Giraffe hums with the kind of lush, emotive pop New Order were making circa Power, Corruption and Lies. [Mar 2003, p.94]

Amazing. [Mar 2003, p.92]

Hi-Fi are catchier this time around, continuing to trip through their songs with the joy of a teenager who just learned the chord change from "Smells Like Teen Spirit." [Apr 2003, p.72]

Comatose-inducing. [Mar 2003, p.94]

Shimmeringly beautiful and richly unpredictable. [Mar 2003, p.92]

The project is pretty perfect, really.... Give Up ultimately becomes a beautiful lesson in how to dance life's pain away. [Mar 2003, p.100]

Recalls the band's earliest days. [Apr 2003, p.74]

This is Calexico at their finest. [March 2003, p.86]

It's category-defying: raw and cooked, muscular and cerebral, shifting gears in seconds flat. [Apr 2003, p.70]

Musically, it doesn't seem like Chan has gone anywhere. [March 2003, p.88]

Packs enough bite to nourish a Third World country. [Mar 2003, p.96]

It's a magnificent accomplishment, the sound of one long night spent waiting for someone, but never being certain if you want them to arrive. [Apr 2003, p.87]

Far from essential, but... a good jazz starting point for the unitiated. [Mar 2003, p.90]

Finds the fearless foursome cruising right along with the same carefree glee that made us pay attention in the first place. [March 2003, p.100]

White it's Oye's endearing melancholy that holds Unrest together, the Human League synth sounds are what give the disc its quietly indulgent charm. [Feb 2003, p.72]

This journey to Nocturama's not to be missed. [March 2003, p.88]

On Hearts, riffs exist in cutting words and soulful guitar lines, not glittery axe solos; and every intricately timed punch to the throat is mastery. [Feb 2003, p.64]

Unfortunately, as with many Verve albums, Bar's dreamy tempos and strung-out riffs, while fragile and beautiful, start to fade into a middling mess of sameness around the middle of the disc. [March 2003, p.98]

The problem: Semi-masked in the Healers, he's short an originality chromosone. [Feb 2003, p.70]

It's hardly the pop album the liner notes indicate, but it's sweetly spellbinding, slouching toward another corner of the underground. [Mar 2003, p.92]

Nears indie-pop perfection. [Feb 2003, p.70]

The result is aural perfection. [Feb 2003, p.68]

Sinister and atmospheric, the band have raised the intensity since their last release. [March 2003, p.86]

Peter Gabriel's "Solsbury Hill" loosens up into a glittery anthem, while the Righteous Brothers' "You've Lost That Lovin' Feeling" should have stayed a karaoke favorite. [March 2003, p.94]

A welcome return to form in which [Corgan] plays rock music not out of obligation, but out of celebration. [March 2003, p.83]

While at times a bit plodding, Sunshine's dizzying musical excursions become more exquisite with each listen. [Dec 2002, p.74]

Sounds like a good Wallflowers record. [Mar 2003, p.98]

Sole's willingness to bust lyrical caps in the asses of the left as well as the right make him a fairly revolutionary revolutionary--one whose musical journal keeping, for all its excesses, is worth deciphering. [Apr 2003, p.85]