The music is almost secondary, his production' often leaden beats a mere sideshow to mind-bending internal rhyme pyrotechnics that jab hard at the surreal dial. [Jan 2014, p.92]

It's a meandering but heartfelt collection. [Jan 2014, p.97]

[Painting] loses momentum. [Mar 2013, p.98]

A compelling, if sometimes unsettling, time capsule. [Apr 2013, p.106]

This, their literally titled second, is equally arresting [as their debut]. [Apr 2013, p.94]

The hydra-like mix of music genres which FaltyDL has previously taken direction from has been refined into deep burnt, highly charged, twisted electronic soul. [Feb 2013, p.91]

Of seven swing covers and duets, only the high camp title track with Rufus Wainwright sparkles. [Dec 2013, p.92]

A triptych of glitchy, dissonant beats, shards of white light and fractured, ambient interference. [Aug 2013, p.91]

Guitar thrashes, mystic excursions, slabs of heavy blues and silvers of electronica. [Sep 2013, p.90]

Drummer Ulysses Owens Jr displays the kind of tidy time and delirious brushwork you might have thought went out with Ed Thigpen, while McBride drives the whole with a mighty, old-school righteousness. [Dec 2013, p.87]

His offbeat personality and refusal to pound the toad most traveled mark out this wildly talented bearded savant as a potential game-changer. [Dec 2013, p.89]

His most impressive album yet. [Dec 2013, p.86]

Literate, thoughtful and rhythmic, and with Sullivan unveiling a rich baritone croon, Between Dog And Wolf marks something of a late-in-the-day career high. [Sep 2013, p.88]

It's an uneven but at times wonderfully eccentric mix of early-'80s synth-pop mores and a kind of post-industrial electro that wants to sound like Depeche Mode but then wants to get all nasty on you. [Dec 2013, p.98]

Within its luxuriance of old, within its dreamscapes Fitzgerald's often Kitchens-sink observations and harsh, bloke-from-Editors singing voice remain naggingly terrestrial, dragging the listener down to earth, when everything else is straining heavenwards. [Dec 2013, p.90]

The songs inside are equally well groomed, yet it is a shame that the singer--not generally a man to take the easiest path--hasn't frayed their edges a little more. [Dec 2013, p.85]

Their obsession remains with sounds rather than songs, with every digitised boom, click, and ping picked out in arresting detail. [Dec 2013, p.103]

At 16 tracks Bowler Hat Soup is possibly a little overlong but what is youth for if not indulging a wealth of ideas? [Dec 2013, p.87]

If Guthrie sometimes plods wearily, betweenwhiles you get a hot stew of the laconic anger and irony that inspired the Seeger-Dylan-Springsteen-Bragg-and-beyond heritage. [Dec 2013, p.101]

While not as revelatory as 1995's Live At The BBC, On Air is a very enjoyable collection. [Dec 2013, p.98]

No scrabbling for a shot at Wichita Lineman or Galveston this time out. [Dec 2013, p.88]

The brooding Last Night On Earth places Ranaldo in a seductively meditative setting. [Dec 2013, p.88]

Hersh still transmits a visionary quality through her songs, her writing only adding to the sense of compulsion. [Dec 2013, p.88]

For anybody already smitten by Bombino or Group Doueh, this is a drop of the hard stuff. [Dec 2013, p.87]

This sensational follow-up finds Glasper adhering to the same basic blueprint [as the first Black Radio], though this time he's tweaked it to perfection. [Dec 2013, p.86]

Shulamith proves that intelligent pop music still has the ability to seduce and enthrall. [Dec 2013, p.86]

A muted trumpet melody and wordless chorale drift through Siren Spectre's gorgeous intergalactic ambiance before space-disco juggernaut Responder tunes into the transcendental infinite--a glitter ball in one eye, the other on the cosmos. [Dec 2013, p.86]

What could have been a confused, trying-to-be-hip mish-mash is instead a re-playable collection of extremely strong songs, Paul's most interesting, varied and soul-baring in years. [Dec 2013, p.84]

Open's success lies in its final effect on the listener, an enveloping state of reassuring calm. [Dec 2013, p.84]

This time around, the radio programmers will be listening harder, but taken as a 68-minute whole, The Electric Lady is quite a trip. [Dec 2013, p.84]

