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]

On this debut album, the plaintive dizziness of Peter Ericson Stakee's vocals is offset by crashing guitars and wind-swept epic aesthetics that recall The Verve's early post-shoegazing incarnation, then City Walls comes on like a socially maladjusted Kasabian. [Feb 2010, p. 104]

The music that wraps around the concept is never boring and much of it is excellent....What's lacking is the nailed-on megatune--a "Clint Eastwood" or "Feel Good Inc"--that we've come to expect from a Gorillaz album. [Apr 2010, p.99]

Sisterworld's art-pop is perhaps more accessible than much of Liars' discography, but it's a sound this most restless group will likely tire of long before you do. [Mar 2010, p.98]

The resulting 10 songs are an intriguing genetic mix of modern psychedelia and eccentrioc pop. [Apr 2010, p.93]

Generous handclaps and a beautifully thrumming guitar buoy The Loneliness & The Scream. Living In Coulour, meanwhile, is a statement of intent, chiming pianos and a reeling rhythm pushing things along, typifying an album made by a band happily at the peak of its powers. [mar 2010, p.90]

A restful, even romantic experience, Kastlander echoing Tracey Thorn's plaintive soul, in a beguiling confluence of wan Scando-folk currents and American hip hop. [June 2010, p. 97]

Taken as a whole, these poignant moments never threaten to cohere into a greater whole. [Apr 2010, p.111]

More muscular, less ethereal than 2007's "...Are The Dark Horse," it is no less exciting. [Apr 2010, p.99]

The Chieftains lay a vibrant carpet of colour but veering between joyous and heartbreaking, the fiery Mexican element is what makes it so compelling. [Apr 2010, p.105]

The quality across this neat primer demands the high star rating. [Apr 2010, p.112]

There's no mistaking this advent of a genuine original, the woozy, whacked-out linguistic precision of A Sufi And A Killer resisiting all efforts at summary. [Apr 2010, p.105]

Casey and collaborator Shawn Creeden deliver a bold album that eschews their previous organic approach in favour of a more electronic direction. The effect is intoxicating. [Apr 2010, p.92]

The sweetness of its sun-kissed textures and playful melodies mark out El Turista as his best work since 2005's near flawless "Nashville." [Apr 2010, p.98]

Encyclopedic US indie rock--American Civil War, Walt Whitman, Hold Steady, Shakespeare all included.

Hands sees the 24-year-old blossom into a throughly modern chart contender, but at the expense of some of that quirkiness. [Jul 2009, p.95]

First new solo album for four years from the young jazz maverick.

The overall result is not the studious mess it could have been, but an adventurous, challenging and futuristic recording, albeit one that might cause a little aural indigestion. [Feb 2010, p. 93]

This is spare, emotionally charged piano music which always errs toward the melodic side of melancholy. [Mar 2010, p.99]

An album to make you happy feeling sad, Scratch My Back gets better with each play; it might just turn out to be the best surprise present of the year. [Mar 2010, p.88]

They've never been subtle, but they're still highly effective. [Mar 2010, p.93]

While he's putting love into these rippling, galloping beats, the vocal melodies get a little samey. [Apr 2010, p.103]

Pollack's velvety, diction-rich voice shines on the syncopated, a cappella intro of "The Loop," and her idiosyncratic, mostly cryptic lyrics can be striking. [Apr 2010, p.104]

This lavish song cycle, embarcing intricate choral, chamber and post-rock passages, is the feted US/Australian ensemble's first non-instrumental album. [Jul 2010, p.95]

There is a pinch of prog too, manifested in kaleidoscopic intricacy rather than anything unnecessarily tricksy - their sound remains muscular and funky. [Feb 2010]

Don't expect a companion to the "Life On Earth" soundtrack though, even the ballads here are highly strung, some made otherworldly by drones, controlled feedback and mallet percussion, other stung by Meiburg's vocals, gear-shifted from choirboy puriety to anguish. [Mar 2010, p.98]

It would be easy to write off the album as pastiche but a confessional, honky-tonk-styled "Cigarettes," and the grit Merriweather puts into the immaculately fashioned grooves, show he's more about feel than fashion. [Jul 2009, p.95]

The economy and velvet touch of Efterklang's music-making have survived, except the finesse is now allied to a newly arresting, wistful songwriting style that carries with it echoes of the early Coldplay.

That's the master interpreter, though older and creakier. He brings the song to you in detail. [Apr 2010, p.93]

Have One on Me is a very mature work indeed, even its resonant, discursive themes are underpinned by Newsom's usual playfulness. [Apr 2010, p.90]

Not many bands who've been going since Kurt Cobain was alive are capable of improving on their work. [Apr 2010, p.94]

This parting gift from Philadelphia-based guitarist Jack Rose stands as a superlative statement of his love for pre-war American music. [Apr 2010, p.95]

Where her previous band, Williamburg's The Jealous Girlfiends, struggled to reconcile an awkward mix of styles, the vision on Miranda's solo debut is seemless. [Mar 2009, p.90]

This dispararte set is a promising indicator of what its debut album might hold: wistful, psychedelic musing, gentle folk and splashes of electric blues. [Mar 201, p.100]

There's an impressive sense of pop classicism, but these songs are even more melodically insistent, occassionally verging on show-tune mellifluousness. [Apr 2010, p.105]

What's truly remarkable about the interplay, however, is the way the two seemlessly bridge the gulf between their cultures. [Mar 2010, p.93]

Monstrous stoner-psych jams from, of all places, Williamsburg. [July 2010, p. 95]

There's an engaging sense of uncertainty running through these songs. [Mar 2010, p.96]

Black's chops and tunes suggest he won't stay underground. [Aug 2009, p.99]

After 2008's The Hungry Saw simmered with a new, diehard energy, Falling Down A Mountain is more like climbing up. [Feb 2010, p. 103]

Despite being probably the best illustration of the scope of his creative impulses, ultimately Life Is... capsizes under the weight of its own cleverness. [Feb 2010, p. 104]

Green can turn on the charm--countrified finale Blacken My Stay and Castles And Tassles are winners, and "castles and tassles and fatulent assholes" is a hysterical refrain - but overall, Minor Love is a curiously enervating affair. [Feb 2010, p. 95]

The Brewis brothers opt for distinctive texture of sampled acoustic guitar. Measure--a sprawling gem of album-- is full of such inspired decisions. [Mar 2010, p.98]

Peace & Love continues this new mature streak with her most musically stripped down but lyrically most strident and complex collection yet. [Feb 2010, p. 102]

Quality inessential entertainment. [Mar 2010, p.97]

Elegiac Montreal collective's relatively orthodox sixth album. [May 2010, p. 97]

Willfully odd, beautifully hypnotic and with a wonderful lightness of touch: a straw poll of the office drew comparisons to Flaming Lips, Arcade Fire and Take That. [Feb 2010, p. 100]

Hot Chip's impressive musical facility remains, it's merely a little out of focus. [Apr 2010, p.102]

There is a stark grandeur in songs like the almost Leonard Cohenesque title track, and the gritty, abstract New York Is Killing Me. [Mar 2010, p97]