Mark Olson's harmonies are missed, but Gary Louris' shaky/sweet vocals suit the album's rueful vibe. [May 2003, p.116]

Hipster-mocking songs like "Turn Your Back" aren't as funny as the scene they want to outsmart. [May 2003, p.116]

Summer Sun sometimes sounds like a band treading water at low tide, but obsessively exploring the contours of a moment is what Yo La have been about from day one. [Jul 2003, p.109]

While Essence was lyrically spare, World marks Williams' return to the painful sensuality of the specific. [May 2003, p.109]

The production is muddy, the sentiments vague. [June 2003, p.105]

Varied and vulnerable. [Jun 2003, p.109]

Trail of Dead temper their thrash with welcome doses of art rock. [Jun 2003, p.109]

This is not garage rock; this is art rock. And that's a compliment. [May 2003, p.107]

Over blotto new-wave/industrial beats, they party hard and get lost on the way home. [May 2003, p.116]

This record recasts her unnerving spell--brooding country-pop riffs that conceal devastating lyrics. [May 2003, p.116]

Idlewild are compelling when they put Woomble's sad-sack lyrics front and center, but on aggressively average rockers like "You Held The World In Your Arms" and "Century After Century," the band's turgid squall swamps his words. [Jun 2003, p.103]

Pig Lib is both the loopiest music Malkmus has ever made and the most direct. [Apr 2003, p.104]

The best record they've made. [Apr 2003, p.107]

They sound like they're too busy tearing their limbs off and hitting one another over the head with them to think about what the songs actually mean. [Apr 2003, p.102]

This is music to play in dark, velvety, womblike bars; this is music to play while buying cigarettes; this is music for well-dressed poor people. [May 2003, p.109]

It's Dynamite's choice of subject matter that distinguishes her from other R&B divas-in-waiting. [May 2003, p.110]

Conjure[s] the glum glamour of prime Coldplay. [Apr 2003, p.107]

This quasi-funky, horn-section-assisted record demonstrates that as a jazz vocalist, Ani's a fine folk singer. [Apr 2003, p.107]

Harper's a master of no genre. [May 2003, p.111]

Musically, Everclear sound almost exactly the same as when they signed with Capitol in 1995: punk, profoundly polished. But the details Alexakis sprinkles into the mix keep things interesting. [Apr 2003, p.102]

Tonally challenged singing, spastic electro beats, and boldly nonlinear, ideologically sharp rhyming. [May 2003, p.116]

As big and slick a rock record as you're likely to hear all year. [Apr 2003, p.101]

As up-to-the-minute as the album sounds, Kim herself remains stuck in the past, eulogizing B.I.G. or strapping on the horny scorn she birthed so long ago. [May 2003, p.110]

Rich in minor-key melancholia, twangy reverb, and retro keyboards. [Apr 2003, p.108]

The Majesticons highlight commercial hip-hop's yawning credibility gap by amping up the bourgeois posturing to the point of absurdity. [Jun 2003, p.105]

The rare hip-hop debut that does justice to its buzz. [Apr 2003, p.104]

Stunning pop for pale after-party people. [March 2003, p.119]

What's most British about the Music is their tendency to try way too hard. [Apr 2003, p.108]