For those who only know Amy Ray as an Indigo Girl, or as a socially active label owner will find this record a snarling, beautiful surprise.

In some sense, it is true that any of these new songs could fit comfortably among his earlier works. Yet now there is an even more polished grace to the undertakings, as if age and experience have refined and further honed what already was smooth.

The album marks the high point of an amazing band's amazing career.

A whole lot of fun to listen to.... Anna is one of this year's best records.

Gutterflower will undoubtedly take the Goo Goo Dolls to greater success, and deservedly so, such is it's quality and consistency.

13 tracks which magically blend heavenly guitar weavings with penetrating melodies.

On Red Devil Dawn, Crooked Fingers have made huge strides towards becoming one of the most fascinating bands in some time.

A sense of humor is definitely required, as is an appreciation for everything rockin'.

The Sadies' best album yet.

Last Exit, while being one of the year's most cutting-edge releases, is, most importantly, a warm, friendly, entirely accessible pop album.

A new pop classic...

If Shake the Sheets lacks the subtle, nuanced excursions of its predecessor, it's redeemed by an urgent, unrelenting focus.

The best album the Beasties have put out since Paul's Boutique.

Every aspect of the project is an improvement on the last.

Pearl Jam has made some of the most vital music of its career.

He and his producers have constructed a monument to this New New New South. And you don't really have to believe in it in order to appreciate what a great record this is.

A defining moment for the band.

Pure, unadulterated aural pleasure.

Welcome Interstate Managers is the welcome aural equivalent of a great collection of short stories, each song offering a little snippet from a life, and presenting a range of characters to fill this musical spectrum.

Whether or not Songs for the Deaf manages to break through to the ever-fickle TRL crowd remains to be seen; those people with the patience to sit through this remarkable album a few times, though, will know the score.

Thompson is more comfortable than ever with his musical abilities and songwriting craft, and you hear the experience and the confidence on every track.

As foolish as it seems to say that any music is 100 percent new, I've never heard anything like this before.

Like any worthy match, the coming together gives each aspect assets that they'd be wont to find otherwise, the eletroclashy bursting with depth and the indie-croon thankfully adrenalized.

A masterwork filled with heavy violins, silky woodwinds, a driving soprano sax, a haunting bass guitar, and expert melding of jazz and rock, with Latin beats and bluesy overtones.

Her albums have matured exponentially with every release, and with Blacklisted, an album that will get your blood pumping and give you goosebumps at the same time, Neko Case emerges as a true original.

A tougher, funkier, and downright rocking album.... M!ssundaztood deserves to be the pop album of the year.

Lyricist [Eric] Johnson's faculties for observation are what turn sonic pleasantries into vehicles of magic and myth.

Surpassing the merits of Lost Souls, one of the best albums of 2000, is no mean feat, but to do it in such breath-taking fashion is something else, something special.

A nineteen track salvo of glorious musical mayhem.

Unreasonable Behaviour is far from an easy listen. While Garnier is usually highly accessible, here he deviates in favor of a record much more tempestuous, menacing and genre-pushing -- all of which, though foreboding, is wholly more gratifying.

The lyrics might not make much sense, and there's nothing groundbreaking here, but with songs as ridiculously catchy and fun as these, who cares?

A record that handily bests anything that they've put out in the last 15 years, and can stand head and shoulders against their best efforts of the '80s.

Mixing the grit that was The Stooges with the bounce that was Gang of Four, Liars and their debut release are everything that should be praised about Brooklyn's music scene.

Cellar Door challenges its listeners emotionally and intellectually, without ever feeling pretentious.

Quite how or where the new album fits into the contemporary music landscape isn't clear, but what's recognizable and of import is that somewhat out of time, Basement Jaxx have produced their best sustained effort so far.

This album should solidify them among Americana's best.

Apropa't pulses with sensual rhythms, lush harmonies, and ethereal forms that weave together to create a truly amazing aural experience.

There simply isn't another singer working in pop music now that holds a candle to Jones.

The album fully delivers on the crackling promise of "Mad World" with an accomplished set of hard-won folk-rock.

Has a playful, at times otherworldly style which brings to mind children's fairy tales.

Smart, unpretentious, and classy all the way through.

It's truly great stuff. The future is, apparently, now.

With Cobblestone Runway, he proves once again he's one of the best songwriters out there, and easily the best Canadian songwriter working today.

Taken as a whole, Old Ramon is a brilliant mopey stroll through San Francisco's slate gray streets.

The Optimist LP is a treasure chest of sparkly baubles and rare gems, and from top to bottom it is precious and priceless.

By the time she comes up with "Old Tin Tray", you are aware of two things. One is that this is a year-end top 10 album, and two, that she is getting better with age.

Simply, one of the year's best.

Simultaneously adventurous, beautiful, and full of depth.

Elliot, in 2003, is better than they have ever been, period.

This record seems to outweigh the previous album in terms of quality and depth.

The Soul Position album is even more appealing than the Deadringer "Final Frontier" single, as topics and production are pushed beyond what seems to be the visible limits of hip-hop.

Ghosts of the Great Highway represents an expansive, continent-traversing narrative that evokes the literary style of John Steinbeck and the vivid imagery of everyday American life captured in the watercolors of Edward Hopper.

This is going to be on a lot of year-end lists.

Rings Around the World might be stylistically all over the place, and some people may think it sounds like Super Furry Animals are desperately trying to show the world how clever they are, but it's so much fun to listen to, that it hardly matters. It's a near-perfect album, and we all should be thankful there are bands out there willing to throw everything they've got into a record just to see what happens.

