An album packed with thoughtful adventure and mischief. A true gem. [May 2012, p.83]

It works remarkably well. [May 2012, p.83]

Full of understated elegance, Ode reminds us that Mehldau's is an increasingly significant body of work. [May 2012, p.82]

Although influences aren't hidden ... it's [Pundt's] own voice here. [May 2012, p.82]

The undoubted highlight is a completely reconstructed version of Ring of Fire that's guaranteed to stay in your heart forever. [May 2012, p.82]

However distinguished the guests, though, there's no doubt who the commanding presence is. [May 2012, p.82]

A more tasteful affair [than Leave Home], tapping into the 1980s underground's collegiate, powerpop end... plus straight-ahead rock-n-roll holler. [May 2012, p.82]

While Blunderbuss appears to be definite off-loading of emotional baggage, it also feels like a move toward rebirth. [May 2012, p.80]

Expectations are defied by a series of grand, eccentric chamber essays, and only a paucity of Tiersen's killer melodies disappoints. [Nov 2011, p.99]

The bad times have never sounded better. [Mar 2012, p.98]

This is undeniably beautiful in its minimalist repetitions but could do with a little more dirt in the weave. [Apr 2012, p.95]

Her voice is pure enough and boasts the necessary dash of grit for her to rise above mere MOR blandness. [Apr 2012, p.84]

She gets into her stride with French electronic maestro Martin Solveig. [May 2012, p.84]

Stunning... a highly-textured, invigorating adventure in sound. [Mar 2012, p.94]

This eclectic offering confirms that the trio's music is an unclassifiable meld of idioms that includes strong rock and pop influences. [Mar 2012, p.92]

It's as complete as any Floyd completist could hope for. [Apr 2012, p.101]

Rich and radio-friendly pop. [Apr 2012, p.101]

A beautiful, eerie thing. [Apr 2012, p.95]

With Audience of One he applies his mastery of both instruments [drums and guitar] to a surprisingly diverse four-part suite. [Apr 2012, p.95]

Although darkness suffuses Narrow, the rising peaks of its songs and the dramatic arrangements Plaschg frames them in, its intimacy affects. [Apr 2012, p.95]

Their performance here has an audible sizzle. [Apr 2012, p.95]

One of the most compelling [albums of his 15-year career]. [Apr 2012, p.95]

Throughout, Ranaldo and Nels Cline build up layers of eloquent, electrifying guitar.... Satisfying. [Apr 2012, p.95]

White's devastation lends poignancy to tracks ... that skip with country celebration even as he chokes on the words. [Apr 2012, p.95]

They sound more and more as if they've found a sound that they can all their own. [Apr 2012, p.94]

Three or four candidates for an updated greatest hits package is not a bad hit rate. [Apr 2012, p.94]

With a gift for creating memorable melodies allied with a strong storytelling narrative, he comes across like a sophisticated jazz version of Bill Withers. [Apr 2012, p.94]

There's no hallmark of originality or pushing envelopes, nor any sense of collaboration between two distinct talents creating more than a sum of their parts. [Apr 2012, p.94]

[An] equally engaged, energised follow-up [to 2010's Mshini Wam].[Apr 2012, p.94]

Downtempo it may be, but joyous rather than dark. [Apr 2012, p.91]

A snapshot of the music driving Europe's cooler clubs. [Apr 2012, p.91]

His slow-burning music ... has serious cross-over potential. [Apr 2012, p.91]

Soulful, moving music. [Apr 2012, p.91]

Here Kirby lets the sad beauty of his source - Schubert's Winterreise - bleed through, as if summoning up the solitary ghosts of the German composer's most desolate work. [Apr 2012, p.91]

It's that innate ability with a tune which separates Miike Snow from common or garden pop varieties. [Apr 2012, p.91]

It take a rare confidence and skill to throw a million (roughly) ideas into an album and make it sound not just coherent but as good as this one. [Apr 2012, p.91]

A work of transcendent pop beauty that finally explains the idea of "ekstasis" by leaving the listener beside themselves, in a state of rapturous joy. [Apr 2012, p.91]

Ambitious, soulful and joyous. [Apr 2012, p.90]

Pale and pensive indie-pop, cooled to a chill, with [lead singer] Nouvion floating over a similarly tranquil, dreamy wash, like an American Sundays. [Apr 2012, p. 90]

The [7-year] hiatus hasn't impaired the band's vivid country-gothic grandeur one iota. [Apr 2012, p. 90]

Spalding's improvised ensemble pieces put pay to the tittle-tattle about jazz being dead. It is very much alive. [Apr 2012, p.90]

With high-gloss production, shameless retro references and big-thumbed slap bass, Kindness's album is frequently preposterous. Great pop music often is. [Apr 2012, p.89]

Uninhibited, Wrecking Ball misses a star here only because two love-among-the economic-ruins, This Depression and You've Got It, don't quite fit the big-theme fierceness - deep feelings to draw together whoever may listen. [Apr 2012, p. 89]

Bowerbirds at their least bucolic, both expanding and focusing on a sound that is as timeless as The Band. [Apr 2012, p. 89]

A bustling, concise and sunny affair. [Apr 2012, p.88]

The greatest thing about this tribute album is that ... the biggest names on it ... all bring their A game. [Apr 2012, p. 88]

A disappointment. [Apr 2012, p.88]

The instrumental work is impressive throughout, but Gidden's vocals are the main attraction. [Apr 2012, p.88]

The fire is back in his belly. [Apr 2012, p.88]

[Apr 2012, p.88]

