It's the very essence of being "unplugged" as Chilton--laughing, joking, fluffing lines, forgetting verses and whistling choruses--breaks down all barriers between musician and fan. [Nov 2013, p.102]

An engaging, rewarding whole [that] speaks volumes about the breadth of both of his imagination and compositional agility. [Nov 2013, p.86]

In total, the rejuvenated, rockier Numan's finest hour. [Nov 2013, p.86]

With echoes of caribou, Chemical Brothers and Underworld also fluttering in the mix, Avery's is a compelling, club-friendly debut with crossover appeal to the headphone set. [Nov 2013, p.89]

Moderate in everything but length, Big Wheel And Others seems to go on forever. Again not in a good way. [Nov 2013, p.84]

Despite the lulls, the resistance to ending songs, Reflektor lets Arcade Fire shed expectations along with a skin, an act of rejuvenation few at their level manage with conviction. [Nov 2013, p.82]

The softer tracks find the group negotiating their path to maturity with confidence.

At 70, he's still as intense and dangerous as all hell. [Oct 2013, p.95]

Over 24 songs they constantly tremble on the brink of collapse yet they also manage to turn in such laser-guided songs as You Can Stay But You Gotta Go and Double Deuce. [Oct 2013, p.96]

Mills' slightest work by some distance, The Fifth is evolution in reverse. [Oct 2013, p.88]

After eight years, EWF are right back in the groove. [Oct 2013, p.98]

Vivid flamenco guitar burnishes a confessional Scots brogue. A beauty. [Oct 2013, p.98]

This trance-inducing seven-piece evoke arcane loci, spirits and serpents. [Oct 2013, p.98]

It's chugging, stoner rock riff solace to those bored by the cod therapy of Some Kind Of Monster. [Oct 2013, p.98]

Polished mid-paced throbbers, alive with feedback, thumping drums and troubled lyrics. [Oct 2013, p.98]

Bare acoustic tracks with fuller band on upbeat tunes all sung in pleasing, husky tones. [Oct 2013, p.98]

Album number 11 twitches with the same darkly neurotic pop as 2009's Destroyed. [Oct 2013, p.98]

Much of Days Are Gone packs bubblegum snare, toe-stubbing synth bass, and contemporised '80s pop trappings that evoke everything from Scritti Politti's Cupid & Psyche 85 to Laura Brannigan's Self Control. [Oct 2013, p.95]

Not a bad song on the album. [Oct 2013, p.96]

Troubadour delivers deeply rewarding pop from its stylistic risks eerily familiar at moments, but ever its own marvellous thing. [Oct 2013, p.96]

For the time being Palms are holding fast to a distinctly high-flying trajectory. [Oct 2013, p.90]

The continuing resemblance of their lyrics to motivational speeches may still grate on non-fans. [Oct 2013, p.88]

When ghost-dub closer bathed In Grey plumbs its valedictory depths and suggests a young Matt Johnson, the loose-but-precise whole seems starkly impressive. [Oct 2013, p.87]

Sometimes great, often enchanting, and always disarmingly self-aware portrait of a doomed and wounded hero. [Oct 2013, p.87]

It's in a familiar lineage [of meditative alt-rock]--shoegaze, Sigur Ros--but very much at the quality end of the spectrum. [Oct 2013, p.87]

Land Is Hell is alive with 21st century energy. [Oct 2013, p.96]

A poetic, typically untethered set within bouzouki pecks and mellotron complement Roy's latest voyage into open-tuned land. [Oct 2013, p.90]

Confronted by performances like this, you just have to lay down your critical apparatus and surrender to the spell. [Oct 2013, p.100]

It'll be a bit much for the casual fan with no need for all those stereo/mono variations, but they do have at least a couple dozen other best-ofs to choose from. [Oct 2013, p.102]

This box brims with supportive evidence [that they were "the greatest rock'n'roll band in the world."] [Oct 2013, p.103]

There are many extras here to pique the completist's interest.... But the real punch rests in the unprecedented clarity of the remastered original tracks, and the audacious creativity and humour of the packaging. [Oct 2013, p.104]

There's all kinds of going back on Robbie Fulks' eleventh and maybe finest collection. [Oct 2013, p.95]

So out gores the vintage, spiritual sound of 1995's nourishing debut Soul Food and in comes a job lot of dizzying electronica, schizoid stylistic shifts, screeching strings, sonorous sub-bass and beats verging on hi-NRG. [Oct 2013, p.90]

