Like his predecessors', the results here are decidedly mixed.

It's not, as has been signalled, Super Furries' best album. It's their worst. That's still aeons better than most other left-of-centre alternative British pop bands, but it's nonetheless a disappointment.

There are tough, commanding rare grooves, fly spy-thriller tracks, big, daft hip-hop tunes, a brilliant lounge-reggae skank, 'Good Girl Gone Bad', and, in 'The Turnaround', and the 'Apache'-like b-boy break-out, 'Battle Of Bongo Hill', two of the funkiest, party starters you'll hear all year.

'Souljacker''s songs rock harder than most of E's nu-metal enemies.

Despite the rock, you can still dance to it. [Review of U.S. version]

The Lo-Fi's are still operating more than competently, but this time round they're not likely to blow any minds.

A solo charm assault with mixed results.

Brandy is on fine form throughout, purring pillow talk and murmuring sweet nothings to anyone insane enough to listen. Now she loves him, now she doesn't. Really, it's too much.

'Walking With Thee' is barely forty minutes in length, but feels about half that length - not because it flies by, but because throughout, it barely feels substantial.

Bragg and The Blokes' delivery sounds just as dated as the social traditions they lampoon.

It shouldn't work, but it does - perhaps, because, for once Albarn doesn't sound like he's trying too hard.

It's a bit cheeky, but that's Kylie, and that's pop. Where the songs are as good as 'Can't Get You Out Of My Head' it works beautifully.

This record moves way beyond armchair psychology - in fact, there are armchairs that have a cannier grasp of the mind.

'Source Tags And Codes' comes with an albatross-like weight of expectation round its skinny neck - yet happily, it's supported by a band who have grown to match it.

[The title track is] a fantastic storm-brewing, brass-stabbing, Nelson Riddle-goes-Tom-Waits, claustrophobic blues number.... It's not worth buying this album for, however, since the rest of it's made up of frustratingly minimalist snatches of music.

There's no reason on God's green earth why anybody should want this record.

It's a brave and curious record that, as on 'Bugs', occasionally resembles Willie Nelson fronting Labradford.

If the DJ's art is to unite unlikely musical party guests, The Automator is a fine and generous host.

It's easily the electronic album of the year, but for all that, it doesn't break particularly new ground. The point more is that what ground is broken is done so with exquisite artistry.

Further success should elude them. That, it seems, is firmly restricted to the past.

'Holes In The Wall' is one of the most impressive debut albums of 2002. Fact.

The reason that 'Come With Us' seems unsatisfying is that The Chemicals no longer seem rooted in club culture the way they were in their Heavenly Social days.

It's the mischievous desire to deconstruct his own perfectly rounded pop snapshots that marks him down as a post-everything wunderkind

'Kittenz And Thee Glitz' is not a techno album, hardly even a dance record, only partially an '80s homage, and not quite pure pop either. But it is also all of these things in one, plus some kind of warped comment on celebrity culture.

Seems that after all the pale imitators, Radiohead finally have a competitor worthy of healthy comparison.

Starsailor have produced a debut album of real emotional depth.

There's a tiny bit more to Mystikal than mere male piggery set to damn fine production.

The good news is that lyrically, Nas is pretty much back on form.