Soused remains a distinctly perverse pleasure. [Nov 2014, p.120]

What distinguishes Phantom Radio as a "band" project rather than a solo one is moot, but when the result is this good, who cares? [Nov 2014, p.114]

There are less stirring points--England, for instance, never really seems to move, and album closer Please Let Me Let It Go is a little too somnambulant. [Nov 2014, p.104]

Bainbridge reveals himself here not as an exhaustingly pseudy hipster but rather a songwriter of singular depth and emotion. [Nov 2014, p.114]

There's a compelling quality to mainman's Dave Simmonett's lonesome laments that ensures the attention rarely wavers. [Sep 2014, p.115]

2 Bears have hit a rich seam of easy-going melancholic euphoria. [Oct 2014, p.101]

A feat of ideas. [Nov 2014, p.117]

[The album] is in turns seething and sweet. [Nov 2014, p.115]

It's mainly successful: co-written with Ed Sheeran, new acoustic single Say You Love Me may ebe a relation of Extreme's More Than Words, but elsewhere stories are told more vividly, with non-showboating vocalist Ware infusing the songs with restrained emotion. [Nov 2014, p.114]

24 Karat Gold appeals because it's a new Stevie Nicks album that sounds just like an old Stevie Nicks album. The downside is that the modern-day Stevie faces some stiff competition from her younger self. [Nov 2014 p.110]

Danilova's vocals occasionally get bogged own in the contemporary pop production, but this foray from murky fringes into the mainstream deserves success. [Nov 2014, p.121]

For the majority of Tyranny, it's almost impossible to understand what's going on or why. [Nov 2014, p.121]

Step Back is better when Winter plays it straight. [Nov 2014, p.120]

A mostly stylish mix of indie nous and Hollywood glitz. [Nov 2014, p.120]

There was always more going on inside that pretty head than met the eye. On his first release since disbanding My Chemical Romance, you may struggle to hear what that is. [Nov 2014, p.120]

Though you might struggle to dance to it, Punish, Honey is an unexpectedly saucy missive from the serious electronic underground. [Nov 2014, p.119]

It still comes from within a hydroponic fug of sedated beats and mumbled vocals. However, there's also a renewed sense of self. [Nov 2014, p.119]

This all-original 20-tracker works even better as an intimate, end-to-end, night-drive companion than a snack tray despite Williams's often grueling vocal intensity. [Nov 2014, p.119]

Like untidy Casiopeia, it;s not all so absorbing, but the fact Ford and Shaw achieved this much in such reduced circumstances means the experiment must be considered a success. [Nov 2014, p.117]

Selway is a songwriter still new to the task and yet already leaning in toward middle age, and the perspective he brings to writing adult rock music is both fresh and contemplatively knowing. [Nov 2014, p.117]

There isn't a weak link amongst these 12 enormously impressive songs. [Nov 2014, p.117]

Too Bright finds him more sparky and more mettled. [Nov 2014, p.116]

Peaking Lights have sacrificed some of their uniqueness for added lovability. But their hypno-pop still sways to a rhythm entirely of its own. [Nov 2014, p.116]

Ultimately, A New Testament is for converts only. [Nov 2014, p.115]

There are a couple of mildly sludgy moments.... But otherwise, it's a perfectly calibrated record. [Nov 2014, p.113]

The record suffers from a surplus of hired guns. [Nov 2014, p.112]

A graceful, beautiful record. [Nov 2014, p.112]

There is kitsch charm throughout. [Nov 2014, p.112]

It's fortunate that the warmly accessible Way Out Weather, which showcases his melodious, improvising guitar, exists in less esoteric numbers [than his limited released vinyl albums]. [Nov 2014, p.112]

Willfully meandering yes, but it's an enjoyable shambolic ride that bottles early Pink Floyd, Skip Spence's cracked psych-folk and the ragged majesty of the Stones' own magnum opus. [Nov 2014, p.111]

The model can work successfully--There IS Nothing Left recalls a sunnier, more sugary take on '80s Cure, for example--but elsewhere songs would benefit from editing. [Nov 2014, p.111]

Syro is an album that instantly connects. [Nov 2014, p.109]

His voice remains charming, devilish-yet-wise, and his delivery as beguiling as ever. [Nov 2014, p.109]

