More tightly structured than their last outing TNT, this has enough dizzy polyrhythms and craziness for the free jazzers but is chock full of tunes, good humour and a certain grooviness

Kozelek's sparse, haunting delivery can render even the basest material achingly affecting...

Strangely engaging.

There's no doubt that his fingers still know their way around the fretboard.

Shunning those bawdy, mike-tossing rock'n'roll tendencies of yore and aiming at the modish pop/R&B middle ground inhabited by the likes of R. Kelly, he's made what is easily his most cheering, soulful collection in years.

This is Black's strongest set of songs since 1994's second solo selection, Teenager Of The Year, largely because the trademark wit and weirdness is back.

Little Sparrow mixes its trad tendencies with tunes, lovely instruments, and best of all, Parton's personality.

It's the continual indulgence of Lopez's Gloria Estefan ambitions with various generic Latin tracks, completely at odds with everything else, that really grates.

Where Marilyn Manson is dark and introspective, Godhead are much more outgoing.

The Donnas have reached the legal drinking age in their native California, even if their foxy glam/punk-rock remains fixated on teenage preoccupations...

A fine album which often suggests Elliott Smith wreaking merry havoc in a library of sound effects. [May 2001, p.116]

As so often happens, this is Neil Young doing what the hell he likes.

A couple of hours negotiating the treacherous whirlpools of Waters's fears, paranoia and loathing can still prove a slog, mind, no matter how stately the settings.

Those lying closest to their own unsubtle ouevre, ie the Minor Threat and Cypress Hill tracks, are as crunching as die-hards could hope for. But the arch sneer of The Rolling Stones' Street Fighting Man and Bob Dylan's Maggie's Farm are predictably reduced to chalkboard lessons in "angry".

A rather erratic affair. [Apr 2002, p.119]

Heavy-duty electronics doing repeatedly bloody battle with grimy strings... An intense but worthwhile experience. [Nov 2000, p.102]

The W is largely a return to murky idiosyncratic form after 1997's filler-bloated Wu-Tang Forever. Weighing in at a svelte 60 minutes, it plays to the group?s main strengths: brutal hooks and scary ambience.

Vol. Two will please Everclear's long-term fans with a return to their harder roots.

The sound has changed little, and the level of emoting none. Still, thunderous grooves such as Everyone and Shining Star continue to be virtually irresistible, while the quieter moments, including the hit single Shape Of My Heart will wow the ladies and the more sensitive gents for a while yet

Baduizm was a remarkable starting point... It may have been too much to expect her to emulate it, but there's not quite enough here.

Drenched in feedback and carbuncled with extra riffs, Familiar To Millions makes Be Here Now sound like it was recorded on a four-track by Elliott Smith. Yet unlike recent Oasis albums it's mostly fun, going right back to the broad, singalong Gallagher-karaoke of more innocent times. It helps that the Oasis 2000 set consisted mainly of their earlier, more familiar, better material being put through a wringer of behemoth-rock.

Blur have had many more than 18 hits; certainly there are sufficient omissions to form the bulk of a second disc.

Essentially, it sounds exactly like each of her four previous albums. Sure, she's consistent, but does she never tire of forever sounding the same...?

The trio of Spanish songs are no fun at all and ballads such as Come To Me are more Michael Bolton than Michael Jackson, but - and let's not be coy about this - when he does Livin' La Vida Loca again, he's fantastic.

The Offspring are nothing if not reliable. If you're after jangly guitars riffs, chart-thumping production values and shouty choruses, then the Orange County punk outfit are still very much your guys.

If there's nothing on Lovers Rock as naggingly memorable as past triumphs Diamond Life or Your Love Is King, then the refined ache and minimalist chic of By Your Side and Somebody Already Broke My Heart are persuasive enough.

Attacking God and country and rubbing his fellow citizens up the wrong way, is par for Manson?s course. Yet never has he done it with quite such passion.

Plain Rap lacks the talents of Fatlip and Slimkid and it shows. The smart, polished Pharcyde backings - rich in jazz and rare groove - are still in evidence, but it's easy to miss the gawky verbals of all four rappers.