They're doing nothing radical, but the band, now in their 35th year of playing together, are tight and the results pleasing. [Oct 2013, p.96]

All intriguing and unique, but as the concluding third settles into shapeless moodiness, Hesitation Marks could've done with some pruning. [Oct 2013, p.87]

For all its cryptic lyrics and melodic complexities, the revelation it constantly seems to promise never quite arrives, but repave remains a grand gesture. [Oct 2013, p.95]

A new depth to her prickly but previously sometimes brattish lyrics, a grown-up album by a real grown-up who knows how to sugar-coat a pill for mass consumption. [Oct 2013, p.95]

Many of the songs segue into one another, a percussive keyboard outro blending into a slow keyboard intro, with Moses sounding like the soundtrack to sunrise--gorgeous. [Oct 2013, p.95]

[Obits] sound ever more like a desiccated AC/DC. [Oct 2013, p.98]

Listeners long-attuned to Gordon's avant excursions will find much here that satisfies. [Oct 2013, p.94]

It's nigh impossible not to succumb to their hurtling energy and panache. [Oct 2013, p.94]

The 23-year-old Ethiopian-Canadian's sonic evolution continues on Kiss Land. [Oct 2013, p.88]

This trio's brand of piano-fed luminescence is more traditionally coffee-table. That's no criticism, more acknowledgement of their smooth melodic nous. [Oct 2013, p.87]

There's an often harrowing conviction to Rewind The Film's primarily acoustic arrangements and elegant melodies, heralding a new level of artistry for this unique band. [Oct 2013, p.87]

Just in time for autumn, more summery surf rock by Hawaii's second favorite son. [Oct 2013, p.98]

If the album's (mostly) feral guitars and off-mike whoops conjure a band keen to re-harness the pluck of 2003's Youth & young Manhood, in places, the enormodome-courting trappings of recent years linger on. [Oct 2013, p.94]

At its best, Factory Floor powerfully blurs the lines between human and machine and back again, and is very hard to argue with. [Oct 2013, p.91]

While there's nothing here to touch 1999's moving, Cinemascopic downtempo classic Les Nuits, it's an eclectic offering, deliberately in keeping with the Balearic paradigm Evelyn once helped shape. [Oct 2013, p.91]

It eschews the compartmentalised, glossy, compressed production sound du jour for a red-blooded, powerful live feel full of adrenalin and excitement. [Oct 2013, p.90]

Andrew VanWyngarden and Ben Goldwasser's third album again fails to provide a soft pop landing. [Oct 2013, p.96]

Pared-down twinkly electronic pop with arcane instruments alloyed to laptop smarts that chills as it enchants. [Oct 2013, p.98]

For the most part this pensive, intriguingly restrained album marks a welcome, if overdue, return. [Oct 2013, p.91]

As ever, Lanegan's voice is solemn and affecting, emphasising the melancholic sentiments of the material. [Oct 2013, p.91]

Thanks to The Roots, Costello has new access--and Wise Up Ghost should bring new listeners to mess with. [Oct 2013, p.94]

Dream River may be Callahan's most beguiling album yet. [Oct 2013, p.89]

There is much melancholy here, but he sounds comfortable singing songs that carry the weight of experience. [Oct 2013, p.87]

This is exciting, audacious work from a band yet again on the edge of a new future. [Oct 2013, p.84]

The recovering dope fiend's songs cut even closer to the heart. [Aug 2013, p.104]

Against the odds Placebo are growing old gracefully. [Sep 2013, p.89]

The mood is all of a piece, the songs are stronger, and nobody suggests lightening the atmosphere with a high-energy single. [Sep 2013, p.84]

Blanket Of Leaves oozes rueful, autumnal soulfulness; you can almost feel the sea fret during the minimally arranged Ships In The Rain; only A Kingdom, with busy snare drums, hoedown fiddles and raindrop guitars, approaches anything like vigour, offering a welcome change to the mood of wistful languor. [Oct 2011, p.105]

Apart from misplacing the detonator for Iggy's Search & Destroy and a version of Neil Young's Rockin' In The Free World that lacks the original's purple-faced fury, Can't Get Enough is the sound of men enjoying the music. [Sep 2013, p.86]

Think Metronomy, Junior Boys and a (much) chirpier John Grant. [Sep 2013, p.95]

