It's hard to fight the feeling this is average songwriting buffed into something near-palatable by the amount of money spent on it. [Apr 2004, p.101]

Humanely crafted, with a warmth unusual in the avant-garde. [Jun 2004, p.96]

Everything they do is infused with an undeniable, albeit sometimes unfathomable, psychedelic spirit. [Mar 2004, p.92]

The instrumental palette is more wide-ranging in a subtler, more subversive manner. [Apr 2004, p.96]

Stevens' strumming often has an unworldly quality that transcends folk archetypes. [Apr 2004, p.92]

Deerhoof's skittish collages always, miraculously, have a pop logic to them, and their desire to show that experimental music can be playful rather than forbidding is often heroic. [Jul 2004, p.102]

As wilfully indulgent as it is breathtakingly advanced. [Apr 2004, p.101]

NIO seem more intent on gazing at shoes than stars. [Apr 2004, p.92]

Where on 2001's Lack of Communication their cranked-up Stoogeisms were adorably desperate, here they're glibly glamorous, energised by a Pixies-like concision. [Mar 2004, p.87]

What's most frightening is that, mighty as Desperate Youth... is, their real stone killer is probably yet to come. [Jul 2004, p.100]

An acquired taste. [Jan 2005, p.124]

Think swoonsome pop at its most non-cynical but with a left-field twist. [Aug 2004, p.98]

For all the influences, their voice is uniquely, gently mad. [Mar 2004, p.88]

Liars' aim is to challenge the listener with their gruelling strangeness. [Apr 2004, p.101]

Casts them as confident modern classicists. [Dec 2003, p.126]

Arguably slight at first, it rewards repeat listening as its seductive, heartfelt stories unfurl. [Mar 2004, p.90]

Tough, funky and proud, she sounds like she could have been the new Aretha. [Feb 2004, p.87]

Full of surprising songs with some cracking tunes that step far outside the punk-funk-grunge-metal formula of the Chili Peppers. [Mar 2004, p.99]

The combination of tinkling pianos, gutsy strum and homespun wisdom places this very much in the middle of the road. [Apr 2004, p.92]

Delivered via rolling, thunderous rhythms--part Can, part Black Sabbath--moody synths and mournfully melodic guitar, using the slow-build-to-explosion method. [Apr 2004, p.91]

Yoshimi's ebullience is inescapable on Kila Kila Kila, from the gymnastic drumming to her ecstatic, Bjorkesian yelps. [Apr 2004, p.106]

Draws intelligently on its sources, revealing itself as more than mere pastiche. [Nov 2004, p.108]

In ditching the band ethic, they've tapped into the finest folk gothic traditions of death, suffering, misery and hardship and fashioned a paradoxically uplifting, transformative record of extraordinary power. [Album of the Month, Jul 2003, p.110]

It's a calmer, less ambitious album than 2001's All This Sounds Gas, but no less beguiling. [Mar 2004, p.92]

Wagner has achieved a fusion of the outgoing, string-driven country-soul heard on 2000's Nixon... and the reluctant intimacy of 2002's low-key Is A Woman. [combined review of both discs; Feb 2004, p. 68]

It's not hard to work out that these two albums really do function as a double, and certainly represent the group's most complete work to date. [combined review of both discs; Feb 2004, p. 68]

A functional selection of unspectacular power pop with the odd pastoral bit. [Mar 2004, p.102]

Yes, it's an unchallenging and even deeply conservative record. But its class is positively aristocratic. [Mar 2004, p.99]

Think Randy Newman crooned in a voice like Peggy Lee and delivered with the panache of Rufus Wainwright. [Sep 2004, p.96]

A darker and dramatically more cohesive collection than its predecessor. [Sep 2003, p.108]

America's Sweetheart is petulant and self-pitying. Worse, it's self-righteous. Worse still, it's musically crass. [Mar 2004, p.98]

West's rhymes are wry, witty, warm and unswervingly self-aware. [May 2004, p.106]

The Church are, against the odds, still a dreamily appealing proposition. [Mar 2004, p.100]

Flutter[s] between commune jazz, zen folk and straightforward hippy rock. [Apr 2004, p.106]

The minimalist grooves grow ever tighter. [Feb 2004, p.71]

Despite--or perhaps because of--its viscous air of paranoia, this record is unputdownable. [Mar 2004, p.100]

Sodden with emotional profundity. [May 2004, p.104]

Addresses the stained beauty of all things LA via psychedelic washes of keys, honking sax and country stomp. [May 2004, p.100]

As good a record, in fact, as anything this gifted polymath has ever released. [Feb 2004, p.82]

Their most convincing, most composerly music to date. [Feb 2004, p.69]

Impressively pretentious, and brilliantly executed. [Dec 2003, p.126]

This run would undoubtedly be shown to greater effect on a more succinct collection. [Feb 2004, p.86]

It's human where Radiohead are impenetrable, but complex where Coldplay are banal.... Elbow remain unquantifiably great. [Sep 2003, p.100]

Falls into an identikit pattern of string-laden sentiment. [Oct 2003, p.120]

The band's most organic-sounding record since 1996's Emperor Tomato Ketchup. [Mar 2004, p.90]

Little more than a bunch of B-sides in search of a point. [Mar 2004, p.87]

Theirs is a maniacal mish-mash of seemingly incompatible musical styles--Krautrock, psychedelia, no-wave, prog, synth-pop, '70s stoner rock and punk--wrought from a deeply felt, genre-leaping love of challenge. [Feb 2004, p.80]

