Not enough of Drukqs confidently breaks new ground, and too often James falls back on the all too familiar dysfunctional jitterbeat which has typified Aphex output since 1996's Richard D James album. [#212, p.55]

Negotiate Steve Osborne's rather dated stadium Techno-rock production, and there's plenty to stimulate here... [#211, p.70]

Its infusion of HipHop drum programs, Old Skool electronics, rabblerousing calls-to-arms and repetitive guitar riffs is highly addictive. [#213, p.58]

Still sounds like the work of someone desperate to gain the approval of the Drag City clique. [#215, p.69]

Let It Come Down suffers just a little from Pierce's presumably healthier outlook. [#211, p.66]

At the heart of Rain On Lens, [Callahan] comes clean for the first time: Smog is subjective, not omnipotent. Hardly a psyche stripped bare, but at least it's a start. [#211, p.65]

There is a kind of exuberance you thought went out of fashion with The B-52s. [#211, p.66]

To expand simple love songs into extravagantly gilded showstoppers is to risk lapsing into bombast. But for all their love of musical saws and [Jonathan] Donahue's quavering voice, Mercury Rev are unashamedly grandiose, and their references may be too in thrall to the rock hegemony for some. [#210, p.60]

What's lacking on Date Of Birth, though, is any sort of excitement. [#212, p.75]

Consistently entertaining. [#215, p.69]

There's everything to like about this release, but nothing to grip or to enage the senses... Stereolab have now defined and refined themselves to a point where they are almost invisible. [#211, p.53]

In the end, Vespertine commits its magic by daring to go places more obvious and more human than one would have ever expected. [#210, p.52]

It's fair to say that not much new ground is broken here, but it's remarkable how endearing their blend of chugging underground pop and frail ragas still sounds. [#210, p.66]

Fans of Anderson's trademark spoken word phrasing, with pregnant pauses, raised eyebrows and question mark endings, won't be disappointed. [#211, p.52]

Finding Iggy as confused as ever, Beat 'Em up ranks alongside New Values and Blah, Blah, Blah as yet another missed opportunity. (#209, p.60)

Much of this fascinating, infuriating record is defined by his commingling of HipHop, Electro, dancehall, and, most problematically, stadium alt.rock... Some of it is just odd enough to work. [#209, p.62]

What's striking is that he's less wacky than he's ever been, instead pursuing a rougher, more complex sound. [#208, p.66]

They're both adept at the refined art of turning nothing new into something memorable. [#207, p.61]

Pleasant, yes, but not much more.... Too many of these 'songs' snap off at around the three or four minute mark, just as they start to get interesting.... It sounds consistently half-there. [#208, p.52]

Double Figure is as good as anything they have done. [#207, p.65]

However difficult is might appear on first hearing, his music is at once curiously involving and constantly inviting. [#209, p.59]

A thousand times more exciting in every way than most everything in the air at the moment.... Timbaland's production is frontier staking stuff... [#208, p.58]

Without the strength of material to prompt the question of whether Byrne should be taken at face value or not, the songs on Look Into The Eyeball simply glide by unobtrusively, and Byrne's romantic sentiments start to sound like Paul McCartney at his blandest. [#208, p.53]

Sadly much of Music Is A Hungry Ghost is marred by a pebbledash of clicks and glitches -- that already overused signifier of au courant production. [#207, p.87]

Granted, Flow's torrent of words is Thirlwell's familiar angsty blurt of near operatic proportions, but closer attention reveals his skill as an arranger, producer and rhythm sampler is now verging on the monumental. [#208, p.57]

A collection of slow, moody pieces whose unexceptional nature is made more frustrating by the occasional flashes of inspiration. [#206, p.77]

Bardo Pond's most focused work to date. Who knows whether the group would take that as a compliment? [#206, p.61]

Idiology refuses to cohere so completely that it plays out as part of Mouse On Mars's very approach; the duo hop from style to style, treating them like so many stepping stones to no destination in particular. [#206, p.72]