Given such a line-up and a high degree of cohesion not always apparent in similarly stellar offerings, good things should happen. And they do. [Sep 2013, p.90]

Razor-sharp production, lazy lolloping dance grooves and a polished, poppy glow lends the debut from Essex producer Tythe more than a hint of anything goes, '80s Balearic sheen. [Sep 2013, p.95]

An unpretentious euphoric debut. [Sep 2013, p.95]

Lightbody's perennnially love-lorn, tear-in-eye songwriting benefits from a more exotic sonic wardrobe than Snow Patrol would feel comfortable in. [Sep 2013, p.94]

With contributions from one third of Grizzly Bear, lilting vocals and arpeggiated guitar chords are gracefully manifest. [Sep 2013, p.96]

Permanent Signal drinks from a similar, if sonically expanded pool [as 2012 debut Strange Weekend]. [Sep 2013, p.94]

Ultimately, this album stands in euphoric, unrepentant denial of its own title. [Sep 2013, p.91]

The album's dozen essays zigzag with the same unpredictability as Veirs's vertiginous melody lines, everything united by her compellingly aerated vocal tone and Tucker Martine's deep focus production. [Sep 2013, p.88]

Not everything is quite so Travis by-the-numbers--and with mixed results. [Sep 2013, p.88]

They've created a splendidly polite fusion of Fleetwood Mac and the Cocteau Twins. [Sep 2013, p.86]

Played with authority and aplomb. [Sep 2013, p.96]

Lucid lyrical imagery punctuates the muzzy near-consciousness. [Sep 2013, p.96]

Plays like an xx-lite confined to analogue. [Sep 2013, p.96]

Pretty but lightweight. [Sep 2013, p.96]

A record which is less abrasive and more measured, if slightly wishy-washy from time to time. [Sep 2013, p.96]

A sound that lies somewhere in between early Beach House and breezy, ambient techno. [Sep 2013, p.96]

An impressive follow-up album. [Sep 2013, p.96]

Some wildly uneven wordplay, on a needlessly bloated set, suggests the Brooklyn king's crown is slipping. [Sep 2013, p.94]

The brittle world he creates is a seductive one. [Sep 2013, p.95]

[A] hazy smoked-out amalgam of shoegaze, analogue synths and surf-pop harmonies. [Sep 2013, p.95]

This improbably excellent debut album eschews the studied blankness of many of that race's [psych revivals] current front-runners in favour of a playful yet intense engagement with psychedelic rock traditions. [Sep 2013, p.95]

Still ethereal and episodic, it's less sequestered, more outgoing [than Ekstasis], with an influx of strings and brass bringing warmth to concoctions of stunning invention and variety. [Sep 2013, p.94]

Her candy floss-flavoured cough syrup vocals will be a little sweet for some tastes on first hearing, but when backed up with an acid lyrical kick, the overall effect is devastatingly insidious. [Sep 2013, p.95]

It's a more downbeat affair than their 2009 debut and best envinced by the stuttering tech soul of Gita. [Sep 2013, p.95]

In spite of its two-headed musical harmony, the personal disharmony in The Civil Wars is all too evident. [Sep 2013, p.94]

The animals are well cast as they orbit Magic Town. [Sep 2013, p.91]

Not quite enough to give Win Butler the vapours, but not far off it. [Sep 2013, p.90]

As ever with Borrell, it's never less than weirdly, grippingly fascinating. [Sep 2013, p.90]

A move to their own label sees them lose the plot entirely, sliding into the stodgy AOR navel gazing of From A Window Seat and listless choogling. [Sep 2013, p.90]

Nepenthe finds Julianna Barwick's already established wash of angel tones and free-floating radiance newly influenced by the breathtaking, often alien wonders of her host country. [Sep 2013, p.90]

Nasty, brutish, short, and wholly compelling, Yeezus begs only one question: where next? [Sep 2013, p.89]

This is (finally) an album that is enjoyable solely as a listening experience. [Sep 2013, p.89]

Production detail aside, their is little tinkering with their formula. [Sep 2013, p.91]

Lee's declared love of hymns, evident in his falsetto flutter and overarching cavernous mood, should ensure former Oasis fans won't clamor for Bluebell Field or Hold Me Forever, the key tracks to Money's particular, profound brand of Mancunian sound. [Sep 2013, p.91]

It's a compact yet satisfying set of 10 surging semi-acoustic almost-ballads with occasional electric interludes. [Sep 2013, p.91]