The atmosphere is generally furtive, and yet the songs are at their best when they tap you on the shoulder with a familiar rough-neck charm. [Feb 2012, p.102]

Hymns is worthy if never quite stratospheric heir. [Feb 2012, p.102]

James' final studio album is a sturdy effort that belies the catalog of increasingly serious health issues that have dogged her. [Feb 2012, p.102]

Coherent but properly crackers, this is easily the most delicious post-Trux gumbo so far. [Feb 2012, p.98]

It's been worth the wait. [Feb 2012, p.96]

Siamese Dream is full of bombastic romanticism and undiminished power. [Feb 2012, p.108]

It fits easily alongside Daptone's funky analogue repertoire. [Feb 2012, p.110]

Ortega's voice cuts like cheesewire, every word kicking the beat and the story both. [Oct 2011, p. 100]

An intimate, home-recorded piece that feels like a private performance.[Nov 2011, p. 95]

The shimmering finger-picking and angelic backing vocals of Old Pine build a cosy fireside vibe, but elsewhere the upbeat hoedowns are less impressive. [Nov 2011, p. 92]

A warm twangy sound, evocative of Southern, sun-paralysed afternoons. [Dec 2011, p. 100]

Ersatz G.B. offers no easy explanations, but instead twists and excites the listener's brain with unexpected phantom bewilderments. [Dec 2011, p.100]

An explicitly shambling and weedy breed of music rendered with slavish precision, even muscularity... Decent tunes. [Dec 2011, p.100]

A confounding and bewitching set of songs that feels gloriously out of time. [Dec 2011, p.100]

Simultaneously beautiful and unsettling, it moves from stuttering rhythms of ghost vocals and music loops to immersive multi-layered waves of digital polyphony. [Dec. 2011 p. 99]

Everywhere, tremolo guitars twang, and slow, compressed drums beat out the rhythm of disquietude. [Dec. 2011 p. 99]

It's a record best consumed in a semi-recumbent position, in order to match the loping, laidback pace of the music and Cox's stoned, oak-aged vocals. [Dec. 2011 p. 99]

This set stays faithful to Lennon's melodies - like meeting old friends in unexpected but comfy clothes. [Dec. 2011 p. 99]

A whirl of young Tina Turner energy and powerful, expressive vintage soul vocals. [Dec. 2011 p. 98]

Packs too many failed experiments. [Dec. 2011 p. 98]

Krautrock-tinged, distortion-clouded synthpop covered in soft blankets of breathy, post-Cocteau's vocals... Just breathe it in. [Dec. 2011 p. 98]

Gainsbourg's reedy vocals ... just don't stand up to the rigours of live documentation. [Dec. 2011 p. 98]

Relentless vocal shards create the sensation of being stabbed in the head with a whalebone comb, but when voices and concept coalesce... you begin to see the point. [Dec. 2011 p. 98]

Ghost... has most of the more straightforward roots songs... Guttertown mostly contains the weirder stuff. [Dec. 2011 p. 97]

It's a promising - if a little lackadaisical - debut. [Dec. 2011 p. 97]

The band's primary strength is their ability to harness cold electronica and synth sounds to deftly create earthy-sounding atmospherics... Stirring. [Dec. 2011 p.97]

A trip for questing bohemians of every persuasion. [Dec. 2011 p.96]

Worden can be preposterously experimental - but she's always intriguing. [Dec. 2011 p.96]