Effortlessly inventive and still full of invective. [Apr 2012, p.88]

Ultimately, it's the combined sound of - there's no getting away from the word - ethereal vocals and cavernous, sometimes even martial dance rock that appeals rather than the detail. [Apr 2012, p.86]

It's a classic soul album, its strength lying in Fields' gift for storytelling and his extraordinary delivery. [Apr 2012, p. 86]

Consistently absorbing, as good as any of Foxx's early-'80's benchmarks. [Apr 2012, p.86]

Only a slight dearth of killer melodies ... disappoints. [Apr 2012, p.86]

It's a seductive lesson in understated beauty. [Apr 2012, p.86]

It is an easy album to like. [Apr 2012, p.85]

An ongoing reconnection with the experimental dandy in the mirror lends his latest work's stylistic pinballing a fun quotient that compensates for it's unevenness. [Apr 2012, p.84]

An album of melancholy and heartbreak that's at its best when the songs fall between all-out country rock ballads and bare bones ballads. [Apr 2012, p.84]

Hypnotic, doomy, edgy, but strangely forgettable, too. [Apr 2012, p.84]

A formidable piece of work, repositioning Mercer away from his Pacific Northwest indie rock peer group. [Apr 2012, p.82]

An album of considerable weight. [Feb 2012, p.99]

Sweet, shimmering, Swedish alt-pop. [April 2012, p.91]

COYB trade in wintery, foreboding hymnals that conjure Sigur Ros, Radiohead and an existentially challenged Aled Jones staring out across the abyss. [Apr 2012, p.94]

Ane Brun has never before sounded so alive.[March 2012, p.98]

With tensions at its core, Pre Language fuses white light with the darkness of anxiety. [Mar 2012, p.102]

In between strong original songs are arresting covers versions. [Mar 2012, p.92]

To fresh melodies of Guthrie would surely have smiled upon, the four adorn every lyric with fine guitar weaves of rollicking dance, rugged grind or Paris, Texas haunt. [Mar 2012, p.97]

This is a fine balancing of distance and engagement that put the shier back into chill out. [Mar 2012, p.103]

With the flawless Umber at its core, Bitch Magnet is final proof, if Jon Fine needs it, that his band have escaped the historical side streets of title, genre and geography, motoring out into the vast plains of Great American Albums. [Mar 2012, p.109]

If he fits a lot into a brief span, it can also seem like a selection of raw sketches for works still to be fully realized. [Mar 2012, p.103]

Have Some Faith In Magic pushes further out, into a gorgeous and strangely spacey conflagration between the pastel end of '70s prog, the Kosmiche end of funk and '90s dance. [Mar 2012, p.103]

His songs are simple and instantly seductive. [Mar 2012, p.99]

A relentless, unstoppable beast of screeching, pounding ascendancy. [Mar 2012, p.97]

Sweet and to the point. [Mar 2012, p.97]

This album is barefaced '90s revivalism. [Mar 2012, p.97]

Tune out the background media noise and immerse yourself. [Mar 2012, p.94]

You can see why they've got another Golden Globe nomination for this, although most of the music here isn't in the film and the many highlights get lost in an eternity of approximately similar sonics. [Mar 2012, p.94]

A series of grand rippling hallucinations, unfolding ever outwards on the central melancholy theme. [Mar 2012, p.97]

For all of its gentle yet intense reflection, it's never overtly maudlin. [Mar 2012, p.92]

Cleverly, it mixes them [stadium rock and Celtic roots] both. [Mar 2012, p.99]

Animal Joy surfs similar channels to their last release, The Golden Archipelago, evoking stratospheric textures anchored down by melodically well-honed tunes. [Mar 2012, p.102]

From the get-go Freedom Of Speech takes no prisoners. [Mar 2012, p.93]

An admirably impassioned return. [Mar 2012, p.92]

An effortless conflation of over-amped belligerence and feisty pop mellifluousness. [Mar 2012, p.94]

The album works because McCartney treats the material with respect, exuding charm by the bucket-load. [Mar 2012, p.94]

[A] very fine third album. [Mar 2012, p.98]

Emotional yet chilled, this is an album to see you through winter's darkest, coldest days. [Mar 2012, p.99]

Paralytic Stalks is not an easy listen, but neither is it a good one. [Mar 2012, p.98]

The songs on Mr. M might be mostly slow and beautiful but they don't have the drifting dreaminess. [Mar 2012, p.96]

She has the same jagged, enchanting sensuality as Bjork. [Mar 2012, p.103]

Plumb is a delicious tasting menu of rock history. [Mar 2012, p.103]

This brisk, well-crafted follow-up maintains the feeling if a pop band masquerading as something harder. [Mar 2012, p.102]

Angels of Darkness, Demons of Light, Vol. 2 is a looser affair, showcasing Carlson's improvisational chemistry with long-term percussionist Adrienne Davies, bass player Karl Blau and cellist Lori Goldston. [Mar 2012, p.102]

There's more down the line, heart-on-the-sleeve songcraft secreted, near-guiltily, in the album's latter half. [Mar 2012, p.99]

Le Voyage is best when it sets the controls for the tribal prog of Sonic Armada or the ritual beats of Astronomic Club. [Mar 2012, p.92]

Old Ideas remain a quietly surprising album, full of grace, full of sadness, but also, most importantly, full of life. [Mar 2012, p.90]

The overall mood is one of muted, minor-key sadness, Sakamoto's clear, simple piano lines eroded and blurred by the melancholy atmospherics of Fennesz. [Feb 2012, p.97