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]