Their second with this new line up comes up trumps again. [Jun 2009, p.104]

The Horrors are operating at a way more advanced level, dragging rock, feedback-drenched, electronic and electrifying, into a new decade. [Jun 2009, p.101]

This, then, is A-grade rock'n'roll--profound, damaged, brimming with wondrous dreams. [Jun 2009, p.104]

Roadsinger really does pick up where Cat Stevens left off back in the late '70s. [Jun 2009, p.103]

An antidote to pop bands masquerading as punk, this is the real deal--ugly, and utterly English. [Jun 2009, p.98]

Balf Quarry sees the duo swaggering through louche wah-wahed blues, no-wave barn burners and salty pop ditties, culminating in an eerily beautiful, piano-haunted fever dream. [May 2009, p.109]

Colonia has nothing like its predecessor's consistency of tone, but Persson strikes gold with two siren calls worthy of the last, desperate, doom-laden Abba albums. [Mar 2009, p.109]

Together Through Life is an album that gets its hooks in early and refuses to let go. [Jun 2009, p.94]

Whatever they're called, Sabbath still rule. [Jun 2009, p.99]

Gardot's torch ballads smoulder intensely. [Apr 2009, p.103]

It's hard not to be seduced by the pure enthusiasm the duo have for wailing feedback, white light/white heat and archaic teen rebellion. [Aug 2009, p.103]

This covers set is a fine entry-point. [Jul 2009, p.97]

San Fran stalwart John Dwyer continues to deliver quality goo goo muck with his subterranean garage-psych combo. [Aug 2009, p.104]

Music For The People is a record that brims with weighty ambition. [April 2009]

The opening tunes are strong, but in the later half mannered singing and pretentiousness bring back memories of the Thompson Twins. [Mar 2009, p.110]

It's the same PSB sound--huge electronic hooks wed to archly recited lyrics. The only difference is almost every track here is a potential hit. [Apr 2009, p.100]

Gruff Rhys returns from his sabbatical to release another crush of blissed-out psychedelia, crunching beats, sun-kissed harmonies and topsy-turvy rhythms. And what a blast it is, too. [May 2009, p.96]

Even where Sounds Of The Universe resembles a self-help manual, it does so with commanding tunes and a ring of truth. [May 2009, p.102]

The results may finally help them to escape the label of a light-hearted Fall with singer Eddie E. Smith. [Jun 2009, p.96]

Soul is only as good as its rhythm section and Drive-By Truckers are just not up to the job, obliterating subtle originals and OutKast and Tom Waits covers with bashing, crashing drums and plodding bass. A missed opportunity. [May 2009, p.97]

Her Dusty-meetsNancy tones glide as imperiously over violin-caressed opener 'French Navy' as on lustrous indie-country upgrade 'You Told A Lie,' reaching sublime lvels of heartache on the Spectoresque title track. [Jun 2009, p.109]

Jazz albums don't come much better. [May 2009, p.101]

This set stands out as Cleaves' most engaging release since "Broke Down" back in 2000. [Aug 2009, p.104]

Graceful and witty with 'Old Wounds' and mordant and terse in the spiky 'St. Albans,' while the sublime 'Mimi' reveals a storyteller's eye for nuance and character. [May 2009, p.102]

Sometimes I Wish We Were An Eagle is a record of grand hopes and epic imagery, and powerful, uplifting music--the most accomplished of his 20-year career. [Apr 2009, p.102]

This second album owes nothing to Kevin Shields and just about everything to the Smashing Pumpkins. [May 2009, p.69]

This, one, in its place [Pixies reunion], is fresh and really rather fab. [Mar 2009, p.106]

His third album, with its surprisingly upbeat title, makes good on the escalating promise of his previous releases. [May 2009, p.110]

The Future Will Come's title seems presciently loaded, its content primed for a mainstream meet'n'greet. [May 2009, p.108]

They're still at their best on offbeat musings. [May 2009, p.101]

The Canadian quartet have long proved their sidemen chops, and sound as good on honky tonk, back-porchers or country ballads. [May 2009, p.101]

This 77-minute abbreviation includes the 18-minute triptych 'Time Of Ye Life/Born For Nothing/Paranoid Arm Of Narcoleptic Empire, typifying CBP's simmering conflagration of Mogwai, Godspeed! and The God Machine. [May 2009, p.109]

Neilson's own reedy but elemental voice is the perfect foil to this, and the myriad musical ideas are nailed down by classic, disciplined songwriting. [May 2009, p.108]

While Two Suns almost inevitably finds Natasha Khan caught between the rock of artistic muse and the hard place of major label rockability, there's still invention and charisma enough here to keep both leftfield chin-stroker and ingenue fan onside for now. [Apr 2009, p.106]

