Some of it sounds like coffee-shop background fodder. [Apr 2006, p.96]

A dozen remarkable tracks. [Feb 2006, p.78]

There's more here for Oldham fans than Tortoise fanciers. [Feb 2006, p.76]

As ever: endlessly clever, utterly inessential. [Feb 2006, p.81]

It's all far more familiar than might be expected. [Nov 2005, p.111]

The most intense record of Cash's career. [Feb 2006, p.68]

[The Gossip] have evolved a blend of rough and impassioned garage-soul that owes as much to Tina Turner, Peggy Lee and The Ronettes as it does to Sonic Youth and The White Stripes. [Mar 2006, p.96]

A dreary debut. [Feb 2006, p.74]

This mass-market music deserves more than a minority audience. [Feb 2006, p.75]

A turbid affiar. [Nov 2006, p.114]

The ambition's hampered by Julian Casablancas' sad-sack singing. [Feb 2006, p.68]

Nope, this is not easy listening, yet he's never made a more beautiful album. [Jan 2006, p.108]

Foxx... is trying too hard. [May 2006, p.114]

If the reheated Odelay-isms of last year's Guero felt like a tactical move in the wake of the soul-bearing torment of Sea Change, Guerolito has an equally hollow ring. [Feb 2006, p.86]

Korn are too lumpen to handle 'sophisticated.' [Jan 2006, p.102]

This is fizzy, superficial pop by a band convinced they're making classic rock. [Dec 2005, p.114]

At first it's too Linda Perry; soft-rock with feminist principles. [Mar 2006, p.96]

Restlessly inventive, Hot Chip also manage what many bedroom eclectics don't: crafting a genuinely organic, proper album, and the relaxed enthusiasm that drives this debut is absurdly infectious. [Jun 2004, p.94]

In many ways [it] seems in thrall to its predecessor. As a study in System Of A Down's multifarious strengths and occasional weaknesses, however, it's indispensable. [Jan 2006, p.110]

As an oasis of calm in a world of noise and chaos, it's easy to understand her appeal. [Jan 2006, p.114]

The trio only really let loose on their sprawling, wailing cover of Jonathan Richman's "Don't Let Your Youth Go To Waste." [Feb 2006, p.86]

It's a majestic transformation. [Dec 2005, p.102]

Such a heady, high-octane swirl that, perversely enough, you often forget you're listening to a Madonna record. [Dec 2005, p.102]

Although Father Divine ultimately feels more like a sketchbook than a coherent work, Ladd's doodles contain more fertile ideas than most artists' finished albums. [Mar 2006, p.91]

In this live setting, fascinatingly, the brutality to which the songs are subjected only serves to underscore their poignancy. [Dec 2005, p.100]

With Oberst's frail and quavering but steel-lined voice high in the mix, it clarifies how exceptional his lyrics are, and what exactly they're about. [Jan 2006, p.104]

Gira's Angels side... loses its way in bluster and dirge. The Akron tracks, however, are a revelation. [Dec 2005, p.109]

A madly ambitious, darkly despondent and goofily exuberant grand folly of a record. [Album of the Month, Dec 2005, p.98]