Initially baffling, Manafon richly replays further decktime. [Oct 2009, p.96]

Esteemed guests such as flautist Michael McGoldrick, accordionist Phil Cunningham and fiddler John McCusker ornament the arrangements exquistely, while the Knopf's ever-tactile guitar continues to say more with three notes than most do with 20. [Oct 2009103]

Slaraffenland are a complete surprise. Unfettered yet poptuneful, they harmonize constantly--with a melodic cool, more churchy than surfy--but plough those vocal lines into dense, dynamic texture with fierce drums marching as to war. [Jun 2010, p.103]

Russell sings with heartfelt authority, while Calexico's cool elegance balances the emotional ticket. [Oct 2009, p.106]

But judicious daubs of strings, piano, female backing vocals and even a band (on Roll On, a surprise boisterous finale) reach out and the lyrics follow suit - venturing out into snow is a metaphor for change. [Jan 2010, p. 104]

No boundaries are being broken this around, but Living Colour still hold their own. [Jan 2010, p. 102]

At the risk of sounding trite, I couldn't wait to Turn It Off. [Oct 2009, p.97]

Every song on Two Dancers reflects the meticulous intelligence of master stylists. [Sep 2009, p.90]

It's surely their most eclectic. [Oct 2009, p.103]

The sixth Dublin-based Mexican metalheads is an awesome thing in which every trick in the jard-rock manual is applied to the duo's Latin rhythms and acoustic wizardry. [Oct 2009, p.107]

Gloriously nonsensical and beautifully out there, this is a joyful triumph. [Oct 2009, p.107]

Young, smart, pissed-off, ultra-basic, but also competent and powerful, these youngsters fire off brisk, bubblegum tunes in proud thrall to Da Brudders, and, by extension, girl-groups of the '60s. [Dec 2009, p.96]

It's only the too-glib wordplay that thwarts a more whole hearted endorsement. [Nov 2009, p.94]

Blk Jks's own voicee is utterly compelling. [Oct 2009, p.107]

Mister Pop is at once an old friend and a stotal stranger. [Nov 2009, p.100]

Indelible, compulsive, flecked with genuine brillance throughout, it's as good as any of the acknowledged clasics from the Clan's '93-96 peak. [Nov 2009, p.95]

The pop-soul of Hawthorne's A Strange Arrabgement sounds and feels genuinely convincing. [Oct 2009, p.100]

Akin to career suicide, it's admirably bonkers but overlong. [Oct 2009, p.108]

Noble concept, but possibly the dumbest clever-clogs album ever made. [Jun 2010, p.98]

The Visitor is curiously passionless and on occassion, too closely tied to its background music references to get excited about. [Nov 2009, p.102]

Though the sound remains dreamy, it's expansive; the melodic songs have a feeling of joy. [Oct 2009, p.101]

Two fine records without a duff track between them. [Oct 2009, p.98]

The songs range from good to essential. [Oct 2009, p.101]

The Blue Ridge Rangers Rides Again - the sequel to his 1973 solo debut - repeats the formula, its 12 covers of country standards and downhome favourites creating a warm, hearthside companion to its predecessor. [Dec 2009, p. 91]

Juliette Lewis's third shot at crossing over from award-winning actress to respected songwriter appears to br gatherng pace. [Oct 2009, p.98]

Houston has delivered an album that, despite a few middling tracks, is genuinely moving. [Nov 2009, p.95]

The duo's songs may employ no chords and few notes to sing against, but they are brillantly structured via Andreas Werliin's melodic drum patterns, with Mariam Wallentin's flamboyant, unfettered voice a huge presence. [May 2009, p109]

Beyond the dirty talk, this is a beautifully balanced record. [Sep 2009, p.94]

American Classic really shines when the velveteen smoothness takes a backseat to that voice. [Sep 2009, p.90]

Surely the key to echoing some of rock's key ancestral voices is having songs strong enough to stand on their own. Shaka Rock simply doesn't have them. [Oct 2009, p.106]

It's clear Maal is still boxing clever. [Jul 2009]

The songs, six previously unreleased, range from good to outstanding, the sound quality as clear and natural as if he were singing in the next room. [Oct 2009, p.115]

Her music mostly comprises ordinary, though precisely crafted, acoustic arrangements and plaintive-lite laments regarding absent lover. [Dec 2009, p. 92]

