He delivers 14 sweetly sombre neo-folk tunes that reveal just how subtly pervasive the man's influence really is. [Mar 2005, p.108]

The songs are neither dogmatic nor whacked out. Like fine pop writers before him, Oberst's simply wrestling with something troubling he feels thick in the air. [Feb 2005, p.72]

Where Ryan Adams replicates old records, this is something new. [Album of the Month, Feb 2005, p.72]

Cleaner and crisper... their first [album] for half a decade where great noises... outshine august guest vocalists. [Feb 2005, p.73]

DiFranco remains an utterly singular performer. [Mar 2005, p.91]

Seems dated. [Feb 2005, p.73]

Generally, the album has a frantic, acidic, raggedly glorious feel. [Feb 2005, p.85]

Grandiose, overwhelming, pretentious and absurd, Before The Dawn Heals Us is one of the first great albums of 2005. [Feb 2005, p.79]

His gentle voice sits amid occasionally baroque arrangements, the simplicity of which ensure his more complex songwriting skills remain accessible. [Feb 2005, p.76]

The tone is less whimsical, occasionally ecstatic, and at times reminiscent of big beat. [Mar 2005, p.91]

In this lunar setting, Oldham's visionary, spooked words are lit up with renewed clarity. [Feb 2005, p.78]

The mournful tone is seductive, but at times the femme melodrama teeters into All About Eve territory. [Feb 2005, p.83]

Tobin delivers fiercely programmed, seriously dark material. [Mar 2005, p.104]

Simple acoustic music lined with occasional piano and an inglenook voice owing much to early Joni Mitchell or Carole King. [Aug 2006, p.93]

Inessential, but huge fun nevertheless. [Mar 2005, p.91]

Addictive pop kitsch. [Apr 2005, p.99]

Languid without being lazy. [Mar 2005, p.93]

So charged it crackles. [Feb 2005, p.82]

A mostly rich and involving experience. [Apr 2005, p.98]

Too often there's a pileup of overwrought, over-long ballads that struggle to make headway. [Jan 2005, p.121]

A record nobody could fail to love. [Feb 2005, p.84]

One of the finest Americana albums of 2004. [Jan 2005, p.128]

Even at their most glibly bombastic, there's a melancholy undertow that they can't shake. [Album of the Month, Dec 2004, p.136]

When LAMB is good, it's very good indeed.... It's one of the most audacioius pop albums of the year. [Jan 2005, p.120]

A hardcore fan's wildest dreams fulfilled. [Jan 2005, p.134]

Feels for the most part like a vanity side project from Beyonce's solo career. [Jan 2005, p.115]

Another superb venture. [Jan 2005, p.121]

More, and even better, of the same--one of the dead-cert Albums Of The Year. [Album of the Month, Apr 2005, p.96]

The standard is so consistently high, sides so conclusively split, even after six years' familiarity with his schtick, that genius is the word. [Jan 2005, p.116]

Superior adult-contemporary rock. [Dec 2004, p.152]

The humourless skits drag... but somehow the Handsome Boy charm still wins through. [Dec 2004, p.137]

A gig of the year, no question. You should have been there. Now you can be. [Dec 2004, p.150]

Varies immensely in quality. [Dec 2004, p.137]

As inventive and well-meaning as these bastard pop blasts are, they're still not a patch on the originals. [Dec 2004, p.153]

Unexpectedly impressive. [Dec 2004, p.138]

It's hard to find fault with this uplifting debut. [Feb 2005, p.78]

Lifeblood seems closest in tone to Everything Must Go, although the sound is lighter, less bombastic, more soothing. [Dec 2004, p.148]

Dear Heather is Cohen's highest tide yet, his most exquisite marriage of song and poetry and ambiguous grace. [Nov 2004, p.114]

Channels sledgehammer power into 11 tunes with a filthy, deeply groovy core. [Mar 2005, p.104]

A lush but unthrilling album. [Nov 2003, p.122]

It moseys a little too languidly. [Nov 2004, p.114]

They may be shamelessly role-playing their Joan Jett schtick, but The Donnas still out-rock earnest retro-bores like Jet and Kings Of Leon. [Dec 2004, p.157]

With less hyperbole and gutter-visionary pretension, Borrell's competent if hygienised NYC punk knock-offs might be more palatable. [Aug 2004, p.104]

Explores themes of mental derailment and the black arts against a backdrop of the heaviest psychobilly, grunge-metal and stoner rock. [Nov 2004, p.106]

Power pop without the escapism. [Apr 2005, p.105]

A kind of Joshua Tree for the heavily pierced and mildly upset. [Dec 2004, p.140]

Too much here is self-congratulatory sloganeering. [Nov 2004, p.110]

Here, Beans returns to his roots. [Nov 2004, p.106]

From A Basement... returns us to the more unfiltered, denuded sound of his earlier [albums]. [Nov 2004, p.106]

