The Repulsion Box ushers in a strikingly individual talent. [Jul 2005, p.89]

May just be the most concise and potent distillation of Thompson's art to date. [Album of the Month, Sep 2005, p.98]

Buck's monotone and his lack of truly cutting statements make this a dour experience. [Sep 2005, p.100]

Tighter and woodier-sounding than 2003's Mouthfuls. [Oct 2005, p.102]

It was the anger and angst of a jilted 20-year-old that gave the original songs their edge--something entirely absent from these blandly matured acoustic versions. [Aug 2005, p.90]

Much of it seems to bluster without delivering. [Aug 2005, p.87]

While he lacks a killer song here, Mraz is cute enough to keep his Lemonheads-lite ballads bubbling along. [Feb 2006, p.74]

Full of hooks as stubborn as burrs. [Aug 2005, p.94]

It all suggests a sea change in attitude. [Sep 2005, p.114]

A quietly remarkable record. [Aug 2005, p.92]

Will massage the shoulders of fans of Mercury Rev, The Flaming Lips, Neil Young and Kevin Shields.

This controlled bedlam is just the thing for fans of the similarly explosive, experimental and exploratory sounds of Comets On Fire, Oneida and Black Mountain. [Aug 2005, p.97]

The tunes are so fragmentary, it resembles a '60s hi-fi demonstration disc. [Jul 2005, p.89]

More conservative than 2001's Melody AM, with little of the twinkling, yodelling mania that distinguished them from their late-night-friendly peers. [Aug 2005, p.103]

For every inspired turn, there's an insubstantial one, while some merely appear sluggish. [Aug 2005, p.96]

TMSR are a bit more focused and less shaggily psychedelic than [Broken Social Scene], but certainly never short on ideas. [Mar 2006, p.91]

The production lacks [Timbaland's] invention and intricacy. [Aug 2005, p.87]

A gleaming set of R&B, pop, bedroom soul and even reggae. [Sep 2005, p.112]

An extraordinary achievement. [Album of the Month, Aug 2005, p.86]

Wilderness take the clang of post-punk and invest it with an elatory fervour. [Sep 2005, p.111]

As satisfying as it is stylish. [Jul 2004, p.95]

Multiply marks the full flowering of a singular talent. [Jul 2005, p.99]

It's the vocals that will seal this deal for you--or break it. [Feb 2006, p.79]

Shows Lali Puna's more adventurous side. [Aug 2005, p.110]

Many of FoW's reserves outclass others' first team. [Aug 2005, p.115]

Pajo is not, and will never be, a great singer.... His guitar playing, though, is as quietly inventive as ever. [Jul 2005, p.96]

Alongside the sexually explicit likes of "Pull My Hair" and "Wait" sit conscious soul and creamy R&B. [Nov 2005, p.94]

Barrie Cadogan is a guitar phenomenon. [Mar 2005, p.102]

Never quite rises above the mundane. [Aug 2005, p.98]

The melodies and brittle guitars burrow into your cerebrum. [Jul 2005, p.106]

Not hopeless, but hopelessly self-indulgent. [Jul 2005, p.94]

As challenging as it is comforting. [Jul 2005, p.106]

Their 2002 debut was a surprising success, but Haunted Cities struggles to repeat the trick. [Sep 2005, p.100]

[A] sturdy ensemble record. [Jul 2005, p.104]

A band slowly escaping the weight of their still-obvious influences. [Aug 2005, p.104]

With Chavez Ravine he has performed another ethnomusicological miracle, opening a can of worms while drawing us deep into the musical heart of a lost community. [Jul 2005, p.90]

A second cousin to New Pornographers' Electric Version. [Jul 2005, p.103]

Exceedingly pleasant, if hardly groundbreaking. [Aug 2005, p.104]

Unquestionably the work of a band with ambitions rekindled. [Jul 2005, p.92]

At times it resembles a dream playlist from some forgotten '70s FM station. [Jul 2005, p.94]

There's an edge that's been absent in recent years. [Jul 2005, p.99]

Well; it could've been worse.

It's an awkward, not entirely likeable mix. [Jul 2005, p.106]

It excels at that classic pop trick of combining the euphoric with the melancholy. [Apr 2005, p.108]

Make no mistake, X&Y is an exceptional pop record. [Jul 2005, p.98]

If anything, though, this pop machine is too tightly drilled. [Jul 2005, p.94]

A slate-cleaning exercise that positively radiates contentment. [Jun 2005, p.102]

Hardly an alienating, experimental listen... White hasn't written such an accessible set of songs since 2000's De Stijl. [Album of the Month, Jul 2005, p.88]

Minimum Maximum is the sound of Kraftwerk shedding all previous skins and staking their claim on the now. [Jul 2005, p.106]

Though often pretty rather than memorable, there's enough vibrancy here to outlast the summer. [Jul 2005, p.90]

Captures their Tex-Mex boogie at full tilt. [Aug 2005, p.105]

It's not a disaster, by any means.... It's just that, over 13 songs, it's abundantly clear that whatever the potency of this partnership, there's an old lack of range. [Jul 2005, p.89]

Finds Muller reviving a lush disco spirit he once discretely discarded. [Jul 2005, p.92]

