At times the album that little bit too airy. As skilful as Ashworth is in crafting delicately spun melody--the jangling harmonies of ‘Morning Comes’, or the gentle lull of ‘At Hollywood’--her full force and potential truly reveals itself when the shadows burst out and take over, dragging her shoegazey soundscapes to the edge of the void.

There is no mistaking that ‘Hickey’ is Royel Otis at their most self-assured. .... We can’t help but question if slightly more hunger to push the boundaries would add a greater sense of depth to an otherwise satisfying album.

When it comes down to it, it ain't gonna change your world any.

Sonic risks are taken, but they don’t always pay off.

Just when you're starting to worry some of the cancer vibes might rub off, he'll crack that underdog grin and knock out a number like 'Hey Man (Now You're Really Living)', backed by a bunch of cheerleaders. [18 Feb 2006, p.36]

They respond to the challenge [to engage politically] in explosive style to deliver something like their defining statement.

For the most part, though, you’ll need to look elsewhere for your protest music. This is escapist rap, as outlandish and oversized as a gaudy Spiderman comic--and, at times, just as much absurdist fun.

This “psychic reset” has reinvigorated Thomas, and even if the results are sometimes a bit messy, there’s no way you can call this record boring. Long live King Tuff II.

Though longing and mortality have long been recurring themes in Dacus’ music, the stakes feel even higher – and even more gripping – when there’s so much to lose.

What primarily sets ‘Romance Is Boring’ up as a significant step forward is that it’s incredibly structurally cohesive, and yet blows anything they’ve previously released out of the water in terms of textural intricacy, technical prowess and general experimentation; each track seems to take an element that’s been formerly alluded to and stretch it to a fuller form.

Its nine tracks were composed solely on keyboards as the duo – Wolf Parade guitarist Dan Boeckner and wife Alexei Perry – forced themselves into a new songwriting regime.

Go To School, feels less like a night on Broadway and more like being dragged along to an amateur performance at your local village hall. It’s charming and full of heart, but you’ll be grimacing all the way through it.

This album really shouldn’t work. That it does is down to Kavinsky’s painstaking production and his dark vision of the place where rock and electro meet.

Energetic and cleverly crafted.

While it’s a good listen, every song drags.

In short, it's as Icelandic as whale pie--elevator music, sure, but heaven's own elevators.

‘The Mutt’s Nuts’ expands the boundaries of what Chubby and the Gang are looking to achieve, but they’re not about to forget where they came from.

Turn it off halfway through and it’s brilliant.

In the album's quieter segments he proves that his deft touch remains.

The trio's first new album in eight years finds The Black Keys' filthy uncles, Grinderman's cellmates and The Stooges' delinquent offspring still deeply embedded in a scuzzy groove.

They expound spiritual philosophies (“I am a hieroglyph of love!”), grasp the rural jig-folk baton from Mumford & Sons and, post-Beirut, remind everyone it’s supposed to be fun.

This album of instrumental sketches is surprisingly bullish, its snotty distorted synths and chiptune funk melodies aligning El-P unexpectedly with the output of young UK producers Joker and Rustie.

'Ringleader Of The Tormentors' sees Morrissey not only in wonderful voice, but more flamboyant and alive than at any time in his solo career.

Marian Joan Elliott-Said, Poly Styrene to you, is one of punk's great cult icons. Her band X-Ray Spex was one of the most inventive and fun of the era. Her first record in aeons, Generation Indigo provides ample proof of both aforementioned claims.

Art Brut haven’t made the record that’ll reverse their gradual slide back towards cult. But they have at least made the one that’ll make the cult even more fervent.

While this record is unlikely to bring the band or the cultural touchstones they cover back to the top, it’s a soul-searching move that satisfies their own fandom while showing they’ll never compromise.

Recorded with a Luddite's zeal- no keyboards, samplers, sequencers - he's... managed to document the clanking claustrophobia of modern life.

Everything they had, they still have - but now every note is ten times more focused and urgent.

Trouble is, as grown up and grouchy as Sum 41 may have become (on record, if not in Strokes-mocking video), they sure aint no Fugazi.

Simplicity obviously works to their advantage. True, with all unnecessary distractions gone you're painfully aware of Wareham's stretching for the high notes, but from the leathery creak of 'Bewitched', to the arch pop of 'Moon Palace' via the rollicking fuzz of '23 Minutes In Brussels' it hardly seems to matter

X-Press 2 are like a dancefloor Oasis; great at pleasing the crowds, less good at innovation, and fatally weakened by their reverence for washed-up old rockers.

They’re too wilfully mad to emulate Tame Impala’s success, but if you’re after a freaking out, King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard’s outrageous noise deserves attention.

These clear, plucky songs may not be terribly adventurous for the most part, but they do feel like the ambitious work of an artist broadening their scope.