As ambitious as anything in recent pop music memory.... One of the most invigorating and arresting works of her career.

While his lyrics are both timely and powerful, the album's power lies as much in the superbly crafted grooves and songs, which are the best Franti has delivered yet.

The Private Press is a more diverse collection of styles and sounds, and still surpasses anything else out there.

A gorgeous, (let me say it again) gorgeous album that totally stands on its own.... About a Boy is one of the best albums of the year.

A sexy record, of a kind that no one else seems to be making anymore.

An album of assured breadth, filled with a renewed self-confidence.

The seamless combination of the genres makes the album stunning.

This is pure unadulterated fun, masterfully executed.

Rich in heart-rending beauty, tough-but-lovable gutter poetry, and plenty of genuine emotion.

Sure, Starsailor may be part of bloated hype-fest, but it's important to remember that sometimes things get hyped because they deserve it.

It is the best of what Ashcroft does best: thoughtful incantations teeming with emotion, clarity, and vision.

Phenology is stunning, ranking right up there with the best hip-hop music of today.

Time will tell, but Black Foliage has all the marks of a major pop masterpiece -- brilliant tunes, innovative arrangements, clever lyrics, a thoroughly adventurous spirit, and a musical depth that always reveals something new on repeated listenings.

For all its gonzo, crackpot gestures, Source Tags & Codes is a remarkably coherent work. It stands as the most melodically-inclined album in their catalogue and boasts their strongest songwriting to date.

Far from being a one-note repetition of life in the Big City, Malin's production has turned The Heat into a multifaceted rock and roll onslaught.

Mountain Goats have just added a further chapter in an ongoing saga of (micro) relationships examined against a backdrop of (macro) global concern, We Shall All Be Healed being the most explicit yet.

It is a masterful effort, taking the most memorable elements of their past work and alchemically changing it to something completely new but no less great for the difference.

As strong as anything Sermon's done.

Yamagata's voice is one of those rare gifts, a vocal quality that is instantly recognizable and distinctive, yet somehow classic, with an incredible range that covers both the sensual lows and the tender, melancholy highs.

Since We Last Spoke continually subverts expectations of what an Rjd2 album is about, yet the songs all stick together in a cohesive way, and the album still somehow bears the distinct personality stamp of the RJ we already knew, even as some of it diverges wildly from the path he's been on so far.

This is another great Low record: weighty and airy, compelling and quiet, eminently beautiful.

Like their fellow New York area bands The Strokes and The Walkmen, The Yeah Yeah Yeahs have crafted yet another accomplished first album, but theirs is the best-produced and the most promising of the bunch, and the band shows that they're not only ready to transcend all the hype that's been building up; they've already started.

A powerfully emotional and poignant album that reclaims the American spiritual from the depths of the irrelevant past and rewrites it for the post-modern age.

This is a work that blends a preoccupation with both the maudlin and mundane with the musical sensibility of the Factory Records collection.

The 16 songs that appear on Rejoicing in the Hands, are so striking in their sound and so original, that no producer could've have imagined them. If anything, they affirm Devendra Banhart as one of the most unique musical talents to emerge in quite some time.

Elephunk drops non-stop hook and hump, an album with almost no missteps and more than its share of undeniable, thumping joy.

Parachutes was impressive, but Coldplay's new album, A Rush of Blood to the Head, is stunning, the amount of growth from Album One to Album Two equally so.

From sparse DIY fragments to string-enhanced ballads and well-wrought pop, the material on Isolation Drills is as diverse as it is consistently compelling.

Universal Truths and Cycles is not only Guided By Voices strongest record in some time, it is also the best rock record this year.

The best album of Björk's career

Rush has emerged with more edge and energy than some bands can even dream of.

A charming, witty pastiche of mashed up samples, beats, bangs, and bobs.... Truly a breakthrough in the world of dance music.

The new Idiology takes the acoustic experiments of Niun Niggung even further, and it's this combination of electronic and "traditional" music -- melding keyboards and synthesizers with french horns and guitars and trumpets into a seamless whole -- that points the way through the dead-ends of most electronica.

*The* hook-saturated, dance-rock record of 2002.... A near-perfect hybrid of perpetual rhythm, flow and hooks.

The painstaking arrangements, dynamic shifts and tempo changes of Dear Catastrophe Waitress equal or surpass the chamber-pop perfection of the group's earlier work.

Review #1: <A HREF="http://popmatters.com/music/reviews/g/graejean-thisweek.shtml" TARGET="_blank">Rock solid, thought-provoking, entertaining and frequently wonderful.</A> [score=90]; Review #2: <A HREF="http://popmatters.com/music/reviews/g/graejean-thisweek2.shtml" TARGET="_blank">Exceptional.</A> [score=90]

Strummer's best solo effort and one of the best rock records of the year.

There's so much more musical depth on Room on Fire, that it makes most of the band's earlier songs sound stale in comparison.

Might be one of the most original albums you'll ever hear.

Italian Platinum isn't as thoroughly pitch-perfect as Lifestyle, but the albums share similar peaks.

Tom Waits has never made an album quite like Alice before.

The album is saved from clich&#233; and pretension by its combination of a fascinating story with restrained and consistently inventive musical backing.

Certainly the most absorbing rock album of 2002, if not the best.

An incredible album from a band that continues to redefine its boundaries.