These pop dirges are comforting until they get preachy about sins and healing. [Jan 2005, p.91]

Without French accents or anime babes, this kind of thing just feels incomplete. [Jul 2004, p.110]

It’s like a vacation slide show in which vivid memories turn hazy.

First Impressions may not be the best Strokes album, but damn if it doesn't feel like the last. [Jan 2006, p.88]

A snappier comeback than 1998's Foundation. [Sep 2004, p.120]

This is a low-spark affair. [Nov 2004, p.112]

A little rockier, a little slower, and a little less transporting. [Jul 2003, p.110]

But if the rote button-pushing gets bleak, the beats and battle rhymes are state-of-the-art. [Jun 2004, p.103]

If this album had been released five years ago, it would've been a blast. Today, it's the same new same old. [Nov 2003, p.117]

Kings dial their usual bellow and wallow routine way down, while mustering just enough passion for the album’s occasional rock setpieces: “Hesitation Gen” and “Seen” are their most effective rippers in several albums.

It's hard to know if Madden's complaints seem so tame because the band's music is less zippy, or whether he's just taking the easiest path to the teen masses. [Nov 2004, p.109]

Their gutsy spirit, while not "soul" exactly, does allow the band to dodge flippant dismissals of poseurhood. [Jan 2005, p.90]

[Lee is a] maturing craftsman. [Mar 2005, p.92]

Finds these mysterious lads already advancing into their suave Roxy Music phase. [May 2005, p.102]

Kraut-rock drones run together into one long, thudding hum. [Mar 2006, p.95]

The frail bodyslams on the band's debut album throb and stagger as if throbbing and staggering were against the grain. [Feb 2006, p.88]

Makes like the spawn of Hole and Hatebreed. [Sep 2004, p.120]

Unfortunately, many of the underdeveloped rockers and plaintive ballads here are dance-floor-clearing duds. [Nov 2003, p.111]

The Heat pay homage to punky Midwest weirdos from Devo to Brainiac over grimy fuzz bass. [May 2003, p.116]

This time around he's tryin' too hard to be everything to everybody. [Apr 2005, p.97]

When the hooks fall off, his lone-gunman purging becomes more tiring than cathartic. [Dec 2003, p.128]

There's more muscle in their moping this time around. [Apr 2003, p.107]

Fiction is less nervous than its predecessors but emotionally knottier. [May 2005, p.103]

At times, it's as if he's looking over Rivers Cuomo's shoulder during a chem exam. [Jul 2003, p.110]

[He] veers awkwardly into slickly arranged, radio-friendly verse-chorus-verse. [Sep 2005, p.109]

Idlewild are compelling when they put Woomble's sad-sack lyrics front and center, but on aggressively average rockers like "You Held The World In Your Arms" and "Century After Century," the band's turgid squall swamps his words. [Jun 2003, p.103]

Like your favorite dive bar, it feels uncomfortably familiar. [Feb 2006, p.87]

Everything is underwritten or overwrought. [Feb 2004, p.104]

A suite of faux-folkie electro that fuses the introspection of Ray of Light with Music's fast-food dance licks. [Jun 2003, p.99]

Amid the so-so modern rock is one of his most sublimely sincere songs, "(Shine Your) Light Love Hope." [Aug 2005, p.103]

80 minutes of dank, chopped-up percussion and blitzed hard-drive scree. [Apr 2004, p.94]

Sounds like the morning after, confused and calm all at once. [Jan 2005, p.100]

A hectic sonic pileup. [Dec 2003, p.130]

A relaxed, even graceful affair. [Dec 2003, p.123]

On the more stripped-down songs, though, Conley's keen intuition pokes through. [Jan 2004, p.102]

Funky like Fred Schneider and Barney Fife killin' it at karaoke. [Sep 2003, p.115]

With its surges and dips, Confessions mimics the rising/falling action of, say, a DJ set, a hit of Ecstasy, or Madonna's own career. [Dec 2005, p.106]

There are a few lulls in which the band seems to be capably but perfunctorily going through the motions. (Raspy cheerleader vocals; cheeky rhythms; chunky, anthemic guitars—we get it!) But they’re outnumbered by the more inspired stuff.

For all its sonic sizzle, Prodigy's fourth album feels frustrated. [Oct 2004, p.113]

Without much dissonance or funk in the mix, this falls just short of butter. [Mar 2004, p.96]

If only this Baltimore art-rap exhibitionist were as consistently funny as his album titles. [Jan 2004, p.100]

It's like being trapped in the dressing room at Express for an hour. [Apr 2006, p.91]

Producer Mick Jones does his best to juice up these almost-songs. [Jan 2006, p.91]

Behind all the ridonkulous disses and boasts, Missy sounds a bit unsure of herself. [Jul 2005, p.97]