The musical settings are crisp, spare, folksy, recalling '96's The Doctor Came At Dawn and allowing Callahan to play one of his best roles: a campfire-friendly Leonard Cohen. [Jun 2005, p.97]

The lack of urgency makes it feel like we're eavesdropping on a well-heeled Britpop Survivors Group rather than the site of fresh rock'n'roll alchemy. [Jun 2005, p.98]

Four Tet's epiphany is concerned entirely with the properties of sound itself. [Jun 2005, p.117]

Tosca is now... a band proper as well as a studio concern, and the change shows. [Jul 2005, p.106]

At times it's hard to see the point of such a meticulous homage to motorik.... Nevertheless, [it's] DIV's most aesthetically satisfying album. [Dec 2004, p.145]

A dazzlingly clever record--great beats, brilliant production, top tunes and some of Albarn's best singing. [Jun 2005, p.106]

This isn't mere sonic overload; Corin Tucker and Carrie Brownstein's vocals are still towering. [Jun 2005, p.107]

The likes of "Be Yourself" lack much of a dimension beyond 'Let's rock out!' [Aug 2005, p.105]

A real treat. [Jul 2005, p.92]

The confidence and unforced vigour of Face The Truth suggest Malkmus is happier on the margins of alt.rock than in its spotlight. [Jun 2005, p.112]

The record's feel, like West's College Dropout, offers a rich jukebox of gospel-tinged R&B flavours over which Common scatters his gems. [Aug 2005, p.97]

Accomplished but seldom inspired. [Aug 2005, p.106]

Mercury Rev's power is undiminished. While never resorting to crude hooks, they build melodies to peaks of graceful intensity. [Album of the Month, Jan 2005, p.114]

Confirms System Of A Down as one of the most innovative bands in modern rock. [Jun 2005, p.110]

Magic Time ultimately reveals itself to be the sort of strangely mixed bag that will be all too familiar to those who've hung on with patient, fervent belief through the '90s and beyond. [Jun 2005, p.114]

Tourist begins earnestly... and continues through 11 torpid ballads, drained of all their earlier quirks, seemingly laboratory-designed for those who find Keane too edgy. [Feb 2005, p.83]

Solid rather than eventful. [Nov 2005, p.111]

Amounts to a consolidation rather than a progression. [Jun 2005, p.97]

As a mature statement by someone who's done it all, but still retains a desire to create something new and fresh, Mighty Rearranger is a record of considerable depth, admirable adventure and surprising passion. [May 2005, p.110]

A highly original band in its prime. [Jun 2005, p.107]

The guitars still kick, but charm is thin on the ground. [Jul 2005, p.89]

Whereas The Thrills' second album fizzled commercially because of an increasingly arch knowingness which many found alienating, Hal--perfectionists, eschewing irony--keep the envelope taut, the air fresh. [May 2005, p.106]

The intensity builds relentlessly. [Jun 2005, p.102]

Certainly worth investigation. [Jun 2005, p.102]

A return to form, if not a career-redefining masterpiece. [Jul 2005, p.107]

It's only the Can-meets-Canned-Heat avant-boogie of "Bees" and "Barnowl" that escape a sense of academic contrivance. [May 2005, p.95]

The band sounds re-energised by an idea of the city, the marketplace, pop ambition. [May 2005, p.102]

Songs unfold as complex relationships, with attendant euphoria, doubt and internal demons. [May 2005, p.112]

It's hard to shake the feeling that this return to decay-drenched digital rock is the sound of Reznor playing to the gallery. [Jun 2005, p.97]

Bridges high- and low-brow without ever being anything less than exhilarating. [Jul 2005, p.99]

The territory--dark skies, open roads and femme fatales--gives a gothic edge to even the most tender sentiment. [Aug 2005, p.98]

Although less immediately catchy, Celebration Castle... soon warms up. [Jul 2005, p.94]

That it works at all is thanks to a dense, cartoonish production that sees dusty breaks. found sounds and snippets of conversation tossed together like the contents of an upturned toy box. [Jul 2005, p.96]

If nothing here is quite touched by the hand of God, then maybe it's all the more engagingly human. [Apr 2005, p.104]

Intermittently funny and never depressing, this confirms him among America's greats. [May 2005, p.108]

The sweet '70s AM harmonies sometimes sugar the pill too much, but there's no mistaking its artfully bitter taste. [Jun 2005, p.110]

While [Tom Joad] was often more like reading a book than listening to a record, this time Springsteen has struck a more natural balance between words and music. [Jun 2005, p.100]

The further [Darnielle] drifts from his lo-fi allegiances and into lush studio environments, the more autobiography intersects with the dramatic storytelling which has always been the Californian's forte. [Jun 2005, p.98]

These are great, clever, slovenly rock songs. [May 2005, p.95]

It's disappointing that nothing else on the record even enters the same solar system [as "1 Thing"]. [Aug 2005, p.92]

THe good stuff is terrific. [Mar 2005, p.104]

Unlike their many imitators, Autechre's music refuses to relax, ensuring them a longer radioactive half-life. [May 2005, p.106]

It's plenty funky, just less in-your-face and with a disco polish. [May 2005, p.103]

The likes of "22 Days" and "Devil In Me" exist in a world where only John Lee Hooker and The Stooges have ever made records.