Intriguer may be more route one than 1993's mighty, loose-limbed "Together Alone," but it is classic Crowded House, and greater for it. [Jul 2010, p.97]

Any band that can record something as impressive as the gently swelling Radiation deserves to be taken on their own merits. Even Elbow may have to doff their hats this time. [Sep 2010, p.106]

Returning to their electro roots might seem a surprising direction to take...but it works. [July 2010, p. 96]

At its best the record soars, but After The Meteor Showers' slight echo of Clapton's "Wonderful Tonight" left your scribe cold. [Jul 200, p.97]

This is The Chemical Brothers at their crowd-pleasing, raucous best. [July 2010]

Less electronic than the albums he made under his King Biscuit Time and Black Affair aliases, it's Mason's best post-Beta Band work. [Jun 2010, p.98]

Treacherous lapses notwithstanding, there's enough vim and invention here to suggest that Foals may yet prove themselves champion thoroughbreds. [June 2010, p. 96]

On their latest LP, the group's influences -- the thrift store soul of early E Street Band, late period Clash, and the besotted rock of The Replacements -- are still worn on their sleeves. [July 2010]

Five years after the self released Robyn, she's teamed up with the Teddybears Klas Ahlund again but made a subtle shift away from the Top 40 to something more leftfield. [July 2010, p. 97]

Tom Petty's turned his attention to a resume of his life so far -- 15 crunching, clever, moving tracks that make his earlier point far better, indicting the rest by breezy example. [July 2010, p. 96]

A solid if not spectacular, step forward for a band unfathomably more popular in the Uk than their homeland. [Jul 2010, p.92]

While Inspiral Carpet's Clint Boon will surely applaud Monroe's retro organ flair, much of the magic here stems from Like linchpin and Nabokov fan Z Berg, whose literate lyrics and carefully hatched melodies continue to wring intrigue from that hardy perennial, boy trouble. [Sep 2010, p.96]

It leaves a prescribed set of more or less familiar songs, sequenced randomly with in some broad chronological parameters. [Jul 2010, p.108]

By the album's close, however, his vulnerability risks tipping over into maudlin self-pity. [Sep 2010, p.103]

Deep-piling beautiful microorchestration and songs which in the fashion of mature-era Fanclub slowly yet unfailingly insinuate their charms. [June 2010, p. 95]

A titular palindrome for New Yorkers' covers CD. [June 2010, p. 96]

It's harmless, head-spinning fun. [Jul 2010, p.92]

O'Brien sees dead people, spits at love, puts himself inside the heads of fellow bus passengers and defies anyone to categorise his music. It's a rich experience making the attempt though. [Jul 2010, p.92]

Though the production is by no means slick, the music emerges vividly from its hithero murky world. [Jul 2010, p.93]

While Grace Potter's vocals are unquestionably impressive on this fourth album--she still hasn't carved out a trademark voice of her own. The music is equally bland. [Sep 2010, p.102]

Peggy Sue have jettisoned some of their quirkier traits (past gigs saw them play a tambourine nailed to an old school desk) to deliver a debut with a great deal more grit and fire in its belly than their earlier EPs would suggest. [June 2010, p. 93]

Four albums in and their metronomic nursery rhymes are still capable of delivering pop thrills. [June 2010, p. 104]

Johnson considers the world's woes with gentle reflection rather than recrimnation, along the way hoping to illuminate his son's path to finding his own truth. [July 2010]

Sun-scorched heavy blues rock from Cosmic Californians. [July 2010, p. 94]

Sleigh Bells offer a thrilling ride. [Sep 2010, p.104]

An astonishing landmark, and great record, wherein the Mod once again becomes The Modernist. [May 2010, p.94]

A return to the Guillemots beckons, then, but Fly Yellow Moon is still an enthralling and at times euphoric affair. [Feb 2010, p. 97]

First Aid Kit's debut sounds like a signifier of greater things to come. [Mar 2010, p.90]

A quirky, theatrical record that's full of pomp and self-importance, The Family Jewels is never less than exciting, but it does try a little too hate to be zany. [Mar 2010, p.100]

LaVette says thank you to the British Invasion for bringing soul back home. [July 2010, p. 103]

Beck-assisted psychedelic electronica from Black Moth Super Rainbowman. [July 2010, p. 98]

Its troubled state suits the melancholy in Hinson's soul, his broken burr laid like a wreath across lingering strings and the wistfulTexas twang of his tunes. [Jul 2010, p.104]

Familiar elements (Nancy Wang's cheerleading vocals, sparse instrumentation colliding, lyrical misanthropy) are present and correct, but everything is bolder and deeper. [June 2010, p. 93]

