [11 Sep 2004, p.55]

Guaranteed to leave you speechless, one way or another. [12 Mar 2005, p.58]

There's nothing too complex or alienating about anything on this record; it is lowest-common denominator rock'n'roll painted in broad, primary coloured brushstrokes. [29 Jan 2005, p.57]

Mostly it's just a heavily lacquered drone, an album so restrained as to sound almost calculated. [29 Jan 2005, p.58]

Skip ["Last Song" and "Desperanto"], and you've something very much like a classic. [9 Oct 2004, p.57]

'Worlds Apart' reads like a suicide note of a band that's tried to intellectualise its place in the canon of Western music and, in doing so, recognised its own irrelevance. [22 Jan 2005, p.51]

Where once lo-fi underachievement stifled Barlow's outsider pop genius, 'Emoh' abandons dictaphones to the dustbin and sees Lou documenting his wonderful, incisively literate pop songs with something resembling sheen. [5 Feb 2005, p.51]

A painfully honest, emotionally draining album. [22 Jan 2005, p.49]

A remarkable album... like an Americana 'OK Computer.' [22 Jan 2005, p.49]

An album that not only fudges golden opportunities, but finds this band's whole modus operandi laid embarrassingly bare. [15 Jan 2005, p.42]

They've stuck the bleeps on autopilot, the beats on cruise control, and can only be bothered writing a handful of half-decent tunes. [5 Feb 2005, p.50]

Anger has always been at the root of Low's modus operandi; the difference, ultimately, is that where once it lurked behind marble pillars, it now stomps and snorts like a pig on a griddle. [29 Jan 2005, p.59]

[M83] create some of the freakiest European-horror-movie soundtracks ever to see the light, all covered in Warp Records futuristic electro-plasm. [22 Jan 2005, p.50]

LJ retain their title as the world's premier inner-space invaders. [29 Jan 2005, p.58]

Full of sombre, skeletal and obliquely confessional songs, it's a crafted collection with ruminations on sex and loss. [5 Feb 2005, p.50]

Frontman John Dwyer still sounds like he's singing through a kazoo, the drummer is still obviously banging away on cardboard boxes and keyboardist Val-Tronic plays like all her fingers are broken. [5 Mar 2005, p.50]

Spins a web of eerie jazz-junglist percussion. [22 Jan 2005, p.51]

It's The Game's candour that is his unbridled strength. [29 Jan 2005, p.59]

'Black Mountain' is like a stoned friend with really good taste in music burning you a mix CD. [Jul 2005]

The beats are from the worst Ice Cube album ever made and the rhymes are sub-Coolio. [18 Dec 2004, p.51]

If you like loud choruses, ceaseless energy and the bug-eyed extremities of crunk, look no further. [15 Jan 2005, p.43]

Certainly confirms him as one of hip-hop's most gifted wordsmiths. [8 Jan 2005, p.45]

Effortlessly hip and seductively suave. [8 Jan 2005, p.44]

One of the most exciting hip-hop releases not only of this year, but in recent memory. [27 Nov 2004, p.61]

Bono's genius is that his inner monologue is so huge and heroic that it matches the scale of the music. And, even more so than on 'All That You Can't Leave Behind,' the music is enormous. [13 Nov 2004, p.55]

One of the most frivolously brilliant slabs of shiny retro-pop anyone's had the chutzpah to release all year. [20 Nov 2004, p.56]

If you're after better versions of classic songs, think again. But as a humanising, comprehensive and often heartbreaking document of a man who, in five years, changed the face of music, almost by accident, it's essential. [20 Nov 2004, p.55]