All that is good in hip hop is here. [Jul 2003, p.111]

Something of a let-down. [May 2003, p.98]

Beth Ditto's remarkable gospel holler and fervent anti-sexist agenda deserves--no, demands--to be heard by a much bigger audience. [Aug 2003, p.106]

The best album McCulloch's had a hand in since 1984's Ocean Rain. [May 2003, p.96]

It's the freshest, most exciting and far-reaching left-field album in years. [Jun 2003, p.102]

Doesn't quite make it into the Thompson solo Top 10.... But it's good to have him back. [Mar 2003, p.102]

His twittering creations... use hip hop as their base but defy all attempts at categorisation and recall artists as diverse as Keith Jarrett, DoseOne and Smog. [Jun 2003, p.104]

There's nothing profound about Electric Version. But classic pop has seldom sounded so much fun. [Jun 2003, p.98]

An endlessly fascinating maze of sound.... This decade's Endtroducing..., possibly. [Jun 2003, p.98]

I doubt there'll be many better albums released this year. [Jun 2003, p.98]

Gibb's mixture of gay and Christian imagery is potent, and his vision of music as a grand communal experience is backed up by some memorable tunes. [Apr 2003, p.112]

The sharpest, most imaginative and downright listenable album of Blur's career to date.... A grown-up alt.rock album of breathtaking potency and invention. [Album of the Month, June 2003, p.90]

Gore's brittle choirboy voice lacks the depth and grandeur of Gahan's, but he still gamely takes on some adventurous choices. [Jun 2003, p.108]

Fever To Tell is, quite simply, magnificent.... This is as revitalising a debut as could be hoped for. [May 2003, p.92]

Send is pure gristle, a vicious statement of musical intent. [Jul 2003, p.129]

It's almost disturbingly accomplished. [Jul 2002, p.103]

Packed with big, epic pop. [Jun 2003, p.102]

There are a handful of stunning instrumentals, but the revelations here are Lanois' singing and songwriting. [May 2003, p.102]

Though attempts at Amy Rigby territory ring hollow, a couple of country weepies bear redemptive powers. [May 2003, p.102]

Skewed hip hop soundscapes with hints of slinky R&B that could even be described as DJ-friendly. [Jul 2003, p.124]

Musically more diverse, and lyrically as vulnerable as it is vitriolic. [Jun 2003, p.91]

While Baby I'm Bored is way too modest to be a masterpiece, it's far more than a join-the-dots account of a life on the rocks, and grows brighter, and more optimistic, with every play. [Apr 2003, p.102]

It wouldn't be wildly inappropriate to identify American Life as an early 21st-century update of Love's Forever Changes, effecting as it does a similarly eerie ambivalence with its fusion of mind-altering sonics and mellow acoustics. [Jun 2003, p.94]

He name-drops so many famous folks he's obviously banking on his connections. [Sep 2003, p.97]

She still refuses to knock up any memorable tunes, but arthouse divas thus obsessed with ghosts and personal (if ill-described) demons are always fascinating. [Jun 2003, p.109]

It's an abrasive sound. [Aug 2003, p.99]

Tusk this isn't, but Tusk it doesn't need to be. In an age of off-the-shelf LInda Perry pop, the Mac keep the mainstream interesting. [May 2003, p.98]

By the time we reach "Surripere" we could be listening to a toughened-up Aphex Twin, poignant harmonies battling against oblique but splintering beats. [May 2003, p.92]

Based around some laughably accurate and truly entertaining pastiches of artists including Bjork, Bowie and the Pixies, the rest of the album is pure filler. [Aug 2003, p.100]

It's all acoustic guitars, rich jangling melodies and heavenly harmonies. [May 2003, p.102]

Adult. deserve respect if only for making an almost overwhelmingly vicious album that succeeds on its own unreasonable terms. [May 2003, p.102]

Draws heavily on such masters of six-string cinematics as The Church, The Jesus & Mary Chain and Spacemen 3. [Apr 2003, p.121]

