Efrim Menuck's off-key wail remains an acquired taste, but there's undeniable collective commitment. [Apr 2008, p.112]

The formula makes for a kick-ass sound, one which you can imagine rocking a festival tent to its foundations, and yet uncomfortable echoes of Lenny Kravitz keep reappearing. [Dec 2007, p.108]

The Jets sound cohesive and settled but losing their saucer-eyed charm can't help but make them a less mesmerising alternative to the competition. [Apr 2008, p.114]

Sometimes there's a danger that comes with being too damn clever, namely that the melodies at the heart of songs can suffer or a feeling of too much fiddling around. [Apr 2008, p.104]

A second album every bit as upbeat, funny and furious as their eponymous 2006 debut. [Apr 2008, p.105]

New Puritans sound best when living up to that Fall-derived name. [Feb 2008, p.113]

The Kills sound and feel like no other band--nocturnal, wayout, untouchable. [Apr 2008, p.100]

Street Horrrsing is a six-track, 50-minute melange of iridescent synths, psychedelic drone, distorted vocals and tribal rhythm, peaking with the deftly layered counter-melodies and blissed -out propulsion of epic single 'Bright Tomorrow.' [Mar 2008, p.113]

Surface and feeling, Neon Neon dream the life with boundless imagination. [May 2008, p.108]

With producer Danger Mouse's nuanced psychedelic rock and soul backdrops, scintillating pop music with substance results. [May 2008, p.103]

What she shows via sweetly understated arrangements, are beautifully simple love songs delivered with a summer-scented voice that echoes Karen Carpenter one minute, Linda Ronstadt or Peggy Lee the next. [Aug 2008, p.102]

The benchmark for 2008's best electronic record has been set. [July 2008, p.102]

Green writes with a compulsive frequency, like an office joker cracking funnies. And after 20 of his songs, the appeal wanes in not dissimilar fashion. [Apr 2008, p.114]

It's top quality stuff. [May 2008, p.106]

Infectious, propulsive, unselfconscious, The Dodos are good enough to keep such company [as Brian Eno or David Byrne]. [Aug 2008, p.106]

Wolf's sing-speak vocals are arresting. [May 2008, p.112]

With too many pastel-shaded instrumentals, the album lacks the previous album's molten touch and her live show's surging spirit. [June 2008, p.114]

Spiky-sounding pop dominates with abrupt or obtuse song titles the rule not the exception. [Apr 2008, p.110]

The Unfairground finds Ayers rejuvenated and stands comparison with his best work. [Oct 2007, p.98]

Superabundance is a record to treasure. [Apr 2008, p.104]

Preposterous, but this time knowingly so. [May 2008, p.114]

Real Emotional Trash conjures a virtuoso meld of folk rock, prog and cosmic blues tropes, all filtered through the ex-pavement frontman's tradmark arch surrealism. [Apr 2008, p. 101]

It's a gloom that suits them both. [Apr 2008, p.112]

It's a fantastic collection, there's still nothing else remotely like it. [Apr 2008, p.104]

It's not a great album but it is good, bar a slapdash feel to some songs and too much squealing, dated guitar. [Apr 2008, p.100]

With her co-producers, they fashion some perfectly weighted, tastefully adorned grroves but her voice, an idiosyncratic mix of Lucinda Williams and Dolores O'Riordan inflections, sometimes jars. [Apr 2008, p.100]

Lovely. [Nov 2007, p.102]

Their sun-baked, lyrically feverish chooglin' is more textured and melodic on these addictive new jams, ripe with Hammond-flavoured funkadelia and visionary gospel-prog. [May 2008, p.111]