Some awful lyrical lapses scupper otherwise promising pieces. [#223, p.51]

They're at their best on tracks like "Nothing Is Ever Lost[...]," where they conjure the wheeling claustrophobia of PiL circa Metal Box. [#223, p.66]

May be the year's most surprising pure pop pleasure--precisely because it's nothing like you'd expect a pop album to be. [#224, p.61]

An album of mostly pleasant contemporary pop. [#218, p.61]

Optometry is a success in terms of both sound and vision. [#221, p.53]

This is an archive of surprises. And one of the surprises of the year. [#220, p.50]

25 years down the line, Wire are still pulling off coups as daring and deadly as This Heat's debut. [#224, p.73]

Sonic Youth have made a joyful return to their No Wave hardcore rock roots with a vibrating set of muscular songs which glide effortlessly from Gooey power pop to full on guitarmageddon meltdown, skulled out psychedelia and beyond. [#220, p.53]

The emphasis now is on the delicate interplay between acousitc guitars, and vocals which sound somewhere between Jonathan Donahue and Syd Barrett. [#221, p.66]

Suavely assembled big band pop. [#220, p.66]

The sense of loss and longing becomes so physical at points that rather than respond, it's simpler to go with it until the ride ends in a drained silence. [#219, p.72]

Disturbing and delirious when it's not romantic and hilarious, the songs have a much more direct emotional appeal than the patently surrealistic Alice. [#219, p.72]

Like Urge Overkill or The Velvet Monkeys at their grossest, Trans Am's genre exercises don't stand up to close scrutiny, but as a dim soundtrack to your next beer bust, you might want to bring it on. [#220, p.66]

Much of it is subtly melancholic, like a Broadway medley received in a dream. [#218, p.71]

Yankee Hotel Foxtrot's faceless, airbrushed production takes you back to the dead days of 1970s AOR radio. [#220, p.66]

The moments of beauty caught fleetingly in the gaps between over-arranged blocks make for frustrated listening. [#218, p.64]

Sample heavy numbers like "No Secrets No Surprises" would have been standards of Coldcut mixes ten years ago. [#219, p.77]

Jocular and enjoyable to flip through, but the nagging feeling that leaks through is that this collection is little more than a respite for Giant Sand until Gelb returns from the bunker with enough fresh material to record a real new album. [#216, p.63]

Poorly sequenced instrumental epics and rap cuts leave Something Wicked sounding disjointed. [#217, p.56]

This isn't really the future of HipHop, but as a fleeting reverie on its conflicted present, it makes for a fantastic detour. [#217, p.55]

As Town And Country's move into mellow artists maturity, C'mon is an oasis of sensitive calm from our loutish world. [#217, p.61]

A record that urges you to lean closer to the speakers in order to fully hear everything that is being played and sung. [#216, p.63]

Of the 23 tracks, only four truly stand out. [#218, p.58]

There's an appealing openness and lack of guile to much of Sign. [#215, p.66]

A decent film soundtrack. [#219, p.74]

In isolation, no individual song is particularly memorable but together they add up to a musical vision you just can't ignore. [#215, p.52]

The new, mature De La means traditional pop over brash artistry, religion over irony, and conformity over the extraordinary. [#215, p.59]

A pleasurable collection of comfortably played, understated, slightly skewed songs with smart lyrics. [#214, p.52]