The hammer-down moments are the most satisfying, with End Of Time, Death Machine and the frenetic Queen Of The Damned confirming you will not hear a louder, more defiant rock'n'roll album this year. [Dec 2013, p.84]

A stylistic serpentine of an album, it wiggles insouciantly from sugar-rush synthetic pop to harp-caressed ballad. [Dec 2013, p.88]

Guaranteed to make fans of the underground feel queasy. [Dec 2013, p.92]

Not exactly a collection of lullabies, this is still some of the most achingly beautiful music released yet under the Jesu name. [Dec 2013, p.89]

It's time for Cut Copy to free its own mind too. [Dec 2013, p.89]

It's another absorbing, sonically rich record, albeit one lacking a chunk of the charm that marked out its predecessor. [Dec 2013, p.89]

Even a rasping guest vocal by White Denim's James Petralli is unlikely to upset the clientele. [Dec 2013, p.92]

A close encounter with mortality via the deaths and serious illness of a number of friends and relative infuses the drunken beats, fractured samples and sweet-smelling melodies with a mood of melancholia. [Dec 2013, p.89]

Harsh but striking. [Dec 2013, p.92]

A set of seamless, lyrically concise songs that are as sweet and harmonic as their pairing suggests but also strangely stilted. [Dec 2013, p.92]

Overall, this is pretty near perfect. [Dec 2013, p.90]

Their third tribute set is exactingly detail-correct. [Dec 2013, p.90]

Juana Molina once again proves her ability to gently beguile with a warmth and ingenuity that reaches way past language and genre boundaries. [Dec 2013, p.87]

More mopey ballads and ad-ready pop songs. [Dec 2013, p.92]

There's a sense that such modishly retro melancholia might have had its moment, but given that a yearning for what's been lost shades Static so starkly, that notion can only enhance the mood. [Dec 2013, p.85]

A glossy finish leaves little to hang on to. [Dec 2013, p.92]

His arch whimsy is solidly underpinned by simpatico, full-band arrangements and his keen nose for an idiosyncratic tune. [Dec 2013, p.86]

It results in an intimate album shuddering in the blast of an icy onslaught of crisp, wintery piano. [Dec 2013, p.87]

A doldorous racket. [Dec 2013, p.86]

Caramel consists of weightless, non-danceable funk, drifting in from the edge of consciousness like a vaporised, enervated Scritti Politti. [Dec 2013, p.89]

The diversity and quality of his songwriting should be even harder to ignore on this second. [Dec 2013, p.84]

On Antiphon, Midlake sound like a band unburdened and read to fly. [Dec 2013, p.82]

One of the most characterful voices of recent times--one minute suggesting folk rock paradise, the next Macbeth. [Dec 2013, p.90]

These Wooden Shjips, however unchanging, even conservative, are becoming increasingly irresistible. [Nov 2013, p.86]

The latest set of back-porch ballads, junkshop country hymns and chiming indie rock--all born of his beloved Arizona desert. [Nov 2013, p.94]

With Kilo, Vainio returns to sub-bass layers and industrial scree to create a dark minimal techno with strange internal narrative. [May 2013, p.95]

This 20-song set delivers high octane versions of their greatest hits. [Nov 2013, p.85]

[The 50 outtakes] are not fore the casual listener.... The big find is the rambunctious Mardi Gras party-style I Shall Sing, a small 1974 hit for Art Garfunkel but never released by Morrison until now; Van unsurprisingly give the tune a more soulful treatment. [Nov 2013, p.98]

The Beta Band made some dazzling music throughout their seven-year lifespan. [Nov 2013, p.101]

The 28 masters perfectly preserve the fight-or-flight cortisone power and tired, forlorn grandeur of late period Elvis. But it's the 27 outtakes that truly startle. [Nov 2013, p.98]

Most of us missed the party 42 years ago, but now it's boxed for our infinite pleasure. [Nov 2013, p.99]

Albini's hardline technical/philosophical missive is the tastiest 'discovery' in this inevitable 20th anniversary box set--tastier, indeed than any of the unheard music. [Nov 2013, p.101]

Her rich, soulful vocal sounds wonderful on the darker material. [Oct 2013, p.98]

