These quiet, stripped-down songs are so narcotically enticing that when an occasional burst of moderate-volume guitar noise pops up unexpectedly, the effect is excruciating, like wires burning in the brain. [#52, p.102]

Little short of brilliant. [#52, p.79]

Often, there's a subtle, troubled uncercurrent that pulls the cheer back when it threatens to turn saccharine. [#52, p.103]

It isn't very clear what the Rev is trying to get across, if anything at all. But it's a lovely listen all the same. [#51, p.100]

The Convincer gives Lowe yet another gold star with which to pad that resume. [#51, p.99]

The Hartnolls sound more relaxed and at ease than they did on their last album. [#51, p.105]

In spite of its shortcomings, there's something fascinating about this saccharine new Butthole brew.... Like driving by a head-on collision late at night, it's almost impossible to avert your eyes. [#51, p.88]

It's a Wonderful Life raises the bar already set high by fellow post-modern woodsmen types like Grandaddy and Mercury Rev. [#51, p.116]

I don't know which Stereolab album is more nauseating: Sound-Dust or the last one. [#51, p.118]

A wonderful album, with Coomes and Weiss at their very best. [#51, p.107]

Life On A String also reveals the tedious aspects of Anderson's muse. [#51, p.82]

Welch and longtime partner David Rawlings weave a spellbinding mix of desperation and salvation across this album's 10 tracks. [#52, p.111]

Unlike its predecessor's quirky pop stance, Hot Shots is defiantly, mindbendingly progadelic -- suitable for controlled-substance consumption galore. [#51, p.85]

Martsch and Co. have dipped their bucket deep into the well of pop's past to create a recombinant, joyous sound that has few modern equals. [#51, p.87]

Each soft, slow hymn to the darkness makes the band's beauty more pronounced. [#51, p.102]

In the face of today's painfully formulaic R&B/hip hop, they come off as the most soulful act on the planet. [#51, p.123]

The one-man band does pretty well for himself in finding a place for his songs between sonic textures. [#51, p.117]

This secret society's sonic output is nothing short of sheer musical buggery, a hip-hop twilight realm where Dr. Octagon performs transplant surgery on Mellow Gold with the cast of Scooby Doo in the gallery. [#50, p.89]

Eno brings interesting and complex rhythmic counterpoints to his 3-a.m. atmospherics.... It all sounds so very sleepy in the end, and quite numbing, in a most uncomfortable way. [#51, p.92]

While there's certainly nothing on Poses so riveting as to signify a rock revolution, there's something to be said for the virtue of a simple crooner operating at the top of his game. [#51, p.122]

Sexsmith doesn't succumb to a single false move or note. [#51, p.112]

Wow, is Beyond Good And Evil bad. Thudding, empty albums about nothing, held together with some of the worst guitar solos since late-'80s Lou Reed. [#51, p.90]

The Bunnymen haven't sounded this vital since 1987's "Lips Like Sugar," and some of Flowers' standout cuts rank among the band's best. [#50, p.87]

Eitzel is a far cry from Dido, but he still manages to find a proving ground where his nicotine-stained fingerpicking and tales of emotional erosion can make an uneasy peace with the precision of the Portishead crowd. [#50, p.90]

By no means a radical album; challenging as it may be, it's a natural extension of earlier work rather than a sudden departure from it. [#51, p.105]

It's four-on-the-floor disco that thumps its way through this polyphonic orchestral funk like a bully. [#51, p.92]

This is a decidedly more rocking Placebo. [#50, p.102]

A massively significant step forward.... Rock Action is so monumentally magisterial, it approaches near heretical status: the post-post-rock era's Sgt. Pet Sounds' Lonely Hearts Club Band.