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]

[The album] sees the reunited Grand "Daddy G" Marshalll abnd Robert "3D" Del Naja proving they can still corner the market in atmospheric glooom, even if their era-defining days have passed. [Mar 2010, p.90]

Sade has, as ever, fashioned an album that sounds both classic and current. [Mar 2010, p.91]

Regan cross-wires mid-'60s Dylan and Paul Simon with the '70s CBGB pantheon, his songcraft on the verge of cohering his quirkily arresting strengths into true brilliance. [Feb 2010, p. 92]

Guest appearances from the venerated likes of Percee P and M.E.D. and Mr Lif & Edan prove these Brothers' breakbeats more than pass muster. But it's the more adventurous instrumentals that impress most. [Mar 2010, p.92]

Instead of warm colours they work with a more monochromatic palette. There's darkness, rain, a chill in the air, remoteness, a sense of nature--and more of than not, a very British remoteness and sense of nature. [Feb 2010, p.90]

Its first side pelts past in 12 minutes, melding the brittle charms of Modern Lovers and Wire with a muscular garage rock dynamism: the joyous hurtle of Down On Loving makes like a more savage Strokes, while the caustic Answer To Yourself draws the fuzzy '60s classicism of the The Black Lips into tighter focus, a Nuggets-worthy anthem. [Feb 2010, p. 95]

Slick's shuddering electro, 808 handclaps and foundation-bothering Miami bass drops go to work on your endorphin levels and display astute songcraft. [Mar 2010, p.100]

With its profusion of delicate acoustic guitar arpeggios and fine string arrangements by Beck's father David Campbell, much of the rest of IRM steers a more organic, at times almost skiffle-like path, but the twist is Gallic melancholy. [Feb 2010, p. 93]

Their slightly shambolic and unapologetic pop-fused sound works, though, and looks likely to speed Los Campesinos! to the cult canonical Brit-indie status reserved for the other outsider troupes like Belle & Sebastian and The Cribs. [Mar 2010, p.96]

Teen Dream is a lovely album, but there's more to admire here than to actually love. Oddly, that may not be a problem. [Feb. 2010, p. 94]

Unlike the super-saturated rush of Everything Ecstatic, There Is Love In You radiates a mellow subtlety, the wonderfully named She Just Like To Fight a twinkling pastoral while the luscious groove of Plastic People pushes its most interesting clicks and skitters to the periphery. [Feb 2010, p. 105]

There is much to love here, just as much to hate, and nothing to be indifferent about. [Mar 2010, p.99]

What Realism does best is preserve Merritt at his most real, a blend of Cole Porter, Morrissey and Eeyore, a master of what he labels as "cosy, charming, subtle" gestures, which on several occasions (especially You Must Be Out Of Your Mind and I Don't Know What To Say) reach a level of miserablist perfection. [Feb 2010, p. 95]

At its best, though, The Sea is not just honest and cathartic, but jaw-dropping - and a difficult call for any critic. [Feb 2010, p. 93]