Despite the air of contemplation, there's plenty of energy. [Sep 2004, p.98]

Lyrically, it's riveting, tapping into a unique Southern storytelling tradition. [Nov 2004, p.118]

They've managed to retain everything that was oddly beguiling about them in the first place while boosting their mass appeal with a production that is all West Coast sleek and radio-friendly lustrous. [Feb 2005, p.80]

Terrifically thorough. [Nov 2004, p.131]

[A] disappointing move into bland, dinner-party-backdrop territory. [Nov 2004, p.106]

Thrashes to the classic American assembly-line rock of Springsteen and the choppy pop of early Nick Lowe/Joe Jackson. [June 2004, p.88]

A sleek and satisfying sixth album--their best since 1994's Snivilisation. [Jul 2004, p.110]

It's a departure from previous Lanegan solo LPs... This time, Lanegan is looser, open to both experimentation and, once more, full-on rock. [Sep 2004, p.96]

There's a commitment here to melody as much as left-field wrapping. [Nov 2004, p.105]

Carr's ambitions outrun his abilities. [Sep 2004, p.98]

Like Bread produced by The Neptunes. [Jul 2004, p.110]

For better or worse, this is love songs for grown-ups. [Aug 2004, p.94]

There are flashes of sublimity, but too often hideous flashbacks of Jethro Tull and ELO. [Jul 2004, p.102]

There's an effortless clip... that suggests renewed confidence. [Mar 2005, p.93]

Another bittersweet, finger-picked confection that shows their chemistry is still there. [Jul 2004, p.101]

Sincerity of intent is one thing. But they've got the music to back it up.... This is Scissor Sisters' first Greatest Hits collection. [Feb 2004, p.70]

This could be his masterwork. [Sep 2004, p.108]

This is sombre and beautiful music.... A Lifetime is satisfying as an encyclopaedia of Low, to be dipped into now and again. [Aug 2004, p.118]

The fastidiously rehearsed dementia is better sustained than on Your New Favourite Band. [Aug 2004, p.91]

Few of the colourful oddities that filled his debut remain, but there's still much melodic guile to admire--albeit increasingly difficult to love. [Sep 2004, p.96]

Retains the tweak and squidge of his experimental, post-techno wanderings, but it's meant for feet rather than head. [Sep 2004, p.98]

DeLaughter is stingier with his pop songs this time, filling out the album with much ponderous, quasi-symphonic ballast. [Aug 2004, p.94]

Mainly, this is brilliant pop music... though Beenie's insistence on asserting his celebrated heterosexuality can grate. [Sep 2004, p.101]

The bulk... is given over to rolling, near-baroque piano balladry. [Nov 2004, p.102]

The first six tracks or so of Stone Love are as good a soundtrack to summer as you're likely to get this year... Thereafter it's an interminable sea of coma-inducing ballads. [Sep 2004, p.104]

This is a thrilling album, one that contains an extremity of sound and emotion that's unlikely to be matched by anyone else this year. [Album of the Month, Aug 2004, p.90]

Whereas the fucked-up, punk attitude [Ryan] Adams feigned on Rock'n'Roll was based on little more than pique, The Heat is all genuine passion, brimming with energy, anger and great tunes sandwiched between the dense guitars. [Jul 2004, p.114]

The best thing to come out of Sweden for a while... apart from porn. [Jul 2004, p.95]

A Ghost Is Born feels like a band learning to be spontaneous and unencumbered, and coming up with their most engaging album yet. [Album of the Month, Jul 2004, p.94]

All tasteful minimalism and soft lighting, this is more Vangelis than adventurous. [Sep 2004, p.108]

At times songs pass by too easily. [Sep 2004, p.104]

Weird, wonderful and life-affirmingly wise. [Aug 2004, p.96]

A valuable addition to his catalogue: the most consistent and sympathetically constructed solo album he's made. [Jul 2004, p.96]

A classic of modern psychedelia. [Jun 2005, p.113]

The music is strikingly minimal throughout, the emphasis is firmly on The Word and the Beastie Boys have plenty left to say. [Jul 2004, p.108]

Great by Smith's standards. Practically genius by everybody else's. [Feb 2004, p.74]

Puts welcome top-spin on a genre fixated on Suicide by reviving Devo, adding the glamour and flamboyance of The New York Dolls, Ziggy-era Bowie and Roxy Music, then whipping the lot along with the Glitter Band's ludicrous stomp. [Jul 2004, p.112]

Modish but strangely clinical. [Aug 2004, p.94]

Fall[s] somewhere between Talk Talk and the Bunnymen. [Sep 2004, p.98]

The Youth sound rejuvenated. [Jul 2004, p.108]

Moments of menacingly forlorn Velvet Undergound-meets-Hank Williams beauty. [Aug 2004, p.98]

You could praise individual moments... but it's the overall weave, the daydreamy drift, that impresses. A 40-minute swoon of a record. [Jul 2004, p.112]

Carried off with an impressive theatricality. [Jul 2005, p.104]

Crisp, tight and fluid. [Aug 2004, p.92]

With its smoothing of rough edges, it's likely this record will split opinion, but there's much to admire for those--like its creator--willing to burrow. [May 2004, p.107]

A big, baroque fusion of sharp garage, paisley pop and '70s sleekness, finished with a coating of Terry Jacks sentiment. [Jul 2004, p.104]

It's hard to deny the emotional weight and beauty of Polly's personal, if comparatively uncommercial, sixth album. [Jul 2004, p.108]

At times it's almost unbearably candid, an unflinching examination of his devotion both to homestead and to God. [Jul 2004, p.112]