It's sleek, groomed and genetically engineered to within an inch of sonic perfection, but there's very little that's memorable. [Nov 2004, p.120]

In short, it needs a rigorous editor. [Feb 2005, p.94]

Too eclectic for his own good, perhaps? [Sep 2005, p.100]

Without DFA tricknology to enliven their mix, they struggle with monotony over the course of an album. [Mar 2005, p.94]

Occasionally, the sunniness and repetition of the songs can be exhausting, despite the provocative semiotic games Gibb is playing. [Aug 2004, p.100]

It's the inclusion of [Disc 2] that makes this essential. [Dec 2004, p.140]

An experimental and melancholic set. [Dec 2004, p.157]

The band's trademark cracked songcraft... is here in spades. [Nov 2004, p.99]

For all their deft intricacies, they're somewhat characterless. [Dec 2004, p.140]

This is seriously literate stuff, and all the better for it. [Nov 2004, p.120]

A startling album of high-spirited pick'n'mix pop. [Nov 2004, p.122]

Rarely has an anachronism sounded so revolutionary. [Mar 2005, p.92]

All in all, an admirable comeback. [Nov 2004, p.108]

That gloriously stupid clod-hopping mash-up formula remains. [Nov 2004, p.99]

Often recalls 1992's Automatic For The People in its sobriety of purpose. [Nov 2004, p.100]

[An] intimate, woody collection of fractured folk. [Nov 2004, p.120]

Waits is still taking more risks than most US 'singer-songwriters' of his generation, and parts of this album rock righteously. It's just that some of Waits' musical modes... have been done before, and much better. By him. [Nov 2004, p.110]

It is definitely deserving of the cult status that it will inevitably earn. [Dec 2004, p.138]

The heart of The Lost Riots is drowned in bombast, and Sam Herlihy's vocals are nowhere near strong enough to compete with the melodramatic, if prosaic, arrangements they're pitted against. [Sep 2004, p.107]

At times thrilling and at times frustrating. [Feb 2005, p.83]

Revels in its own thudding nastiness but brings few new ideas to the table. [Dec 2004, p.138]

Weirdly affecting. [Dec 2004, p.151]

Much of the album lacks cohesion, and even seems lazy. [Nov 2004, p.109]

A unique and unlikely moment of retrieval, restoration and renaissance. [Nov 2004, p.98]

It's hard to believe there will be a better record than Last Exit released this year. [Jul 2004, p.102]

Grae cruises eloquently over booming, soul-sampling backdrops that recall Jay-Z's recent triumphs. [Dec 2004, p.150]

They've burrowed a slick, haughty electro-pop slot between Propaganda and [Gary] Numan. [Sep 2004, p.108]

A strong and lusty country-punk album placing him in Tom Waits or Neil Young territory. [Nov 2004, p.104]

Fans will be relieved to know that although it pulls few lyrical punches, slam-dancing is still possible. [Nov 2004, p.119]

A less full-tilt affair than their first effort... but no less fun. [Jul 2004, p.95]

A guilty, gleeful indulgence. [May 2004, p.93]

The superior [of the two albums]. [Dec 2004, p.142]

You're left wondering quite what point she's trying to make. [Nov 2004, p.122]

Its fizz fades fast. [Dec 2004, p.142]

Pristine production renders this as vital as anything by Justin Timberlake. [Oct 2004, p.104]

Only the urgent title song stands out amid nursery-rhyme emotions. [Jun 2005, p.110]

At times their lurid romanticism can be an acquired taste... But there's an ambition and articulacy here. [Mar 2005, p.104]

She's all suffocating style, no sweat. [Nov 2004, p.99]

It is music whose scope, erudition and vitriol makes everything else in this year of exceptional musical timidity seem puny. [Nov 2003, p.106]

It only reveals its strengths after a dozen or more plays. [Nov 2004, p.112]

It's terrific, lively fun--soulful, even--as long as nobody tries to tell you there's something radical about it. [Sep 2004, p.101]

As ambitious and compelling as psych-tinged pop gets. [Nov 2004, p.122]

Gena Olivier's pallid vocals sound frozen stiff rather than disaffectedly cool by the halfway stage. [Feb 2005, p.78]

The Libertines is a record of such raw autobiographical honesty that it carries a weight few others in 2004 can match. [Album of the Month, Sep 2004, p.94]

It's frequently lush and lovely. [Dec 2004, p.150]

The Radio Dept. recall that giddy moment before sounding like the Stones was considered revelatory. Only these Swedes re-tweak the formula, sounding, if anything, better than Ride, Slowdive, Lush, Boo Radleys et al. [Sep 2004, p.100]

Hones the Southern harmonies and guitar-pickin' crosstalk of the brothers Good. [Nov 2004, p.116]

The Mooney Suzuki are NYC's retro-homage to America's spandex pop-metal scene. [Sep 2004, p.98]

As a send-off... it's not quite the full parade. [Sep 2004, p.104]