When the opening track of this third album features CSN-style harmonising about hotel lobbies, you wonder if they're trying a little too hard to sound like a burnt-out folk rock supergroup from 1971. [June 2010, p. 92]

The old stomp is still here, but Alabama has stoked The Black Keys' dark side. [June 2010, p. 93]

Lidell's bluesy wail goes head-to-head with a dense, churning groove in what can best be described as anti-R&B. [June 2010, p. 97]

What with that album title, a wistful opening waltz, entitled Oh, The Divorces! and a beautifully resigned lament called Singles Bar ("Can you tell how long I've been here? Can you smell the fear?", the theme of mid-life crises hangs heavy over these 10 simply arranged vignettes. [June 2010, p. 92]

[This album] finds a glorious similitude between the two disciplines. [Jul 2010, p.92]

Whatever you're doing, I guarantee you'll stop and listen to every word. [Jun 2010, p.102]

Keep Calm...is a perfectly good album, but it strives for nothing more. [Dec 2009, p. 90]

The mood is authentically heavy but the impact is strangely light. [June 2010, p. 104]

American indie cult heroes get a little noisier, a little more obscure [June 2010, p. 104]

Like much of UNKLE's work, the album feels a little bloated and too serious by half, but there are gems among the rubble. [June 2010, p. 97]

Even playing it straight, Houck produces songs that skitter round your peripheral vision, hide in the back of your mind, their outlaw mental state playing hide-and-seek behind the classic rock curtains. [June 2010, p. 90]

Another helping of skew-whiff artiness from teh oddball Casady siblings. [June 2010, p. 99]

Male Bonding brilliantly transpose their neighbourhood's scrufffy, rule-breaking fashion ethos into an exhilaratingly melodic breed of post-hardcore punk rock. [June 2010, p. 96]

Setting out its wares most convincingly with dreamy weighlessness of The Gaudy Side Of Town. Relayted gives a nod to its influences with a cough syrup slow rendition of Godly & Creame's '80s classic Cry before drifting off into a heavy-lidded haze punctuated by the occasional flurry of woozy dub and ethereal funk. [Jul 2010, p.92]

Now, by trying something a little different, he's mustered a late-career triumph. [May 2010, p. 92]

Established fans will find much to adore, but Finn and company need to be cannier about their long game. [June 2010, p. 98]

A sprawling and lengthy affair, this album rarely falters. [June 2010, p. 98]

With each album, the Canadian collective's mix of '70s rock and nursery rhyme harmonies gets less raucous and more predictable. [June 2010, p. 94]

Musically this is the most satisfying Deftones album in a decade, welding their patented post-hardcore crunch with their noted love of twisted, Cure-styled melody. [June 2010, p. 92]

The multifaceted Mr. Patton turns his hand to Italian-language pop songs. [July 2010, p. 95]

Their latest album offers all the anti-matter salve for the irritations of modern culture that admirers expect. [May 2010, p. 92]

Ritter has taken his time delivering album number five after stepping back from a period of writer's block. So Runs The World Away suggests every artist should have such problems, Ritter's most freewheeling album flitting between waltzes with Egyptian pharaohs to the tongue-in-cheek murder ballad Folk Bloodbath. [Sep 2010, p.92]

While the band's strength lies in inventiveness of their composition, the end result isn't as enjoyable to hear as it surely was to make. [Sep 2010, p.102]

Debut album from an eclectic yet melodic Omaha band. [July 2010, p. 97]

Mrs. Buffalo's boy's not one of the herd: weird, but kind of wonderful. [May 2010, p. 97]

This debut feels more about high budget pop aspirations than the vintage rock'n'roll doo wop influences and 'soul' which Brown has been talking up in interviews. [Aug 2009, p.94]

Rather than delivering a post-modern mishmash, they effortlessly synthesise these elements, making themselves a candidate for the quintessential 21st century pop group. [Aug 2009, p.102]

In merging the intimate with the majestic, The Kissaway Trail have achieved a rare, and subtle, balance. [Apr 2010, p.92]

This is Nelson's best album in over a decade, following flirtations with blues, reggae and jazz. [June 2010, p. 94]

Sweet Apple rock it up in gonzo mid-'70s style, with lashings of glam and powerpop. [June 2010, p. 93]

Haggard's now 73 and I Am What I Am is as good as anything he has ever done. [June 2010, p. 94]

True Love Cast Out All Evil is a genuine triumph of the spirit and heart. Other 62-year-old surviviors have released comeback albums as good, but none better or more uplifting. [Jul 2010, p.90]