‘Jade Bird’ has the edge of an assured debut album and is a startling introduction to a British talent who looks set to take the States by storm.

This long-awaited debut album proper from the preacher-chic-touting fivesome is an intoxicating mix of apocalyptic riffs, sob-worthy singalongs and brooding blues.

Even their B-sides are full of dark magic. [2 Apr 2005, p.50]

MTMTMK is all about neon-soaked city raving, and the result is a stiffer, uglier and over-Westernised sound, too reliant on soulless computerisation.

Bejar has a wondrous lyrical facility that it’d be a shame for him to forsake--but he’s also possessed of a beguiling, breezy touch that acts as a musical lingua franca here.

If Pe’ahi is a tribute to Sune’s father, it’s a warts-and-all portrayal of a turbulent relationship, but one delivered with a tenderness and intensity that propels the very concept of the retro garage duo into a fresh sonic stratosphere. Drop in, it’s an exhilarating descent.

Less teenage kicks, more teenage contemplation.

The ideas in ‘Songs For The General Public’ are rich, creative and often funny, but its musical staying power is lacking.

‘Back of My Mind’ is a dazzling debut from an artist who’s so in command of her own sound that it’s almost jarring when “Exhausted’ includes a shout-out to producer Darkchild.

Each of these six songs is named after a traditional Norwegian dish, and together they cook up a satisfying if unadventurous snack.

Armed with a wide array of instrumentation, it’s an ambitious attempt at an extravagant pop record and, at their best, the band show a deft touch for layered orchestration.

Plastic Hearts finds the pop-star-turned-rock-star going hell for leather – and when Miley Cyrus is at full throttle, it’s an absolute blast. Life has imitated art, and she’s become her very own Ashley O.

The beats on Tongue N’ Cheek are still raw, clamorous and unpredictable, but in a springy, primary-coloured way.

Chvrches are effortless and close to svblime.

Sadly, the promise of desert-rock heaviness is, if anything, underplayed.

Perhaps the highest compliment you could pay this EP is that if you didn't know who it was and had no preconceived notions about what it should--or shouldn't--sound like, you'd think you had stumbled across something very special indeed.

For the most part, however, while never less than beautifully realised, there’s a sense that the record has more dramatic and intense potential that’s left frustratingly untapped.

Patchiness is the main shortcoming of ‘Dreamer+’, interrupting the immersion that Lindgård commands so carefully in tracks like ‘Dreamer’ and ‘Sleepwalker’s Pendulum’. Nevertheless, the record proves Lindgård is a force to be reckoned with on all fronts – as a producer, songwriter and vocalist.

Angry blues stomps such as ‘Early In The Morning’ are the aural equivalent of Wild Turkey for breakfast, while ‘Out At Sea’ combines the grit and growl of the Bastards’ beginnings with a layering of sounds that’s wider, more expansive and ultimately more interesting.

Personality, his third album, conforms to type, while confounding expectation.

Black Moon Spell is scuzzy, wired and bulging with Marc Bolan vocals, riffs Jimmy Page forgot to stick on any Zeppelin album and a bunch of outrageously catchy choruses. Big fun.

A confusing, intriguing record, then. Not their strongest, but there's a transition underway.

While Bought to Rot might not possess the focused tenacity of Against Me!’s latest record, ‘Shape Shift With Me’, it’s a varied, meandering album that roams freely across multiple genres.

It's a bolshie, unapologetic barrage of electroshock rock'n'roll that's as snarlingly pissed off as it is inanely entertaining.

Initially, you might be disappointed to have waited two years for what at first sounds like an underworked collection of throwaways. In places, though, the record rewards repeat listens. ... But there’s no getting away from the fact that at 24 tracks long, there’s not a lot of variety on ‘Whole Lotta Red’, and the biggest take away here is perhaps that perennial rap fan favourite: less is most definitely more.

The harmonies are still present, but where once they aimed for a weirdy Wicker Man feel, now they combine forces in stirring new ways.

It’s funny, melancholy, randy, touching, disgusting and deeply, deeply strange. It will baffle many--but at 17 tracks and 70 minutes, it has the feel of a magnum opus.

Nelson’s [voice] still boasts a lightness of touch. He might be a soulful elder statesman, but there’s a perkiness to his version of cult outlaw songwriter Billy Joe Shaver’s 1981 track ‘We Are The Cowboys’, which celebrates the multiculturalism of the American cowboy.

Teasing the limits of pleasure and agony, 'Black Foliage' is a messy, irritating listen. But it's worth persevering just for those odd moments of gorgeousness.

Each track is a treat - a sensible, lo-cholesterol treat, maybe, but still packed with oddly addictive rhymes and beats.

Ignore the flippant title, there’s material on ‘The Rest’ that could have fought hard for space on their debut album.