From the edge of the sea, back to the fringes of sleep, Summer Sun is uncommonly lovely. [May 2003, p.104]

It's the most extraordinary smorgasbord of styles, moods, modes, a far more daring, jolting record than 2001's Essence. [Album of the Month, May 2003, p.88]

Both adventurous and accessible, a record in love with the obliterating power of sound. [Apr 2003, p.120]

Laced with enough blue-eyed longing to make the most diehard Gram Parsons fan weep with wonder and the sort of verbal acuity that would give even Dylanologists pause for thought, Elephant is where the tabloid phenomenon of summer 2001 prove they are no flash in the pan by making a truly phenomenal record. [May 2003, p.94]

The duo's liking for repetitive Royal Trux-style riffage forms the core of their debut but they frequently explore more sparse territories. [Apr 2003, p.110]

Electro-guru Jim Abbiss... can't salvage much from the band's often tedious three-chord bustlings or Molko's lamely repetitious lyrics. [May 2003, p.90]

The album doesn't just bludgeon. There is an attention to detail, an appreciation of dynamics at work. [May 2003, p.108]

A fierce, defiant record. [Apr 2003, p.108]

His obvious poetic and melodic gifts have seldom sounded so compelling. [May 2003, p.108]

It's melodically sharper... occupying Stereolab's old ground with a surprising commercial edge. [May 2003, p.106]

Signals a striking reawakening for a too often overlooked talent. [May 2003, p.96]

Sadly, nothing on Meteora comes close to the piano-laced pathos of previous hit "In The End." [Jun 2003, p.110]

The Remote Part is Idlewild Mark II--sleeker, bolder, better. [Oct 2002, p.107]

At his best he sounds spontaneous, fresh and unexpected. Yet at other times his quirky ideas can sound half-baked and his songs undeveloped. [May 2003, p.102]

Not for the faint-hearted, Damien Jurado is a habit which won't necessarily bring joy to the listener. But once acquired, you will find it hard to kick. [Apr 2003, p.106]

The second solo album still sounds like a wilful jukebox stocked on the disparate taste of someone attempting vinyl hari-kari. [Apr 2003, p.116]

It's their dirty, lowdown rock pastiches that truly score.... A bona fide blast of ageless, pretension-free rock'n'roll. [Mar 2003, p.98]

Her country warble may be a little too trad. honey for eclectic tastes. [May 2003, p.91]

Their love batteries have all but corroded and instead we've hangovers and metropolitan psychosis over the kind of guttural guitars you'd expect from their bastard American offspring. [May 2003, p.89]

This is one glorious murk. [May 2003, p.91]

Poppily uplifting, Us is an album with drowning depths. [Apr 2003, p.114]

Antenna compresses the formula further, fetching up crisp, anthemic crunch-rock several notches above the inexplicably popular likes of Bush or Papa Roach. [May 2003, p.96]

Another masterclass in deft guitar picking, smudged with piano, harmonica and a voice like honey drizzled onto a dry creekbed. [Jun 2003, p.93]

Seems an innocuous exercise in regurgitation rather than innovation. [Dec 2002, p.131]

Is so patently wrong in so many ways that it exhibits a peculiar strain of genius. [Jun 2003, p.92]

It's hard to think of a UK R&B album that sounds as formidably ready for the world as A Little Deeper. [Jul 2002, p.114]

The tentative pop entryism evident on albums like 1999's Knock Knock is largely absent here; instead we have his gruff baritone take us through an increasingly uninteresting outlook on love and life. [May 2003, p.108]

He has gone for the full trip hop/psych-rock concept album--a major hazard given such previous near-missees as UNKLE's Psyence Fiction--but it's not at all bad. [Apr 2003, p.118]

His most purposeful work in some time. [Jun 2003, p.94]

Brings to the surface all of the volatility and emotional charge that was inherent in their work. [Apr 2003, p.104]