More stirring are te rougher dancehall textures of Smash Lies and Darkness Into Light's crunching guitars and soaring rock chorus. The latter produces the unsettling, but not unwelcome, result of resembling Soundgarden after a course of toasting lessons. [Jul 200, p.103]

S, no watersports this time, but a wee triumph nonetheless. [Dec 2009, p. 100]

The makeover has done him proud. [Aug 2009, p.108]

As an album it's uneven, but tantalisingly the harmony-driven 'Hang Them All' sounds like "Tim"-era Replacements and hints at even bigger things to come. [Sep 2009, p.92]

His fourth album isn't quite as rich a powerpop confection as 2002's "Lapalco" but it still shows off songs as sweet and sharp as peanut brittle. [Sep 2009, p.104]

They're more likely to be judged on face value, but that shouldn't do them any harm. [Sep 2009, p.95]

This soaring album defines emotional shoegazing. [Dec 2009, p. 101]

Swinging, hollar-along opener 'False Jesii Part 2' and the hilariously literal 'Request For Masseuse' are sardonic odes to indolence and pain relief respectively, while deadpan monologues 'Spent' and 'Goodbye (Hair)' reflect on time's inexorable passage with amp-crushing poignancy. [Sep 2009, p.95]

Luminous Night reflects the yin-yang duality of a player whose axework has feulled Both Comets On Fire's freakout euphoria and the post-apocaltptic spok of Current 93. [Oct 2009, p.101]

Led by spectral-voiced dreamer Jannis Makrigiannis, they have made a desolately pretty debut, its tangible, space and reverb-worn expansiveness conjuring vast Nordic skies. [Dec 2009, p. 92]

Broken repeats the team-up, but in wider-screen yet, fully evocative of its genesis in the sprawl of Los Angeles. [Sep 2009, p.95]

The thick strings lead to fumbles, as imagination is constrained by technique. [Sep 2009, p.104]

If you open your album with a song, 'Hard Times,' which rails against the mediocrity of the modern world, it might be worth ensuring it isn't the only tune out of 14 that sticks in the memory. [Jul 2009, p.105]

In short, this is exceptionally good contemporary pop. [Jun 2009, p.109]

Middleton here surely approaches full brilliance. [July 2009, p.96]

She's clearly still diamond sharp, with a larynx to match. [Aug 2009, p.103]

His nicotine-gritted , hurt-strained voice finds a honeyed foil in Dave Amels' swirling organ, while rhythm section David Wayne Gay and Lance Willie provide R&B warmth and swinging, bar-band stomp. [Dec 2009, p. 96]

The earth doesn't move, but sands shift seductively. [Sep 2009, p.102]

Yacht are a band that know how to party; they just need to lock it down. [Oct 2009, p.108]

You might even give it a cuddle because it delivers the kind of ultra-friendly music that sits up and in a cutesy manner demands such attention. [Fall 2009, p.93]

It's the songs on which she distances herself from that occasionally tiresome persona where she really shines. [Aug 2009, p.94]

Much of The Ruminant Band comes sunny side up. [Sep 2009, p.90]

Drawn to look within, you run into the smart opacity of Reitherman's lyrics. [Sep 2009, p.96]

A newly dynamic SAG here build on the intuitive eclecticism of last year's "59:59" debut. [Nov 2009, p.100]

Of the various sidelines spinning off Vancouver psych-rockers Black Mountains, this is the prettiest. [Sep 2009, p.102]

The former Vincent Frank has filled his debut with a hard-to-stomach collection of shiny pop tunes floating between Alphabeat's sing-along-a-showtunes and Mika's falsetto muggging. [Aug 2009, p.96]

There's nothing here to advance the small-scale acclaim gathered by their debut. [Aug 2009, p.95]

For Radio Wars, producer Dan Grech-Marguerat has opened out their sound, but the atmosphere of intrigue remains. [Apr 2009, p.98]

McClure has since retracted his retirement outburst, and rightly so: a third attempt might make him a contender. [Aug 2009, p.95]

The music and mood's emotional connection makes the Furnaces a band to love at last. [Sep 2009, p.95]

It's a strangely stilted approach on songs. [Sep 2009, p.92]

The constant, keenig purity of Ohiona Molina's vocals save all this from becoming too relentlessly dispiriting. [Aug 2009, p.104

The strongest parts of this record have a yearning, almost devotional quality which can unlock something in the patient listeners. [Aug 2009, p.96]

