The pappy, throwaway nature of the tunes undermines any serious intent. [Oct 2006, p.124]

A sweeter collection of songs this year you'll be hard pushed to find. [Oct 2006, p.110]

Empire arrives with the same frazzled mien as Oasis' What's The Story (Morning Glory); alive with paranoia, delivered with an unshakeable self-belief. It's relentless stuff. [Sep 2006, p.80]

For the most part, Ben Kweller simply suggests Jackson Browne reared on Weezer. [Oct 2006, p.114]

The most immediately striking thing is the effect of the string arrangements, which add an extra layer of haunting mystery. [Oct 2006, p.102]

It's a world away from their introspective acoustic work... but [Producer Mitchell] Froom's airbrushed studiocraft... suits their well-crafted songs. [Apr 2007, p.105]

A competent, well-intentioned exercise in futility. [Oct 2006, p.110]

This is one of the most rambunctiously entertaining and high-spirited records of 2006. [Dec 2006, p.108]

While Food & Liquor struggles with its own contradictions, it does so over scorching beats and with lyrical flair. [Dec 2006, p.113]

Curiously short on atmosphere. [Nov 2005, p.100]

Alas, she doesn't have the power or swing to ride a big band, and as soon as producer Tommy LiPuma turns up the contrast and volume, her voice hardens. [Oct 2006, p.112]

Return To Cookie Mountain sees TV solidifying their more ethereal tendencies into denser compositions. [Aug 2006, p.100]

It initially seems as if the moments of inspiration between self-indulgences are becoming scarcer. A bracing middle section resuces Amputechture. [Sep 2006, p.89]

Adopt[s] a more relaxed approach than 2003's obsessively intricate Kish Kash. [Oct 2006, p.106]

It's a beautiful record. [Oct 2006, p.112]

Only on the superb, slow-burning "Gravity" does he really sound like himself. [Nov 2006, p.119]

Overall there's a sense of a moment having passed. [Oct 2006, p.123]

Laudable, but overreaching. [Nov 2006, p.130]

Sounding like a highly-evolved amalgam of their entire output--with added surprises--the beauty of this 12th album lies in its head-spinning diversity. [Oct 2006, p.134]

Lacks not only the impressive guestlist [of its predecessor]... but also the sparkle. [Nov 2006, p.99]

The duo can't help sounding like they're holding back a little. [Oct 2006, p.99]

The saturation bombing technique is only partly successful. [Nov 2006, p.123]

Injects [Viva Voce's] cosmic American visiion with a creeping paranoia and, in places, a much heavier rockist edge. [Sep 2006, p.106]

It's a maddening inversion of all the conventions of songwriting, but a brilliant one nonetheless. [Dec 2006, p.102]

Mastodon mostly veer clear of the slick atmospherics that turn other technical metal bands into post-rock wallpaper. [Oct 2006, p.117]

The songwriting largely delivers. [Dec 2006, p.127]

Molina's at the top of his lonesome game throughout. [Oct 2006, p.117]

A tour de force of intertwined sound and imagery. [Oct 2006, p.117]

Effortlessly ambitious. [Oct 2006, p.119]

They've turned their backs on disco and privileged operatic rock while retaining their--ahem!--inimitable sense of fun. [Dec 2006, p.106]

Peyroux's enviable ability to sing just behind the beat conveys effortless sophistication. [Nov 2006, p.124]

Too one-speed to attain the subtlety of Zep, too constipated to really funk out. [Oct 2006, p.99]

B'Day sounds oddly de-energised. [Nov 2006, p.100]

The production is more sophisticated, the arrangements more intricate, the melodies and harmonies more complex. [Oct 2006, p.106]

Love And Theft was quite unlike any other pop album--apart, that is, from Modern Times, its direct and audacious sequel. [Sep 2006, p.72]

Consolidates the experimentation of 2002's Phrenology and the conscious snap of 1999's Things Fall Apart into a focused, intelligent record. [Oct 2006, p.123]

[They] now sound more immediate, but seem to have forsaken some of their delicacy for caffeinated fuzz-pop, minus hooks. [Jun 2006, p.120]

Introspection clearly suits him. [Nov 2006, p.119]

It's dumb, downhome fun, and deliberately gizmo-free. [Jul 2006, p.86]

Happy Hollow serves up more emo with prog on the side, then adds dirty blues, cabaret and art-rock garnish. [Sep 2006, p.79]

Stylish and substantial, it's a deft masterpastiche that dissolves history for its own entertainment. [Oct 2006, p.114]

It strives shamelessly for the widescreen appeal of U2's Big Music. [Aug 2006, p.88]

Reveals a side to Broadcast rarely heard: that of a band who are relaxed, at play and in places almost carefree. [Sep 2006, p.76]

A brave, beautiful record. [Sep 2006, p.76]

There's a kind of redemptive comfort even in the album's bleakest moments. [Sep 2006, p.91]

Has the feel of an artist whose rougher edges have long since been washed away. [Oct 2006, p.119]

A spirited response to their detractors. [Nov 2005, p.106]

Ward's sweet, carefree voice is at odds with the urgency of the music. [Oct 2006, p.133]

She comes over like Tammy Wynette crossed with Parker Posey--an indie queen with a Kentucky twang. [Aug 2006, p.101]