This is mostly an album about England, about hearts beating wild and strong through wind whipped, rain-lashed, solace-in-introspection northern living. [May 2009, p.97]

Sov's downfall is the occasional repetitiveness on songs like 'Pennies,' where cyclical beats and lyrics begin to grate. [May 2009, p.96]

Nine of its 10 songs are around the three-minute mark and as solid and straightahead as the tank behind whose wheel they might've been written. [May 2009, p.98]

Mostly, though, the album plays to Mould's strengths. [May 2009, p.98]

From rowdy juke-joint jams to sunblushed cornfield ballads, these songs born of tough times. The latter provides the album's stand-out moments. [Jul 2009, p.100]

Their debut full-length more than makes good on the attention they've been receiving. [May 2009, p.103]

It's on those songs that strike a chord with Elliot personally that he's most convincing. [May 2009, p.103]

Repo is a brightly coloured series of aural non sequiturs, its lard-legged beat science peaking with distorted synth-funk jam 'Ultra Vomit Craze.' [May 2009, p.109]

The Jeff Buckleyesque epic 'Larkspur' and the desolately pretty 'It Hits Deeper' raise the bar for sensitive creatives everywhere. [May 2009, p.103]

Cumulatively, the combination of Ashworth's sub-Bill Callahan levels of vocal animation and the mid-paced songs with tolling chord changes can err towards the enervating rather than the enigmatic, but funkier beats and mellotron give White Jetta a lift. [Jun 2009, p.96]

The results are truly beguiling. [Jul 2009, p.104]

Everyday Demons ticks all the hard rock boxes. That there isn't a single orginal idea on display here doesn't actually matter. [Mar 2009, p.105]

It's Blitz! succeeds because YYYs have managed to mix the human and the electronic, the emotional and the artsy, the fashion-forward and the oddly retro. [May 2009, p.94]

After nearly two decades, this man and this woman still turn heads. [Apr 2009, p.100]

A surfeit of wilfully sibilant '80s keyboard sounds notwithstanding, there's little to dislike. [May 2009, p.103]

The result is fabulous, Ogerman framing Krall's sultry, languorous delivery with arrangements that are opulent yet don't swamp her voice. [Jul 2009, p.93]

Mostly A New Tide is high on big tunes and low on character. [May 2009, p.108]

Apart from the comprehensive compilation aspect and the rich live presence, this double CD also pauses to capture the remarkable way he welcomes 20,000 people to his fireside. [May 2009, p.98]

The effete Norwegian's music is becoming too unobtrusive for its own good. [Apr 2009, p.103]

More than great, this is well worth hearing for the Tex Mex No Way I'll Never Need You, Lone Star barroom rocker Just About Time, beautifully-sung After The Storm, and state-of-the nation border ballad Homeland Refugee. [May 2009, p.101]

Black Cascade meshes razor-throated fundamentals with panoramic sweep, its four thunderous riff odysseys wreathed in soulful desolation. [May 2009, p.109]

Welcome to Mali celebrates its artificiality, flaunts its illegitimacy and waggles its infidelities in your face. Amadou & Mariam have just damned authenticite to an eternity in caducite. [Dec 2008, p.98]

It's captivating stuff, with the gnomic lyrics adding to the implied oppostion between the natural world and the machines used to make the record. [Apr 2009, p.108]

It's the songs--funny, literate, doomed--which get under your skin. [Apr 2009, p.100]

Cheeky, but delightful. [Apr 2009, p.106]

By turns acoustic intimate and theatrical-loud, this spellbinding work peaks and soars with all the warmth and wonder of some great romantic adventure, demanding and rewarding total immersion in its magical narrative. [May 2009, p.110]

Beyond the singles-"Melody A.M." lapsed into a latterday jazz-funk. This album sometimes tends the same way, but interest is reignited by Royksopp Forever--ELO with dancebeats--and the tracks where Lykke Li and The Knife's Karin Dreijer-Andersson approach Robyn's unhinged lager-umlaut Europop berserkersim. [May 2009, p.104]

It is Mastodon's ability to blend such grandstanding flourishes with a powerful sense of songcraft that suggests Crack The Skye might be some "Master Of Puppets" breakthrough for the Atlanta quartet. [May 2009, p.98]

Kicks may take its leads from The Rolling Stones, David Bowie and Orange Juice but these songs about Glasgow and girls still manage to invest the skinny-tie shuffle with some fresh contemporary verve. [Apr 2009, p.98]

Ten is a classic of the grunge era, its super-sized anthems and introspective pieces powered by Eddie Vedder, a Jim Morrision for the plaid shirt brigade. [Apr 2009, p.116]

So that's Obits: rapid tunes, powerhouse performances, great album. [May 2009, p.104]