Make the most of these subtly funked-up arrangements with their horns and clarinets and bebop percussion. [Jun 2003, p.104]

Where in the past he has often impressed rather than engaged us, here there's an emotional warmth that makes it by some distance the best record he's ever made. [Apr 2003, p.110]

It's the originals that resonate, contrasting with a featherweight cover of Townes van Zandt's "Waiting Around To Die." [Mar 2003, p.97]

His idiosyncratic rhyming style can grate without the leavening presence of other rappers. [Apr 2003, p.116]

For Barlow stalwarts only. [Mar 2003, p.100]

Its 10 minimalist songs mine a vein of laconic broodiness. [Apr 2003, p.110]

Feyness is a constant threat, but Mitchell's British debut generally tiptoes clear of whimsy, mixing up the guitar loops, squitting beats and genteel vocal angst in a way which becomes insidious. [Apr 2003, p.105]

The music is purposeful and powerful. [Jul 2003, p.114]

Foul-mouthed, egocentric rhymes and nondescript beats. [Jun 2003, p.91]

The sound of a major talent gone major league. [Apr 2003, p.105]

As with the best bedroom punk records, the bloody-knuckled passion and immediacy of these 13 rapid songs transcends any cavils about sound quality. [Oct 2003, p.130]

It's amazing they're still so punk, so relentlessly jagged and vicious. [Apr 2003, p.110]

This is a very odd album. [Apr 2003, p.103]

An eclectic, often crazed debut album.... They have all the hallmarks of an excellent, innovative band that won't be undone by their own hype. [Sep 2002, p.105]

Mancunian hipsters will shudder in disbelief. [July 2002, p.101]

The closest Wilco parallel to this sunshine pop is probably the Summerteeth album. [Apr 2003, p.108]

The album's polished sheen and lack of emotional focus may disappoint electro-trash devotees accustomed to low-rent sleaze and punky rawness. [Jun 2002, p.118]

The results are as charming as they are accessible. [Feb 2003, p.86]

Neon Golden often comes on like a radical update of New Order's Lowlife period, where mournful guitar songs are integrated into a mesh of clicks, pops, glitches and samples. [Mar 2003, p.96]

At times he tries too hard, but there's much here to commend. [Nov 2002, p.114]

Though it flags towards the end, The Music is, for the most part, a shot in the arm. [Oct 2002, p.110]

Provides a gentle but subtle introduction to the sometimes onerous world of avant-techno. [Apr 2003, p.122]

A sustained soft explosion of hushed, aching indietronica. [June 2003, p.91]

Oddly absorbing and surprisingly cohesive. [Apr 2003, p.120]

Mood-wise it's their bleakest yet. [Mar 2003, p.112]

A resounding success. [Jun 2003, p.92]

Another treasure. [Mar 2003, p.95]

Their music is an intoxicatingly vivid evocation of the mythology of the American west and its Hispanic heritage, and Feast Of Wire lays down an optimistically early marker as one of the albums of the year. [Mar 2003, p.98]

It helps that these 10 primitive songs are excellent, and that The Datsuns attack them with such vehemently anti-ironic gusto. [Nov 2002, p.118]

Sparse yet graceful, these 14 songs of love and loss interpret wispy folk and slow-burning country via brittle, lo-fi angularity. [Mar 2003, p.100]

There's real poeticised emoting here. [May 2003, p.108]

Takes a few listens to become accustomed to. [Mar 2003, p.104]

The band achieve an impressive impact with a wide dynamic range. [Jun 2003, p.109]

Rustic, rowdy, bags of fun, Life On Other Planets is another Supergrass masterpiece. [Nov 2002, p.118]

This is his conscious attempt to inject a sense of urgency probably not heard on a Bad Seeds album since 1994's Let Love In. [Mar 2003, p.96]

[An] unapologetic throwback to straight-assed songs about guns, girls and drugs. [May 2003, p.109]