1960s-obsessed power-poppers discover the '70s. Time travel indeed. [July 2010, p. 102]

In the world of the gilded musical scion, sixth album counts as stripped back. [May 2010, p. 93]

Coming of age delayed for guile-free pop star. [May 2010, p. 95]

Dan Snaith goes liquid disco on his fifth album. [May 2010, p. 96]

King's voice, whether riding roughshod over her band's new found vravura arrangements or playing the smoky chanteuse, is still a decisive instrument of its own. [June 2010, p. 99]

This package is more than worthwhile because it gets closer to the original vinyl. [Jun 2010, p.112]

Emotion & Commotion embraces tunes so big you'd think no more could be wrung into them. [May 2010, p. 93]

Brooklyn duo deliver shock psychedelic masterpiece. [May 2010, p. 96]

It's ecentric, then, but charmingly so. [Apr 2010, p.102]

Marling's second album is one of staggering maturity. An old-school folk album of the best sort. [Apr 2010, p.92]

As each song features a different vocalist and each is a snapshot, it's difficult to tell which character is singing, to get emotionally involved or to keep up with the story without much refernce to the book. [Apr 2010, p.103]

The palette-widening Northern urban soul colours supplied by The Dap Kings' equally convincing playing and arrangements are evry bit as key to their fourth album's sucess....Never unnecessarily flash, Jones is in tremendous voice from start to finish. [Jun 2010, p.102]

Hitchcock's attempt to create a "Basement Tapes" vibe churns up a clutch of affable songs but he looks to have saved his best material for the near contempoary "Ole! Tarantula." [Apr 2010, p.103]

Ex-Wallflower's second solo reveals a chilly, magnetic power growing songer. [June 2010, p. 104]

Martin-McCormick's vocals remain a deal-breaker, his high-pitched yelp threatening to overheat otehrwise superb, noise-slicked bangers. [June 2010, p. 104]

Thankfully Slash doesn't lack guts, tunes, potent solos or giant-slaying riffage. [May 2010, p. 92]

While the rest of Sigur Ros make babies, their singer creates too. [May 2010, p. 96]

Man from another Time is an album that sounds decidely lived-in. [Nov 2009, p.91]

Through the hypnotic, J Dilla produced Love to the ghostly Incense, the short skit You Loving Me to the skittish jazz of Agitation, it's the sound of an artist in full, uncensored flow. [June 2010, p. 93]

Although album five gets back to core values, it retains a subtle sumptuousness. [Apr 2010, p.99]

Arguably they're at their best when wrapped around each other, such as on "Santa Monica Dream" and "Draw Your Swords," where it's a sweet and savoury blend to warm the soul. [Apr 2010, p.94]

Thrilling third from the ex-Headcoatee's duo. [May 2010, p. 93]

The Wiltshire-raised, London-based trio respons with an album that feels utterly vital, but--show no desire to climb out of their own particular furrow. [Apr 2010, p.95]

Remarkably, the bold, full-on cheese works, because this is an album of classic pop. [Apr 2010, p.93]

Any notions that this [name change]--and additions of brass and strings--is a major label ploy to smooth their edges and distance them from the spiky traditional elements that chracterised "The Bairns" is soon decimated by this new album's equally moody, uncompromising nature. [Nov 2009, p.102]

Warm and hazy liek a day spent in teh summer sun, The Illustrated Garden is a sumptuous honey-hued helping of soft-souled pop, unhurried Americana and the occasional spry rush of pop. [June 2010, p. 99]

In The Court Of... sounds both warmly familiar yet dazzlingly fresh.

Deluxe, post-dance soundscapes from Simon Green's anthropoid alias. [May 2010, p. 97]

The confrontational quintet dare to seek out melody and explore a new-found subtlety on an otherwise exhaustingly visceral ride. [May 2010, p. 95]

It all slides down nicely--great bachelorette party music that sounds good on headphones. [Sep 2010, p.104]

Hood's vision for the band has always been cinematic--never more so than here, in fact--but by mid-album tracks such as "Get Downtown" and "After The Scene Dies," things are becoming sketchy.

So unlike "Raw & Alive" by The Seeds, say there's no need for overdubbed excitement here, just the Noughties' most smokin' rock'n'roll act, on breathtaking form. [Apr 2010, p.96]

The rest is equally compelling, oscillating between eccentric skronk essays, woozy nocturnes, and harmonic hymns. It's jazz shorn of cliche that demands to be taken on its pigeonhole rebuffing merits. [Mar 2010, p.92]