The Fratellis' third album is simple and uncomplicated. [Nov 2013, p.94]

As soulful and vital a British jazz record as there's been in a while. [Nov 2013, p.89]

Songs that initially resemble formless dirges, gradually reveal hidden depths, thanks to Desertshore's engaging backing and Kozelek's ever intriguing lyrics. [Nov 2013, p.84]

In surpassing her debut, Agnes Obel has confirmed hat she is in it for the long haul. [Nov 2013, p.86]

Currie ceding power to him [producer Mike McCarthy] has worked a treat. [Nov 2013, p.90]

Warble Womb offers those addled young whipper-snappers a timely masterclass in how to keep the right balance between relentlessness and variation. [Nov 2013, p.86]

A wonderfully mellifluous, atmospheric affair. [Nov 2013, p.94]

Spare bayou mirage score for Green's newie. [Nov 2013, p.94]

Stunning in parts. [Nov 2013, p.94]

There's a Prince influence, but little real passion. [Nov 2013, p.94]

Enjoyable, though less revelatory, Arcade Fire's Games Without Frontiers, Joseph Arthur's agonised Shock The Monkey and Lou Reed's Jokily grindscaping Solsbury Hill contrast with Paul Simon's restrained Biko. [Nov 2013, p.91]

A ferocious blast of distorted guitar riffs, skronking sax and explosive testifying. [Nov 2013, p.91]

Every one of its 15 tracks brings something new to the table. [Nov 2013, p.90]

What makes the album itself addictive is Isbell's fusing of gothic Memphis blues and Nashville tenderness. [Nov 2013, p.90]

Pop, but still an album for reflection. [Nov 2013, p.89]

For all their assiduous construction and heartfelt subject matter, Sheff's songs struggle to match the abundant hook-line quotient of his youthful influences and inspiration. [Nov 2013, p.88]

What it all means--if anything--is hard to take in, but the journey to finding out is utterly epic. [Nov 2013, p.85]

Here he marmelises the American songbook, 99c cut-out standards mutilated and reanimated by Delta blues magick. [Nov 2013, p.89]

A country album of slide guitar, sweet harmonies and heartworn ballads from a landscape on the edge of the unsayable, the kind of high lonesome petitions to the gods Syd Barrett might have made in his flat on the night pink Floyd never turned up.

This is the desert-blues album for fans of Can and Pink Floyd to sink their teeth into. [Nov 2013, p.91]

These are ingenious, affecting songs on a DIY recording budget. [Nov 2013, p.88]

Indubitably, worth the oxide it's been taped on. [Nov 2013, p.86]

Unreservedly recommended, but for the uninitiated and obsessives only. [Nov 2013, p.86]

If you can bear the canonical duplicates, the seldom played discs, and, above all, the cost, this is a box no John Martyn fan can do without. [Nov 2013, p.96]

sometimes the going gets a mite too easy, too laid back. But there are several memorable teamings. [Nov 2013, p.91]

There are perhaps too many guests, but this unassuming talisman clearly prefers sharing his space. [Nov 2013, p.84]

What, on the face of it, is an understated and straightforward folk fringe album, is actually, thanks to the guile of Flynn and long-time collaborator Adam Beach, an extremely clever and nuanced record. [Nov 2013, p.84]

At it's best Interiors is alien and magical.... thought, it can also slip into a rather inaccessible coolness too. [Nov 2013, p.107]

A masterful song cycle of raw confessionals, ghostly R&B and gritty stompers, all channelled via intense vocals that razor and soothe. [Nov 2013, p.94]

Like most of ET's work, it's worth the wait. [Nov 2013, p.90]

Double Exposure feels like his best yet. [Nov 2013, p.85]

A bold and encouraging modern pop debut. [Nov 2013, p.90]

You'll need to attune yourself to the unique musical argot that Lopatin has created on R Plus Seven, but once achieved an album of intrigue and beauty is revealed. [Nov 2013, p.89]

A deceptively simple soundworld of banal electronic tropes that gradually pulls you into blissful wormhole depths. [Nov 2013, p.94]

The trademark use of acoustic as a lead guitar still sounds refreshing, and Knights' sweet and salty vocal style is still full of vulnerable charisma. [Nov 2013, p.88]