Just because Brain Thrust Mastery doesn’t attempt to shoehorn some hamfisted social commentary or poverty-ending rhetoric into its 11 tracks doesn’t make it lightweight indie fluff; far from it–-We Are Scientists are serious about having fun.

Hot Sauce Committee Part Two is undoubtedly a good record. It's just that in the Beasties' case, merely being good doesn't seem, well, y'know, good enough.

The results on their 10th studio album are pleasingly baffling.

Flawed, but impressive.

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

To be completely honest, it's no revelation – at times the music feels incomplete, like a lonesome Portner is missing his bros – but it's played out beautifully, sunny in disposition and just a little wild around the edge.

It's an impressively unpredictable record that veers down wildly different paths, in ways no previous Modest Mouse album has dared.

Henson spends 20-odd minutes working his tremulous voice--somewhere between Paul Simon and Wayne Coyne--around echoing guitar.... Then suddenly he finds the socket and ‘Don’t Swim’ rages into life, his guitar bashed and throttled.

Eating Us is their fourth full-length, and it’s a delight.

The 23-year-old is most impressive when channeling the heartfelt huskiness of Edith Piaff on the old timey ‘I’ve Got A Girl’, which rolls across the backdrop of a hefty Waitsian polka.

Eitzel does doomed introspection with more wit than the average bear, however, and more tunefully, too.

An impressive consolidation rather than a startling revelation.

Tempest is a relentless exploration of bleakness.

Slowly, their melodic smarts outweigh their influences.

It [the first Mariachi El Bronx album] was a beautifully anarchistic move that's now spawned its second (more polished) album under the Mariachi El Bronx alias.

Thankfully, this is more absurd than mawkish, made even better by the fact that Tahiti 80 are French people singing in English, and therefore do not always make sense.

Happy Mondays' first album since 1992's "...Yes Please!" is the sound of a damaged former addict being ushered into a studio for one last shot at the big time - before falling on his arse.

Despite No Age’s enforced restrictions, they’ve come up with an album that--in its urgent, accidental variety--is far more exciting than the studied stylistic uniformity of most rock bands’ efforts.

The assembled talent takes This Is The Kit’s traditional folk to the edge of the avant-garde.

While it’s not the glorious shambles we were hoping for, there’s a feeling that no matter what rehabilitation they go through, thankfully they’ll never lose those magic battle scars.

For all its feats of brinkmanship, the patently magnificent construct called 'Kid A' betrays a band playing one-handed just to prove they can, scared to commit itself emotionally.

Deceptively inventive, darkly melodic Simon & Garfunkel and (Elliott) Smithisms. [4 Sep 2004, p.72]

While the journey isn't quite as as spectacular as you'd hope, the destination is reassuringly familiar: Foo Fighters making fist-pumping rock'n'roll.

The record leans at times too heavily on its basic formula of pizzicato electric guitar and seedy, somnambulant basslines. Still, as a slice of squalid glamour with a beating heart under its rusted exterior, Coastal Grooves deserves your attention.

Oh Fortune spans a wider spectrum than its folky core might imply, adding grandeur and a refreshing, cerebral spin to proceedings.

Overlong at almost an hour but, largely, as pretty and organic as crystal.

[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]

She sounds more relevant on these songs than she has in years.