At times--as on Providence or Interface--the music takes a serious tinge. [Sep 2014, p.117]

It proves gloriously uninhibited. [Sep 2014, p.117]

Passable psych-rock that rarely disappoints, but equally never really soars. [Sep 2014, p.117]

Get Hurt is neither weird, nor, unfortunately, all that wonderful. [Sep 2014, p.116]

The results are quietly measured and beautifully judged. [Sep 2014, p.115]

Pared back or not, The strength of these songs means Thompson can always stand alone. [Sep 2014, p.115]

This second album packs sock-it-to-me punch aplenty in 12 tunes that just happen to be about the Lord. [Sep 2014, p.114]

Lese Majesty is a trip to be sure, but the destination remains unclear. [Sep 2014, p.114]

Sounds dangerously like a genuine hip-hop album. [Sep 2014, p.114]

Overall this is a deliberately austere affair. [Sep 2014, p.113]

While this more contemplative side rounds out their usual roaring punk, it does strip them of some edge, making The Black Market sound oddly anonymous. [Sep 2014, p.113]

His world of heartbreak, damage and survival attains an out-of-time quality that admirers of superior barroom soundtracks will warm to. [Sep 2014, p.113]

Like Old Crown's best stuff, it evokes a time our of mind. [Sep 2014, p.112]

He clearly has difference aspirations to many of his contemporaries, but on this evidence hasn't completely freed himself o f their influence. [Sep 2014, p.112]

This career-best seventh album seeps into your head and stays there. [Sep 2014, p.110]

A real jewel from an underestimated band. [Sep 2014, p.111]

The only sticking point is frontman Carson Cox's vocals. He's so curiously low in the mix at times that it gives the impression of a man absentmindedly wandering through his own songs. [Sep 2014, p.111]

This is a charming side-step from a significant latterday voice of America. [Sep 2014, p.110]

The thrilling racket of their live show has been sanded down but not blunted. [Sep 2014, p.110]

Grumbling Fur largely inhabit their own wonderful world, dreaming up very old-school British psychedelia that hints at the rituals behind the privet and sigils on the parquet floors. [Sep 2014, p.109]

Season Sun aims to evoke the spirit of travel using the same dream-pop template as The Soundcarriers. Only occasionally, however, do they achieve it. [Sep 2014, p.109]

It's a shame that the album starts so blandly. [Sep 2014, p.109]

The duo's experience and aplomb win out. [Sep 2014, p.108]

Uncanny. [Sep 2014, p.108]

It's a brilliant record, without question their best to date. [Sep 2014, p.107]

With a running time of barely half-an-hour, it seems likely to remain a minor footnote to Drozd and Coyne's already extensive back catalogue. [Sep 2014, p.106]

There are times even [Tom Clarke] threatens to get swallowed up in a swirling mix that leaves the post-dubstep scene decisively behind them. [Sep 2014, p.106]

While there are sprightly, smooth-cheeked moments--the bumptious riff of Blue Velvet, for example--there's a draining lack of invention or novelty. [Sep 2014, p.106]

While Booker plays with a certain fury on this self-titled debut, he sings with a leisurely cool. [Sep 2014, p.105]

The Voyager finds Jenny Lewis--earthbound for these past few years--readying herself for lift-off. [Sep 2014, p.104]

This time around Petty's Heartbreakers have brought out the very best in the man himself. [Sep 2014, p.102]

Over time, a soulful, joyous record reveals itself. [Sep 2014, p.103]

These tales of iron-age blacksmiths, 17th-century highwaymen and modern-day ecological disaster are brilliantly told, long on smart wordplay, but light on tunes. [Jun 2014, p.103]

As ever there are reservations about Molinari's blase attitude to the second-hand song title, but it's still a solid, engaging set. [Jul 2014, p.111]

An assured start, though he'll need to be braver next time round. [Aug 2014, p.115]

A charming record. [Aug 2014, p.115]

Fink runs the folk gamut from A and B quite beautifully. [Aug 2014, p.106]

When the formula gels, it can make for a potent cocktail, even if the arrestingly noirish production and twisted production often turn out to be more striking than the songs. [Aug 2014, p.112]

What makes Most Messed Up stand out is that Miller's self-aware enough to play with those cliches. [Aug 2014, p.112]

While Glenn gamely belts out every song like it's a Broadway audition, his band's appeal remains some distance short of universal. [Aug 2014, p.111]

The first 25 minutes are exhilarating if a little one-dimensional, but eventually they rein in the noise slightly. [Aug 2014, p.107]

Songs is uplifting, his clever wordplay and minor chord piano and guitar ballads reminiscent of his hero Townes Van Zandt. [Aug 2014, p.106]

Barely rising above the soft purr of a sleepy summer morning, DB are all about mood and ambiance. [Aug 2014, p.103]

Anderson's anger, defiance and pride are all here, but what comes out is peculiarly beautiful and affecting. [Aug 2014, p.108]

It's chillingly powerful, but the band sell short their cinematic ambitions with just 33 minutes of music. [Aug 2014, p.102]

Trux obsessives will be drawn to Eve's Child--a nod to her old production alter-ego--but it's the sense of Herrema shaking off her troubled past which impresses. [Aug 2014, p.103]

It all has an airy charm, though it benefits hugely from a Daft Punk-y electro injection on Rick l'Adolescent and Aller vers le Soleil, both which transcend cheerful pastiche. But Tellier's opulence has limits. [Aug 2014, p.114]

A strange dream state, then, with not a smiley or glow-stick to be seen. [Jul 2014, p.100]

