That Joe's naturally high-pitched vocals bring urgency and drama is good, but the record's two tail-enders are weak. [Jul 2012, p.90]

Ekki Mukk is a gossamer-light, if strangely riveting voice in the wilderness, while Varoelder drifts agreeably off into softly chiming waves of yearning desolation. Less stirring are the ambience-flecked, tympani-tickled meanderings that fill out much of the rest of the hour. [Jul 2012, p.90]

Certain of her likable idiosyncrasies appear to have been straightened out [since 2009's Hunting My Dress]. But while big, booming choruses bookend the album on Born To and When I'm Asleep, that's about as easy as this listen gets. [Jul 2012, p.89]

The new blood broadens the Sand's vocal palette and, along with some of Gelb's sharpest writing in some time - gives Tuscon's 19-song sprawl more energy and focus than any Gelb LP since 2000's Chore of Enchantment. [July 2012, p.89]

Smith leads one of the best and sturdiest bands in rock... and their intricately scored psychedelia is a running high in Mosaic, the title stomp, with its yowling-wolf lick and Nine, an extended beguiling jam that suggests Smith fronting her own Doors. [Jul 2012, p.89]

With no appealing tunes or choruses to hang his hat on, Caufield's limp, blank vocals founder. [Jul 2012, p.88]

While the power-soak guitar solos ard gung-ho buck of Crazy Horse are present and correct, it's curious that Americana packs songs that don't fit its brief. [Jul 2012, p.88]

The spell of this balmy Southern atmosphere is only broken when Presley drops the ball on the writing front... but otherwise this is an elegant, beautifully realised work. [Jul 2012, p.88]

A record that soothes as often as it unsettles. [Jul 2012, p.88]

Whikle the quintet can comfortably do sincere and introverted on tracks like A Thing Like This and Proud/Ashamed, their speciality indisputably lies in lo-fi revelry, as showcased in Friend Crush. [Jul 2012, p.88]

Blending gargantuan, rack-stretched riffs with corrupted kosmische synth drones, spectral vocals and unyielding, relentless drums, the alchemical result [Oro: Opus Primus] is the heaviest form of psyche-doom space rock. [Jul 2012, p.85]

Their stylish debut knows a bit about content, too, bolting together [the album's] synthetic surfaces with Vorsprung Durch Technik efficiency, yet unashamed of the messy human heart beneath the shine. [Jul 2012, p.85]

Whether it improves on 2010's First Four EPs compilation is debateable. But as Morris would doubtless observe, 'progress' is but a bourgeois vanity. [Jul 2012, p.85]

The Bravest Man impresses on a steadily rising graph as Womack's soul-soaked voice humanises the machinery in ways rarely heard these days. [Jul 2012, p.84]

No One Ever Sleeps, even with harmonies from Robin Pecknold, feels not magical, but hollow and sluggish. At the rockier end, Heartbreaker adds Arcade Fire urgency and may score alt-radio love. The rest, however, is lukewarm. [Jul 2012, p.83]

Dynamic, packed with vim and hooks. [Jul 2012, p.83]

While there are moments that grate, this is an assured first outing that suggests that Brad and his band are worth keeping a keen eye on. [Jul 2012, p.83]

A polished and enjoyable pop-soul confection that transcends its myriad influences. [Jul 2012, p.83]

Carolina's use of a talk box a la Frampton stuck in this listener's craw, but elsewhere the urgency and uncensored filth of Slash's playing is a joy. [Jul 2012, p.82]

There are just enough moments of shimmering, honeyed dexterity to keep us listening. [Jul 2012, p.82]

An album that's a steady pleasure from start to finish. [Jul 2012, p.82]

[The album has] the loose, zonked-out flangey FX/claivnet/Rhodes piano vibe of Goats Head Soup, with strong flavours of Flying Burritos country songcraft. [Jul 2012, p.82]

It's a hyper-vivid and intensely musical affair that takes us deep inside Apple's skittish, fretful mind. [Jul 2012, p.82]

Intense, painfully frank, hysterically funny,and in the end, exultant... OSIGTS isn't always an easy listen, but it does offer a fearless experience that invests pop with more theatricality than the form can usually tolerate. [Jul 2012, p.80]

Simultaneously beautiful and uncanny. [May 2012, p.89]

This collection [is] an artful, sweat-free take on eclectic rhythm that heads straight for the dance floor. [Jan 2012, p.93]

Bold, colorful creations. Surf is most definitely up. [Jan 2012, p.93]

Glitters like broken glass. [Jan 2012, p.92]