[It is] a testament to Hunter's ongoing vim. [Sep 2009, p.96]

Mostly these provoke wows and crikeys of crooked pleasure. [Jan 2010, p.93]

The core idea brings a bright focus and forward movement to their gummy, ambrosial stoner sound, adding bright melody and fairytale zing to these end-of-summer tales of beachbound escape and smalltown torpor. [Nov 2009, p.101]

As you hit repeat to hear Horehound for the umpteenth time, what's remarkable is that these 11 tunes, with their sonic curveballs and causl vim, suggest that a second Dead Weather LP would be almost as welcome as the White Stripes' seventh. [Jul 2009, p.90]

To be fair, Sharpe, a dramatic alter-ego for leader/singer Alex Ebert, does corral a few tunes infectious enough to last the distance on Broadway. [Sep 2009, p.90]

Beautiful, minimal and bewitching, it is both another reason to hate Peter Broderick and another reason to admire him. [Aug 2009, p.102]

It's their talent for great hooks, that gets you in the end. [Aug 2009, p.99]

At points they're both elegant and, dare we say it, beautiful, so if this is the emperor's new clothes then they're wonderfully cut. [Jul 2009, p.97]

The overall feeling, despite all the musical mix'n'matching is of a traditional record: a rootsy return, rather than a copy of a certain Canadian seven-piece art-rock racket. [Jul 2009, p.105]

There's a back-to-basics feel on the mid-tempo country rockers, the slow beauties and mournful lap steel, and even on the musically warm, more upbeat, almost Tex-Mex opening song. [Sep 2009, p.92]

It represents the singer's best work since the aforesaid "Urban Hang Suite." [Sep 2009, p.93]

The result, unfortunately, is one of the dreariest hours you will even spend listening to music. [Aug 2009, p.100]

Sparse backing, strings or a brimming organ interject occasionally, and enhance their combined voices on a brilliantly realised record. [Aug 2009, p.100]

As this crackles with youthful brio and subtlety, we can start speculating what this band may go on to achieve. [Aug 2009, p.98]

Oneida may well be evil geniuses in the midst of creating a classic, multi-album masterpiece. [Aug 2009, p.103]

Five albums in, his music finally sounds as threadbare as his chosen eulogy, dropping any evidence of the richer--if still ragged--arrangements that launched his deeply affecting six-track debut. [Jul 2009, p.107

Unfortunately, much of the rest veers from lightweight to teeth-grindingly irritating, suggesting a private joke that perhaps would have been best left in private. [Sep 2009, p.93]

There hasn't been quite enough time yet for them to construct much of a unique sonic indentity. [Aug 2009, p.94]

The full-tilt, punk-like intensity manifested on the band's first two long players is further honed and sharpened. [Aug 2009, p.109]

Wilco (The Album) is as consummate as anything its author has yet delivered. [Aug 2009, p.97]

Electric Dirt, as implied, is a continuation of "Dirt Farmer's" themes, packing a sharper jolt. [Jul 2009, p.94]

It's a doleful piece, with many trad Moby elements present. [Jul 2009, p.94]

Its choice of selections successfully reinvent the familiar and/or introduce the less well-known. [Jul 2009, p.104]

With standards so consistently high, picking further peaks is a tough call but the surging wah squel of 'Over It' and 'I Don't Wanna Go There's' stellar guitar squall also score way up at the top of the scale. [Jul 2009, p.105]

This is, however, their most mellow, reflective and tempered release yet. [Sep 2009, p.95]

This is an adventurous, joyful album from a major talent. [Aug 2009, p.98]

The quintet's first bona fide album in five years, perhaps acknowledges the baton passing, as does an absence of post-rock tropes. [Jul 2009, p.97]

He manages to retain every essential element of blues tradition, sounding as basic as Hooker, yet at the same time probes ever forward into areas previously unexplored. [Sep 2009, p.96]

Results vary, froma plodding, Kasbian-like 'Deeripper' to the charmingly labyrinthine 'Headdress,' which is so fresh it feels like the genuine article. [Jul 2009, p.96]

With four tracks topping 12 miutes, it's essentially a celebration of pre-punk boffin-rock, 'The Best Of Times 'and 'The Count Of Tuscany' both prog-metal masterpieces worthy of imperial-phase Rush. [Jul 2009,p.95]

Ambivalence Avenue presents a livlier Bibio, tastefully absorbing hip hop and disco beats. [Aug 2009, p.104]