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]

Plaintive desert rock and gilded chamber pop with heart and poise. [Nov 2002, p.122]

Most rewarding are the serene "Something to Shout About" and the cascading "Down On The Corner": respectively, the No 1 smash Electronic should have had and the massive hit a reformed Smiths still could. [Mar 2003, p.95]

The group allows O'Rourke to indulge his songwriter instincts and Tweedy to exert an often-suppressed experimental imperative. [Feb 2003, p.82]

Favours artifice over aptitude. [Apr 2003, p.122]

The results are risible but the joke is no longer funny. [Feb 2003, p.77]

The results sound as if Corgan plundered a few moves from Dave Grohl, since the songs keep one boot in heavy metal but mostly get straight to the point while piling on the hooks and harmonies. [Mar 2003, p.95]

All albums are vanity projects, but this vanity may be in vain. [Feb 2003, p.76]

In just over 35 minutes, the Bonnie Prince's mastery of form, blend of gentle awe and trembling sweetness are distilled to their essence. [Album of the Month, Feb 2003, p.74]

It all sounds like The Beta Band swapping confrontation for contentment. [Apr 2002, p.93]

The Fine Art of Self Destruction is one of those amazing records that appear seemingly out of nowhere... that within a couple of plays sound already like something you've been listening to for years. [Album of the Month, Dec 2002, p.128]

Slow-shifting movements and droning textures show McCombs choosing familiarity over fresh adventures. [Feb 2003, p.75]

A worthy West Coast counterpart to El-P's superb Fantastic Damage. [Apr 2003, p.108]

The Delgados have made a fine follow-up to 2000's The Great Eastern. Problem is, it's the same album, more or less. [Nov 2002, p.115]

It's very fine, glowing with an oblique, poppy sensibility that's theirs alone. [Jan 2003, p.127]

A stew of funk noir and mashed-up rhythms--a little too mashed-up at times. [Dec 2002, p.130]

Less obviously 'loops and samples' oriented than their previous work, Can You See The Music? neatly navigates an electronic/organic interface. [Feb 2003, p.82]

Illumination is already being described by the Weller massive as the best solo album of his career. You'll hear few arguments with that from this corner. [Oct 2002, p.118]

This is mostly a sombre affair. [Mar 2003, p.106]

To be filed alongside the Root's recent Phrenology. [Mar 2003, p.95]

With its innocently poignant synth melodies and fragile guitar arpeggios, You Win Again Gravity is redolent of the flashes of true beauty that the style's original practitioners sought back in the glory days. [Dec 2002, p.151]

Evil Heat doesn't exactly break new ground and often amounts to, strictly speaking, little more than pastiche. [Aug 2002, p.104]

As unoriginal as his previous five, yet still entertaining. [Mar 2003, p.106]

He treads a line between loving monogamy and club bangers, emphasising accessibility throughout. [Jan 2003, p.128]

Thankfully, Phrenology is more therapy than quack science. [Feb 2003, p.86]

This time around, Grammy-bagging mixer Tchad Blake has replace T-Bone Burnett as producer and brought added intimacy without sacrificing dreamy magnetism. [Sep 2002, p.103]

Although brass and strings add muscle, a certain monotony creeps in towards the end. And there aren't enough strong tunes from the least melodically facile Beatle. [Dec 2002, p.134]

Less startling than its predecessor Ft Lake, but it's still a brave departure for a 4AD band previously synonymous with ethereal whimsy. [Nov 2002, p.118]

As powerfully evocative as a French arthouse flick. [Sep 2002, p.116]

The arrangements... are ambitious and richly textured, producing work that rewards repeated listening. [Jan 2003, p.117]

A rockabilly Jesus And Mary Chain. [Mar 2003, p.114]

A brilliant fusion of no-wave disco, dub-punk, early Factory aesthetics and post-rock technique. [Dec 2002, p.134]

What a treat to discover another album that samples Toto's "Africa." [Feb 2003, p.75]

It's lyrically potent stuff. [Feb 2003, p.76]

Audioslave is weighed down by Cornell's po-faced bellow, and it goes on 20 minutes too long. [Feb 203, p.79]

Thomas' lyrics are too frequently overwraught. [Mar 2003, p.98]

An album that, on first listen, glides by doing nothing wrong. Second time around, you realise that, more accurately, it's doing everything right, and you're spellbound. [Jun 2003, p.92]

A couple of songs could do with more melody and less of Mike McCready's spidery guitar breaks. [Dec 2002, p.132]

Collins... sounds dated with his glossy production, precision session-playing and radio-friendly songs all done by numbers with a great big hole where a heart should be. [Dec 2002, p.129]

When she's raised the stakes so high, anything less than the reinvention of music comes as a disappointment. [Jan 2003, p.122]

We've heard too much of this before. [Jan 2003, p.119]

The four tracks involving [Lopes] are superb.... Elsewhere, they audibly struggle. [Jan 2003, p.119]

Occup[ies] the same sonic territory as The Dandy Warhols' underrated Come Down. [Aug 2003, p.108]

A dozen vivid and deeply personal songs.... Gray has made a record that anybody who cares about great songwriting should hear. [Dec 2002, p.130]

Her best record yet. [Jun 2002, p.107]

May be the most consistent of the four albums to date. [Jan 2003, p.122]

Arguably, not since early Costello has a British solo artist combined such bare-arsed soulfulness with such corrosively perceptive humour. Quite something. [Album of the Month, Nov 2002, p.112]

Incompetent satire. [Apr 2003, p.106]

Much of the album is like 1980 revisited and updated. [Jan 2003, p.115]

Uplifting but ultimately lightweight. [Dec 2002, p.132]

Innovations are few.... Still, when these nocturnes, crescendos and intimations of apocalypse remain so musically rich and emotionally powerful, it seems churlish to demand more. [Dec 2002, p.130]

The music here is intimate yet remote. [Dec 2002, p.140]

This is audaciously modern in its textural absorption of outre sounds from the 21st-century dance underground. [Dec 2002, p.136]

A frighteningly powerful record. [Jan 2003, p.124]

Despite the lacerating electro-glam of "Total All Out Water" and "Sheez Minie," it's melodic as hell. [Nov 2002, p.121]

One of Amos' most deeply felt, spiritually astute and finest albums. [Dec 2002, p.138]

Finally finding a palatable singing voice, too, the musical acuity shown here still places him very much in front of guitar-hero peers like John Squire and Bernard Butler. [Dec 2002, p.129]

The guests are more intriguing than the material. [Dec 2002, p.152]

Saint Etienne's most far-reaching album since Fox Base Alpha. [Nov 2002, p.124]

The arrangements are banal, but the tunes are exquisite, and his voice, more worn now, is recorded intimately. [Dec 2002, p.148]

He sounds like a man lost amid his own vast record collection. [June 2003, p.109]

The joyous hooks and choruses remain, but they're tempered by a welcome moodiness. [Dec 2002, p.129]