Bachmann's gruff uniformity is, in the end, difficult to love. [Dec 2006, p.101]

While not quite hitting the heights of the recent Donuts LP, it again proves his brilliant nose for hip hop's pleasure points. [Oct 2006, p.123]

Lavishly appointed, expensively designed and almost entirely characterless. [Sep 2006, p.84]

Kelis' versatility... may mean she'll never hit like Beyonce, but she's still many producers' most stylish leading lady. [Nov 2006, p.117]

They produce big pop hooks via skewed My Bloody Valentine guitars more reminiscent of Giant Drag, but with the abrasiveness replaced by sugary harmonies. [May 2007, p.93]

One man's hurt is often another man's monotony. [Nov 2006, p.120]

Psychedelically strange and outrageously entertaining. [Oct 2006, p.99]

Distinctly average. [Oct 2006, p.119]

It has more garage-rock energy than the enervated Babyshambles. [Jun 2006, p.98]

Avatar... feels like the work of a band bursting with ideas, and with the confidence to realise them. [Sep 2006, p.96]

Reprieve is probably the easiest album to listen to that she's ever made. [Oct 2006, p.104]

Possibly cloying in large doses. [Jan 2006, p.112]

[Drummer Dave Lombardo's] return hasn't complicated Slayer's brutal, single-minded aesthetic, but it has stoked the hellfire that merely sputtered on God Hates Us All. [Sep 2006, p.97]

Not quite a match for the smoky blueprints, yet entertaining enough to inspire a trip to their source. [May 2006, p.128]

It's original member, turntablist Nu-Mark, who still provides the highlights. [Aug 2006, p.96]

Ultimately, In My Mind falters through narrowness of vision. [Dec 2005, p.120]

[An] instant classic. [Sep 2006, p.84]

The album is less of an indignant affair than you might expect. [Sep 2006, p.84]

It kicks ass. [Aug 2006, p.99]

Blends bluegrass, backwoods folk and hammered blues with a motorik groove. [Apr 2006, p.106]

It's Roderick's lyrics that really grip. [Nov 2006, p.118]

Could very well be the best record of this restlessly self-critical career. [Jul 2006, p.90]

You can't help thinking that by ironing out their creases, The Sleepy Jackson have lost a little bit of their spark. [Aug 2006, p.111]

The band's trademark punky abrasiveness and arty dissonance now serve a more dancefloor-friendly dynamic. [Nov 2006, p.106]

The sound of a group entering their prime, Silent Shout--strange, bold and tuneful--is textbook Euro-pop. [Apr 2006, p.110]

Much of it... sounds like the spiritual cousin of Neil Young's After The Gold Rush and Harvest, sharing the same back-to-nature rusticity. [Jul 2006, p.101]

Real-life dramas wrapped in uplifting tunes. [Aug 2006, p.86]

The overall effect is too solipsistic and immature to take you close to the title's imaginative world. [Aug 2006, p.96]

Minus the lovely, stoned air, Another Fine Day doesn't quite reach the heights of its predecessor, but there's plenty to admire. [Aug 2006, p.106]

A highly unoriginal record. [Mar 2007, p.86]

There's a gleeful, shonky exuberance to this debut all their own. [Aug 2006, p.88]

This is more than mere virtuoso performance. [Aug 2006, p.90]

Consolidates and amplifies everything they've done up to now. [Aug 2006, p.110]

Mov[es] through electronica, folk, folktronica, big beat, psychedelia and Krautrock, all guided by Kid Millions' astounding drumming. [Sep 2006, p.91]

It's dumber, filthier, sturdier and packed with more euphemisms than Viz's Profanisaurus. [Aug 2006, p.104]

Yet another work of widescreen beauty and magnificent ambition. [Aug 2006, p.86]

What makes The Eraser great is Yorke's singing. [Aug 2006, p.82]

The music... has become a too-clean version of their state's patented, tumbledown take on Stonesy power-pop. [Sep 2006, p.97]

The giddy rush of "I Citizen The Loathsome" and spectral funk ot "To" in particular begin a new page in electronica's tatty textbook. [Aug 2006, p.108]

Sergio Mendes meets Sparks then plunders Charles Mingus? Could be. [Aug 2006, p.95]

Unsurprisingly, American V is the most desolate of the series, bereft of the moments of playfulness that leavened its predecessors. [Aug 2006, p.92]

An astonishingly primal album. [Aug 2006, p.93]

Finds her plumbing new depths of pomposity. [Aug 2006, p.84]

Only the softer songs... display any of the heartbroken mystique that once made Carrabba compelling. [Sep 2006, p.79]

You wish Neil and Chris had hooked up with a younger, switched-on, even more sympathetic producer. [Jun 2006, p.110]

Time that could have been spent on cultivating studied cool, a la The Bravery, appears to have been wisely invested in memorable songs. [Jul 2006, p.101]

Keith's interaction with his producers is minimal, and his creative control so thin that vocal parts often sound like samples. [Sep 2006, p.79]

These tracks feel less like performances than private reveries on which the listener eavesdrops. [Aug 2006, p.108]

This is the most powerful, literate and just plain individual British debut album since The Streets' Original Pirate Material. [Jul 2006, p.94]