'Capture/Release' is fresh, unique, original even; its oh-so-contemporary reference points are revisited with such punk-rock vivacity and hell-for-charity-shop-leather vigour that they might be the first band you’d actually believe when they roll out the old "no, honestly, we were doing this long before we’d even heard of Bloc Party".

Right up to the cover of Mud’s ‘Lonely This Christmas’ done as though it’s East 17’s ‘Stay Another Day’, this is a Christmas riot.

Guy Garvey’s solo debut follows the classic pattern--he’s off to play trad-based songs that “don’t fit the Elbow template” with his mates from I Am Kloot (bassist Pete Jobson) and The Whip (guitarist Nathan Sudders), don’t wait up. But as it reels out the old lines it proves quite the charmer.

It would be alright if they believed this stuff, but it's all done with the detached sneer beloved of hipsters worldwide. They're faux-hippies, not real ones.

A bold step forward that sees DMA’s coming into their own, it’s a two-fingered salute to anyone that sneers at the idea of trying something new.

None of which is to say it’s a bad album, just a lightweight one.

That surprising lack of offensiveness, though, isn't replaced with anything to particularly excite, leaving it a tasteful aural curtain of an album without much of a view beyond.

‘Culture III’ is more focused than its exhausting 24-track-long predecessor, but a stricter edit here could’ve enhanced the experience even further.

At six tracks it’s a slight but solid return.

So while Nocturne is gorgeous, it's a little too predictable to become truly exciting.

If anything, on the likes of ‘Warsaw’ and ‘Cards To Your Heart’, it gets too dark, but there’s enough funk in their trunk to ensure that the coffee table crowd won’t be too terrified.

In summary then, better than most if you like that sort of thing.

"Both Ways Open Jaws" is tribal, prickly and wickedly playful.

What White has done with ‘Fear Of The Dawn’, in fact, is row his experimental tendencies back a little, as if to meet the desires of his audience halfway. Unfortunately, that can make large chunks of the ensuing record a confused and purposeless mess.

Despite the abundance of male influence on the record, from ex-boyfriend to songwriters to producers to mentors, Rihanna makes the sound her own, and fights back.

To be able to write with universality is the mark of a songwriter’s ambition growing, and here Mac DeMarco is transitioning into one of the best around.

No post-nu-metal. No nu-post-hardcore. Just a solid, honest, rock album.

Eitzel does doomed introspection with more wit than the average bear, however, and more tunefully, too.

As intelligent, bittersweet, angular stuff, whether it’s alt.rock, guitar-pop, or even emo is immaterial. Labels be damned - just call it great music.

They're the metal Radiohead. Though it's definitely a million times more metal than anything the Oxford miserablists have recorded, 'Lateralus' still easily contains the same amount of misery and self-obsessed navel-gazing.

Muse have made a ridiculous, overblown, ambitious and utterly brilliant album, with more thrills than their previous three put together.

If 'Hats Off...' is slightly too much, too soon, they've still done enough to impress.

They’ve upset people’s expectations and made a handful of very good pop songs, but Twenty One ultimately just proves that they’re as unpredictable as they ever were.

The chilly Euro-house stylings may be a mite predictable but Diddy proves a generous curator, laying on blockbuster exhibits and atmospheric slow jamz alike in the greatest cast-of-millions hip-hop joint since, well, Kanye's latest.

Cancer Bats are not just ripping it. They're tearing it a new one.

The Killer starts out monumentally grave, but by its close the sunlight is flooding in.

Where the songs are slow, the fruity Bontempi keyboards are gruelling and the singing comes on like Jimmy Somerville weeping over a dead pet in a marbled mausoleum. But get past the Bronski Beat animal trauma vibes and Savage's other life is rich and full.

The beat pulses seductively on ‘Staring At The Moon’. ‘Flags & Crosses’ sounds like a nasty Bee Gees. But then it all goes a bit wrong.

If there’s anything wrong with Brooklyn-via-Kentucky singer-songwriter Dawn Landes’ seamless fifth album, it’s that it’s just too damn nice.

Thought Forms' side peaks with the driving Sonic Youth riffs of ‘Sound Of Violence’ and the dizzying My Bloody Valentine lurch of ‘For The Moving Stars’.... Having left their label, [Esben And The Witch] are using crowdfunding to record their next album with Steve Albini, for which these raw tracks offer great.

Classically trained, the breadth of Ainsworth’s talent is laid bare on Darling Of The Afterglow.

There’s much to be said for playing to your strengths, though, and they’ve honed their contrasting, distinctive sounds with this impressive double release. Krept & Konan have plenty of days and nights ahead of them.

Throughout we’re treated to bold and buoyant basslines, slick vocal harmonies and vocalist Cristal Ramirez’s crisp delivery of deliciously millennial lyrics .

Elephants on Acid is a frustrating listen, flitting between the unbeatable glory of Cypress Hill’s 90s and the eventual journey into middling experimental rap that followed.