The Empire Strikes First is at number five in Rolling Stones "Critics' Top Ten Lists 2004". Here's John D. Luerssens list.

JOHN D. LUERSSEN
1. U2, How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb (Interscope): It's official: U2 are, without a doubt, the biggest and best rock band in the world.
2. Ryan Adams, Love Is Hell (Lost Highway): The brilliant, brooding counterpart to 2003's Rock N Roll fuses two brilliant EPs to make one stellar long player.
3. Keane, Hopes and Fears (Interscope): Less like Coldplay than the hype would have you believe, but in some ways more magical.
4. Bad Religion, The Empire Strikes First (Epitaph): Probing questions and scorching riffs collide as Graffin and Gurewitz craft the punk album of the year.
5. Green Day, American Idiot (Reprise): An addictive, forceful and disillusioned masterpiece well worth a four-year wait. See you again in 2008, fellas.
6. Modest Mouse, Good News for People Who Love Bad News (Epic): Good news for people who always believed in a man named Isaac Brock.
7. Robyn Hitchcock, Spooked (Yep Roc): As inventive and peculiar as ever, Hitchcock teams with Gillian Welch and David Rawlings for what may be the warmest album of his twenty-five-year career.
8. The Killers, Hot Fuss (Island): As glittery as their Las Vegas home base and infectious as hell.
9. Uncut, Those Who Were Hung Hang Here (Paper Bag): Jagged riffs and hypnotic beats yield the album Interpol should have made.
10. Stereotypes, 2 (Earthling): Garage-punk fireworks and Aussie-like Rickenbacker pop collide with exhilarating results.
The Kinks The Village Green Preservation Society (Deluxe Expanded Edition) (Sanctuary): The Davies Brothers' finest-ever album gets expanded from fifteen to an epic sixty-two songs! Take that, London Calling.

Read all Rolling Stones critics lists here