They remain funny, fly and fit for the future. [May 2004, p.104]

A free and forward-thinking kind of record, but also one that taps into forgotten, mythic resonances of American music without ever sounding ersatz, hokey or remotely contrived. [Mar 2004, p.92]

As background listening, this sounds like high-class Enya, but listen harder and dense textures and nuances lie beneath the surface. [Feb 2004, p.78]

Paradoxically, its spare, solo-voice-and-guitar format... comes closer to matching DiFranco's charismatic live performances than prior band-driven efforts. [Mar 2004, p.87]

Revitalising indie-pop. [Feb 2004, p.78]

The best rapper this country's ever produced, period.... Next to Dizzee Rascal everybody looks pale, uninteresting and irrelevant. [Sep 2003, p.98]

It's less a Kelis venture than it is a showcase for the various producers Virgin could afford. [Feb 2004, p.72]

A rare and fascinating glimpse into the raw stuff of the creative process. [Jan 2004, p.103]

It's a less daring enterprise overall. [May 2004, p.106]

If she's going to make us read her diary entries, she's going to need something more compelling than this litany of cliche and hackneyed need-a-man Bridget Jones-wailing. [Feb 2004, p.72]

If she began coasting on 2002's Under Construction, here pop's most innovative black female is on repeat mode. [Feb 2004, p.72]

It's not amazing... but it's great. [Jan 2004, p.106]

At a time when all things punky or funky with an NY zip code are the peak of chic, Talking Heads ought to be lauded as authentic pioneers. [Jan 2004, p.118]

It's not exactly transformed into a classic... but the new Let It Be is punchy, full of presence and powerfully involving. [Dec 2003, p.136]

A pale retread of Get Rich... fashioned by lesser talents. [Feb 2004, p.69]

Intelligent and addictive. [Nov 2003, p.110]

There are clever couplets and wry winks, but the melancholy is authentic. [Jan 2004, p.112]

The fact this collection of originals is inferior to 2001's Ultraglide In Black (a covers album) reveals [Mick Collins'] songwriting has never matched his energy. [Nov 2003, p.118]

An utterly gloomungous affair with barely a crack of light piercing the lowering clouds of misery. [Jan 2004, p.116]

A record where mature contemplation and a relative flexibility triumph over despondency and formula. [Mar 2004, p.94]

Perhaps the most inappropriately-titled album since The Best Of Sting. [Dec 2003, p.116]

Sure, it flags here and there, but Skull Ring is Iggy's most sustained assault since the Instinct/Brick By Brick double whammy. [Nov 2003, p.118]

A formidable demonstration of what can still be done with guitars. [Jan 2004, p.114]

This is the best childhood summer holiday you ever had, condensed into 45 minutes of delicately arranged, beautifully performed, big, bright, cheery music. [Jul 2003, p.118]

[Casablancas'] remarkable performance enlivens even the album's most underwhelming passages. [Nov 2003, p.108]

Over-the-top histrionics are nicely downplayed by the lo-fi indie faction. [Dec 2003, p.124]

So wild and stripped-down it makes The White Stripes sound like Yes. [Jan 2004, p.102]

A truly exhilarating 50 minutes of music. [Dec 2003, p.122]

Spookily smooth. [Dec 2003, p.122]

A beautiful record. [Mar 2003, p.100]

Much of Suicaine Gratifaction sounded like it had been written in a mood of morose introspection, but Come Feel Me Tremble is brazenly exclamatory. [Jan 2004, p.102]

Streetcore negotiates a resolution between the ethnocentric beats that hallmarked the two previous Mescaleros albums and the classic Clash sound that remained pivotal to Joe's live performances. [Nov 2003, p.110]

The schizophrenic tone changes recall the experimentation of Deerhoof, yet the overall sound is as natural as The Flaming Lips. [Jan 2005, p.132]

A record which transcends any scene's fleeting credibility. [Oct 2003, p.122]

You don't expect progression from such evident classicists, but there's a new clarity, poise and refinement. [Apr 2004, p.107]

At once punchy and overwrought, and blessed with some extremely good, if slightly monotonous, tunes. [Nov 2003, p.120]

The tunes, for all their airiness, just won't stick. [Nov 2003, p.107]

A sensual, sumptuous overload. [Jan 2004, p.116]

This is mostly acoustic guitars lovingly plucked, drums delicately brushed, fiddles softly sawn. [Oct 2003, p.113]

Mostly, familiarly sombre patterns of piano and string quartet dominate this lovely album. [Dec 2003, p.118]

A beautiful record. [Nov 2003, p.122]

It's saved from twee tedium by Campbell's sumptuous orchestrartions and sly wit. [Dec 2003, p.115]

A tangy taster for their album proper in 2004. [Dec 2003, p.126]

Inarguably easy on the ear, but short on real emotional pull. [Nov 2003, p.118]

By far the strongest collection of songs the band have ever assembled. [Nov 2003, p.114]

Her best in two decades. [Dec 2003, p.120]

Quietly devastating. [Dec 2002, p.131]

It's like Belle & Sebastian slopping sorbet with early Jonathan Richman. [Feb 2004, p.82]

An efficient if fairly joyless hybrid of the Stones, AC/DC and Oasis. [Nov 2003, p.109]

This is a record of rare beauty and poise. [Nov 2003, p.107]

The greatest interest lies in the lyrics--intriguing, charming, highly insightful and sometimes violently confessional, often on a par with the very best of Elliott Smith. [Dec 2003, p.118]