Klang is a step in the right direction. [May 2009, p.69]

White Lies naivety is emphatically brokered by their songs ability to rouse and inspire. [Feb 2009, p.109]

It is simply beautiful. [May 2009, p.96]

Low on polish but high on anything-goes exuberence, in Wavves-world The Beach Boys rub shoulders with Half Japanese, The Shaggs with Guided By Voices and Pavement with JFA, all held together with sneaker laces and stickers to create a bedroom-wall collage as scruffy as it is irresistible. [Aug 2009, p.96]

John Legend phones it in somewhat, and Ghostface Killah makes little sense, but the brain-pummelling tecno that punctuates the latter's profane offerings certainly makes the best of it. [Jul 2009, p.106]

Despite her emotional punk-meets-Brecht contralto, Marianne's vocal limitations are clear on tracks like 'Easy Come, Easy Go' or Sondheim's Somewhere (A Place For Us)' which she struggles through with an overawed Jarvis Cocker. But she shines on songs that seem more personal to her. [Apr 2009, p.99]

Here, the band look to the more languid nod of Spaceman 3 instead. [Jul 2009, p.98]

A pleasingly melodious onrush from which a complete absence of rhythmic funk fails to detract. [May 2009, p.108]

Develop the creepy incantations into songs and they might really grab some shirtfronts. [Jul 2009, p.107]

On 'North London Trash,' 'Burberry Blue Eyes,' 'Hostage Of Love' and the histrionic 'Blood For Wild Blood,' Razorlight have matured beyond bubblegum rock and may yet answer Borrell's prayers for immortality. [Dec 2008, p.100]

Scream has balls, Cornell vacating his comfort zone with admirable readiness. [Apr 2009, p.98]

At her new best, Peyroux sings as elegantly as Peggy Lee and writes lines bearing the downbeat clarity of Leonard Cohen. [Apr 2009, p.98]

It's Buffalo, New York-born David Stith's turn now to fashion a brilliant, hermetically sealed world that makes unabashed emotional connection. [Apr 2009, p.109]

This third disc, to be blunt, pisses over the competition. [Apr 2009, p.106]

When the quality is this high, Perkins can sing the pain away for as long as he needs. [May 2009, p.101]

Benefiting from a stable line-up throughout, Song of the Pearl manages to sound brighter and more dynamic while retaining its predecessor's visionary essence. [Apr 2009, p.107]

Produced by Tortoise's John McEntire on this, their second outing, BO channel such solitary American composers as Harry Partch and Charles Ives, rattling from distorted second line jazz to mournful Moondog horn stomps and sweet chamber melancholy, creating a claustrophobic city suite that taps into a whole other area of American vernacular music. [Dec 2009, p. 96]

Plenty of good listening here. [Jun 2009, p.105]

You try to remember a single melody or hook from the record and you're found wanting. [Apr 2009, p.99]

This lot recall mid-'90s crusty combos like Senser and Back To The Planet, their politics naive and hectoring, their music, frankly, pretty ghastly. [Apr 2009, p.108]

You could muse on the dignity of 40 year olds having a rave revival but when the 303 synth squelch kicks in on soulful closer 'Stand Up,' it's all more pukka than moody. [Mar 2009, p.105]

Middle Cyclone never lets go enough to take flight; nor does it too quickly wear out its welcome. [Apr 2009, p.110]

The result is a collage of several kinds of classic U2 album, one that has the beauty of their panoramic '80s Eno/Lanois recordings plus the synthetic experimentation andd dalliances with pop merriment which revolutionized the band's modus operandi from "Achtung Baby" onwards. [Apr 2009, p.96]

Communion clearly packs a unique set of quirks, diversions and comedowns. [Sep 2009, p.102]

This follow-up is stronger [than his debut]. [Apr 2009, p.109]

While beats like 'Shine All Day's' electronic bounce feel odd at first, they gradually begin to make sense, while KRS-One's 'What If?' and the Supernatural-helmed 'Tribute To The Breakdancer' will keep the most ardent old-schoooler happy. [Apr 2009, p.108]

Most are country ballads--sentimental, heartfelt and tend towards sacred. [Apr 2009, p.109]

This is room-shaking, gut-quaking stuff. [Apr 2009, p.106]

It's a fine entry point into Faust's lineage. [May 2009, p.104]

As with previous album "Songs III," this us an enchanting record. [Apr 2009, p.109]

Hearing Aidan Moffat in such jocose mood on his first song-based record without Malcolm Middleton is quite the revelation. [Apr 2009, p.99]

Jon Boden delivers an audacious yet subtle solo masterpiece. [Apr 2009, p.108]

Never inept, The Nightingales still remain hard work for precious little gain. [Mar 2009, p.114]