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]