Its mixtape nature means it isn’t yet the concise album Keel Her might one day produce, but the breezy likes of ‘Go’, ‘Riot Girl’ and ‘Don’t Look At Me’ are tuneful pop pastiches in the vein of Dum Dum Girls and Ariel Pink.

This is an album of thoughtful and considered dissent rather than the righteous rage of old.

Too often, ¡Tré! falls back on a formula--fast, box-ticking choruses fashioned from chords you can count on the fingers of one hand--that Green Day have pretty much stretched to breaking point.

If you scratch below the surface of 'See You On The Other Side' you'll find little of substance. [3 Dec 2005, p.43]

‘Blameless’ and ‘Little Moments’ marshal some nice glimmering synths, but Alec Ounsworth’s mewling vocal--while unquestionably distinctive--remains a bit of an odd proposition to achieve the requisite Everyman appeal.

The more you delve into it the less you find, because it’s all affectation.

He splits the difference on ‘Music To Be Murdered By’, indulging his immature ego (griping at bad reviews, stirring controversy for the sake of it) even as he offers salient social criticism and admits his missteps. He’s ready to pass on hard-earned wisdom before running his mouth like he hasn’t learned his own lessons. And he offers casual fans a hook or two before embarking on another lyrical work-out.

‘The Battle at Garden’s Gate’ is a mixed bag of heavy metaphor and lazy observation.

They're having their own sonic keg party here: coasting through the fuck-ups on the basic likeability-- the sheer shaggy melodic charm--of the hosts.

The only criticism is that the lyrics fail to make the impact implied by titles like ‘Feed Me, Jack; Or How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Love’. That aside, this is an unexpected delight.

It’s still a brilliantly sleazy punk rock’n’roll album that feels, sounds and smells just like you want The Bronx to be, and the fact it’s so pure and elemental works strongly in its favour.

There's still signs of the nutso techno loony who prompted NME to invent the term 'drill'n'bass' back in the mid-'90s. [14 Oct 2006, p.35]

The record boasts maybe his finest solo single to date in 'Brittle Heart', plus a clutch of mid-tempo rockers that scrub up nicely--even if the seedy Soho glam of yore is replaced by a leadenly earnest tone.

As it is, and considering the upheaval following Adam Kessler's departure, it's best to look at Portamento as a marker of the potential brilliance that album three could bring.

By the end, they've told a story of adolescence spent crumpling at the hands of others, while having to pick up the pieces all by yourself.

Isis’ lewd lines on this debut arrive, then, as the law of diminishing returns for all things brazenly sexy begins to set in.

The Amazons will do little to dispel any of the criticisms of the current state of rock, but there’s just enough here to suggest that when the band are at their most electrifying, not much can halt their inevitable rise to the top--despite what the old guard say.

Just because Brain Thrust Mastery doesn’t attempt to shoehorn some hamfisted social commentary or poverty-ending rhetoric into its 11 tracks doesn’t make it lightweight indie fluff; far from it–-We Are Scientists are serious about having fun.

There’s enough musical ambition, heartbreak and menace on The Big Dream to keep the Lynch nerds absorbed.

The deft Tom Petty chug of ‘Indian Summer’ is anthemic enough, but there’s little else to get excited about.

By its fourth track ‘Loser’, the album’s first single, his insecurities are so hammered down to the listener – “I’m a tragedy / tryna figure my whole life out” – that it begins gets in the way of his arrangements, which so far are imaginative and varied compared to the stylistic tedium of ‘The Slow Rush’.

A fine mix of fantasy and reality, made by a band who never run out of ideas, sung by a singer too smart to fall apart and too excited by rock’n’roll to stop being stupid.

They're a confident band, but the tragedy is they're at the top of someone else's game.

Full of distortion-drenched vocals and slacker guitar lines, Yucca is a brilliantly messy thing.

New Jersey's The Static Jacks haven't got the most ambitious creative palette.

Round the back nine (‘Golden Fire’, ‘Kilmore’s End’, ‘Overnight’), the attention to detail slips, and they end up with a load of meat patties of twee that just come across as Owl City in fashionable shoes, a whiny inner-child deserving of a smacked botty-bot.

Self-loathing, self-pitying, self-centered, bad-tempered American rock. [6 Nov 2004, p.59]

The Killers are still as flashy, unintentionally funny, and flagrantly affected as ever.