Carr retains enough left-field eccentricities, such as the Casiotone keyboard of I Don't Think I'll Make It, to make The Breaks a true indie-rock gem. [Nov 2014, p.108]

Her third album is as intimate as music can be. [Nov 2014, p.108]

The sound of him working with a lean combo is so refreshing, and a welcome first in his mammoth catalogue. [Nov 2014, p.107]

Art Official Age, regrettably, is something we have heard before: an overlong, pan-generic concept album. [Nov 2014, p.107]

As ever, you end up feeling there's method somewhere in his madness. [Nov 2014, p.104]

This beautiful, open-hearted album explores every one of its title's implications, wrapping both the blessed and the lost in its generous embrace. [Nov 2014, p.105]

Playland is better than its predecessor in pretty much every respect. The songs are better, the palette broader and there's a genuine sense of Marr hitting his stride as a solo artist. [Nov 2014, p.103]

It's a strange and beautiful album, one that's hard to turn away from. [Nov 2014, p.102]

Some veteran rock stars write a memoir in order to make sense of their origins; Bono has chosen to sing one. From this autobiographical precision all the album's strengths flow. [Nov 2014, p.100]

It's a record that ups the style further but their slick, modern metal still lacks depth. [Oct 2014, p.115]

US singer Grey Reverend lends a bluesy warmth to Silent Fall's heavyweight electro, but Swedish vocalist Cornelia Dahlgren sounds merely decorative on the Massive Attack-like Vivid. [Oct 2014, p.107]

A nagging sense of coming late to chillwave's super-saturated afterparty. [Oct 2014, p.110]

Anyone who wants a bold new direction from Jeff Tweedy may find Sukierae disappointing. [Oct 2014, p.120]

Everything here feels like a Xerox of something that's been done before.[Oct 2014, p.102]

An irresistibly fun-packed career high. [Sep 2014, p.114]

With some judicious skipping of tracks this is another eminently listenable set. [Oct 2014, p.109]

It's clear that MacLean and Whang have never sounded better. [Oct 2014, p.112]

This sumptuous riddle of a record is a celebration of everything but normality. [Oct 2014, p.100]

Drizzles of acoustic guitar dilute any sense of experimentation, while the drab stadium indie of Vultures and Friend Of The Madness underlines the feeling that, underneath all the grand gestures, a very ordinary band is struggling to get out. [Sep 2014, p.113]

There's a real depth to an album that is brimming with inventive, clever hooks and individualism. [Oct 2014, p.114]

Variously heartrending and uplifting, Lateness OF Dancers is enriching stuff. [Oct 2014, p.110]

A happy return. [Oct 2014, p.103]

The dense plot might be confounding on first listen but the MC's high-speed interplay and Younge's cinematic arrangements, recorded entirely live and analogue, make for a breathlessly entertaining masterclass in classic hip-hop storytelling. [Oct 2014, p.121]

It's hard not to conclude that it's Rubin's strong tiller hand giving thee 13 songs new-found clarity, focus and energy that too often drifted away from the Stones in a cloud of patchouli when left alone. [Oct 2014, p.120]

Shaver's always been a tough guy making trouble on the edges of a Nashville that values slickness. [Oct 2014, p.119]

It's when Hutchison's sinister demeanor matches the darkness of the music that Owl John works best. [Oct 2014, p.116]

Mixing pleasingly unevolved Ramones-y bangarounds and more reflective punk-pop, the therapeutic lyrics teem with unidentified protagonists having or inflicting a hard time. [Oct 2014, p.115]

The aerated atmosphere might leave some feeling light-headed, but Thompson-Hannant's unfettered energy is infectious. [Oct 2014, p.115]

Go places they do, whether its Comin' On's sweetly dumb pop, the garage chug of Lose Myself In Sound or the dense yet loose Crazy Horse-style feedback and riffing of Crow and Dropper. [Oct 2014, p.112]

[Heaven's Ladder, performed by Beck is] so good, though, that it makes the rest of this complicated exercise seem like a waste of time. [Oct 2014, p.108]

On too much of The Physical World they sound like a pale imitation of themselves. [Oct 2014, p.108]

Adams is such a contrary character you daren't use the phrase "career comeback," but that's what this is. [Oct 2014, p.101]

Worth spending time with. [Jul 2014, p.110]