Not that there isn't music on Russian Doll that's as lovely as any he's made, but it's brought crashing down to earth by deeply average singer Siobhan de Mare. [Jun 2004, p.86]

It's exuberant dorkiness, as well as fluidity of playing, that makes !!! stand out. [Jul 2004, p.106]

Channels a palpable love of early Fall... and Daydream Nation-period Sonic Youth... into a convincing half-hour that teeters, teasingly, on the brink of collapse. [Jul 2004, p.102]

This is certainly the pair's most immediate record. It's also their least appealing. [Jun 2004, p.91]

Rarely has contrived weirdness sounded so utterly bewitching. [Jun 2004, p.85]

The sort of herky, jerky new wave Molly Ringwald might have bopped to in The Breakfast Club. [Jun 2004, p.95]

Pretty, but pretty vacant. [Aug 2004, p.102]

This is the sound of dashboard-tapping, local radio MOR. [Apr 2004, p.108]

Luddites still unconvinced that digital technology is capable of emotional expression should make this their first stop on the road to enlightenment. [May 2004, p.103]

A wearyingly one-dimensional 45 minutes. [May 2003, p.89]

The Fever are shaping up as America's Franz Ferdinand, taking their cues from Buzzcocks and Wire. [Mar 2005, p.100]

Ultimately, it's that out-of-time devotion--along with soaring choruses to put most contemporaries to shame--which makes this a debut record to cherish. [May 2004, p.104]

Solid song structure replaces ambient abstraction... ranges across Latino jazz, stadium rock, soul and pastoral glitch. [Jun 2004, p.86]

The chamber-pop arrangements make pretentiously snarled lyrics slip down smoothly. [Oct 2005, p.108]

Hayden's nagging melodies and deadpan delivery occupy their own peculiar kingdom. [Sep 2004, p.102]

Deeply average. [Apr 2004, p.91]

It's like John Bonham playing with Can, or Floyd-meet-Spiritualized with a barely repressed pop consciousness. [Jul 2004, p.95]

Tracks such as "Where Ya Going?" and "Chicken Out"... make them sound like Southport's answer to ZZ Top. But there's plenty more going on that doesn't involve such dumbing-down. [Jul 2004, p.107]

An essential listen for anyone interested in where music might take them. [Jun 2004, p.86]

Flares dazzlingly on initial contact, but dims a little. [Jun 2004, p.92]

[An] effervescent, sun-dappled debut. [Aug 2005, p.103]

A curate's egg of tested pop styles.... Though hardly the album-length E-rush of career peak Tellin' Stories, this approach still offers small gems. [Jul 2004, p.101]

A curiously uninvolving affair. [Jun 2004, p.95]

Moments of startling beauty emerge from the fuzz-drenched experiments. [Sep 2005, p.112]

Banhart's free-flowing oddness makes most musical eccentrics seem self-conscious and predictable. [Jun 2004, p.90]

OnOffOn has an incredibly dense, thick sound, and it sags a little in the middle, but Miller can still write terrifically belligerent pop songs. [Jun 2004, p.96]

The best record he's made since 1996's Casanova, it's one of those rare instances when an artist retraces their steps and successfully locates what made them interesting in the first place. [May 2004, p.102]

A slightly disappointing attempt to hammer their quirks into a more commercial rock shape. [May 2004, p.99]

When Trampin' doesn't work, though, it plods, though never as badly as the worst bits of Gung Ho. [May 2004, p.94]

Another relaxed but enigmatic foray into modernist roots territory to stand alongside records by Gillian Welch, Laura Veirs, Sparklehorse and Bonnie "Prince" Billy. [Jun 2004, p.98]

It's Krall's voice that has always been her biggest problem... consequently, these songs feel like elegant but bloodless conceits. [Jun 2004, p.85]

Understated and underestimated. [Nov 2004, p.113]

White's willfully basic approach is what gives Van Lear Rose its freshness.... If you thought Rick Rubin's Johnny Cash reinvention was impressive, wait 'til you grab a fistful of this. [Album of the Month, June 2004, p.84]

Might be a primer for his various selves, so redolent are individual tracks of previous songs. [Jun 2004, p.92]

Another truly wondrous record. [May 2004, p.99]

A triumph of sample-based, groove-cutting rap that shifts ground with every attempt to pin it down. [May 2004, p.106]

Intoxicating. [Mar 2004, p.87]

Despite its DIY origins and almost hallucinatory feel, this is a peach of a pop record. [Apr 2004, p.108]

[A] promising, flawed debut. [Apr 2004, p.110]

Documents a continuing decline. [May 2004, p.93]

The whole thing tingles: you're in the presence of diamond-hard greatness. [Nov 2004, p.110]

There are some pleasantly elaborate, wayward songs here... Forays into funk and Tom Waits' scrapyard are cringe-inducing, though. [Sep 2004, p.110]

A rare treasure indeed. [Aug 2004, p.101]

A remarkable return. [Oct 2003, p.130]

If the piano melodies lapse into sameness, Russo sprinkles John Barry and Carpenters motifs on top to keep it trembling. [Feb 2005, p.74]

He doesn't have that doomed, hellhound-on-my-trail intensity that makes Johnson's recordings so spooky. But, at 58, he sounds like a man who has faced down more than a few canine devils of his own. [Apr 2004, p.102]

Gorgeously warm, forlorn and wounded. [Mar 2004, p.95]

It works, mainly: though one or two songs could benefit from the old viciousness, these are seductive confections. [Apr 2004, p.104]

As ever with Reed, when it's good, it's blistering. [Apr 2004, p.104]

Fly Or Die has more in common with 10cc and XTC than it does Common.... Prog-pop album of the year. [Jun 2004, p.91]