Though its concept may remain opaque, Carnival Of Souls compels. [Oct 2014, p.116]

A brilliant mix of pre-Wings-era oddball genius Macca-isms, the post-hippy blues of Tyrannosaurus Rex and some super-sticky '70s-scented gritty glitter-pop. [Oct 2014, p.110]

Ballet School update and enhance, rather than copy or clone their '80s forebears. [Oct 2014, p.103]

The elusive magic of their initial work seems further away than ever. [Oct 2014, p.108]

A beautifully moving, soul-stirring, bravely genre-blurring album. [Oct 2014, p.111]

Hardly groundbreaking, but there's heft, heart and humour here in spades. [Oct 2014, p.107]

The mood is largely one of milky wistfulness, but the clever textural detail means these songs are more than stylistic cloning. [Sep 2014, p.108]

His voice, permanently pitched just down from that half-shout Eminem reserves for songs about his mum. Without a fraction of that humour or rhythm, though, it sounds like a heckler at a council meeting. [Sep 2014, p.108]

It could all seem like an indulgence, an intimate late-night emotional overspill best kept at home, like crying in front of a mirror. It's testament to O's skills as both songwriter and performer that out in the open, Crush Songs still seems like an attractive prospect. [Oct 2014, p.102]

Goddess is a while world to get lost in and it looks like Banks is a star just waiting to happen. [Oct 2014, p.104]

Impassioned, thoughtful, chock-a-block with great tunes, this rich mix of vibrancy and gloom does what all great rock should--lift the spirits. [Oct 2014, p.107]

This is a very good album. The Kooks sound like a band rejuvenated. [Oct 2014, p.105]

It's hard to imagine Jurvanen can outpace his boss, but he's doing just fine. [Oct 2014, p.103]

An album that delivers plenty of thrills, even if the spills are now to be found elsewhere. [Oct 2014, p.104]

It's one still stamped with his own sound, a sonic approach that, even at its most drowsy, threatens to blow the walls down. [Oct 2014, p.104]

On this fifth album, they are now both a more complex and straightforward version of the thoughtfully serrated quartet of 2002. [Oct 2014, p.106]

Joseph D'Agostino's voice can get a little grating: too often he's hysterically over-emoting. [Oct 2014, p.107]

Liddle's earthy vocal wobble remains central, but this time it's married to such strident, straightforward rock that no one's going to compare them with Mumfords again. [Oct 2014, p.109]

Inventive arrangements and a strong supporting cast including Bonnie Raitt and the Blind Boys of Alabama mean these gumbo variations on obscurities and super-club standards come with added spice. [Oct 2014, p.108]

At times, it's a frustrating, self-absorbing listen. [Oct 2014, p.110]

To a drumless folk palette of voice, guitar, piano and cello, he deftly blends his own compositions with covers of The Psychedelic Furs, Roxy Music and The Doors into a sweetly morose song suite that examines the heartsick mature male, post-love affair, wondering what it's all about. [Oct 2014, p.110]

It can meander--Mind To Be Had never quite knows what to do with its initially exciting Neu! vibrations, Defeatist Anthem doesn't shift beyond pretty--but they texture Barragan with a delicacy and precision that makes you want to keep picking away at these songs. [Oct 2014, p.114]

Music Go Music are talented mimics, but Impressions still makes its own presence felt. [Oct 2014, p.116]

What makes it even more interesting is that the themes and execution are unashamedly grown-up throughout. [Oct 2014, p.116]

Put the whole bag of tricks together and Pulled Apart By Horses have captured their own genie. [Oct 2014, p.118]

The vocalist work fine but instrumentals like Tempest and Velcro demonstrate that Rustie's personality is plenty big enough on its own. [Oct 2014, p.118]

One of the albums of the year to date. [Oct 2014, p.118]

Imagine a hillbilly White Stripes and you're almost there. [Oct 2014, p.119]

Rough, scuzzy and rasping, there's plenty within its tattered edges to enjoy. [Oct 2014, p.120]

The flawless record that Yorkston has long promised. [Oct 2014, p.121]

Over two discs, the schtick loses it flashpan charm. In bursts, though, there's much that impresses. [Oct 2014, p.120]

When Young's in the spotlight, the set hits the heights. [Sep 2014, p.119]