A few more laughter-lines wouldn't have gone amiss. [Aug 2014, p.112]

Get past its duffel coat and its 14 layers of cardigan, though, and there's a warm and lovely heart at this record's centre. [Aug 2014, p.105]

There's barely a wasted note on these nine tracks. [Aug 2014, p.104]

The record's strongest, strangest moments come, however, when he lets himself go. [Aug 2014, p.100]

Overall the glory years seem a long way off and metal fatigue sets in long before the end of its 63 minutes. [Aug 2014, p.108]

There is occasional subtlety and drama amid the bombast. [Jul 2014, p.114]

A lack of sonic variety and a mild sense of deja vu won't help to advance his cause. [Aug 2014, p.110]

Plastics is a deeply impressive debut. [Aug 2014, p.105]

All compensate in quality for what they lack in originality. [Aug 2014, p.107]

It's true that there's no grand new ground broken here, but Bright Light Bright Light has a pastel-coloured appeal that's all Thomas's own. [Aug 2014, p.104]

Their heritage might be clear, but over 10 songs and 22 minutes, their grip on the present never lets up. [Aug 2014, p.115]

His personal universe may be smaller, but here Tom Vek opens himself up to a wider world. [Aug 2014, p.114]

A vigorously thought-provoking record. [Aug 2014, p.113]

Same Emotions, meanwhile, sounds like a lovingly recreated homage to the soft rock of Journey, Toto, et al. Best of all is his deeply personal tribute to the late Jason Molina. [Aug 2014, p.113]

Stylish yet raw and angry yet enchanted, Bauer creates a smouldering album with a kooky heart. [Aug 2014, p.86]

In The Lonely Hour starts promisingly.... The second half declines into self-pity, windy balladry and squeaky-strings-as-authenticity cliche. [Aug 2014, p.110]

Tortured and in need of an edit, it's not for the casual listener. [Aug 2014, p.111]

Mastodon return to the dense riffing of old. [Aug 2014, p.109]

Easily his best work since Babylon's ubiquity. [Aug 2014, p.106]

The album does see them traveling further afield. [Aug 2014, p.110]

It all serve to confirm Cutler as one of contemporary electronica's most gifted and distinctive sonic manipulators. [Aug 2014, p.110]

Ultimately, while(1<2) is overlong and never quite the cohesive masterpiece it wants to be, but there's tantalising evidence of a smart brain ticking away beneath those big Disney ears. [Aug 2014, p.114]

An album that feels necessarily smaller than its predecessor. [Aug 2014, p.105]

It's an album constructed from the simplest of elements: muted keyboards chords, pained falsetto vocals and Krell's greatest weapon of all: near silence. [Aug 2014, p.108]

Del Rey sounds regally removed from the box-ticking modernity of her peers, a one-woman advertisement for the appeal of the unreal. [Aug 2014, p.113]

Excitingly, War's chaotic punk and the frantic Guilty All The Same are as raw as they've ever been, but The Hunting Party is the sound of Linkin Park coming in from the cold. [Aug 2014, p.109]

Clearly her reinvention was a step worth taking, though it might have been more radical if she'd truly struck out on her own. [Aug 2014, p.108]

A sprawling, bewitching album. [Aug 2014, p.108]

There's something almost rave-friendly about their effervescence at times. [Aug 2014, p.102]

A cut high above your usual tankard-on-the-belt stuff. [Jul 2014, p.103]

Swinging , both fleet-footed and fingered, and bursting with humour and joy, the brothers ball the jack on what is perhaps their best album yet. [Jul 2014, p.101]

As long as they continue to ask themselves difficult questions, and answer them with records as full of fire and vitality as Futurology, failure is not an option. [Jul 2014, p.113]

He's taken chances and won again. [Jul 2014, p.115]

This is a deeply trippy record. [Jul 2014, p.100]

Despite the hypnotic repetition at its core, it's surprisingly tuneful. [Jul 2014, p.109]

The songs sounds just as fierce 20 years on. [Jul 2014, p.124]

The 1991 session hasn't aged well--the bongos are a problem, but 10 years later they'd mastered the art of subtle delivery. [Jul 2014, p.123]

Upgrading previous remasterings, Page's personal touch brings out even more detail.... Each album's companion disc supplies both pleasure and an education. [Jul 2014, p.120]

Upgrading previous remasterings, Page's personal touch brings out even more detail.... Each album's companion disc supplies both pleasure and an education. [Jul 2014, p.120]

Upgrading previous remasterings, Page's personal touch brings out even more detail.... Each album's companion disc supplies both pleasure and an education. [Jul 2014, p.120]

Most songs need both depth and edge. With Love Frequency, Klaxons have tuned in. What they really need to do, however, is freak out. [Jul 2014, p.105]

While there's lots to admire in this clearing of the creative pipes, 48:13 is ultimately proof that great albums are all about the numbers. [Jul 2014, p.98]

Easily the best Welsh language record since the Super Furry Animals' Mwng. [Jul 2014, p.100]

Rock heritage fetishism at its finest. [Jul 2014, p.114]

Solid but somewhat samey. [Jul 2014, p.109]

Decidedly monochrome, but strangely never dour. [Jul 2014, p.119]

Alternately dreamlike and arresting, they've discovered a formula that realises the sonic sorcery always suggested by their name. [Jul 2014, p.119]

He still keeps the listener at arms-length, though, strung-out drones and an odd lack of projections suggesting this remains a work of intense introspection. [Jul 2014, p.118]

He's let down by an anaemic production. [Jul 2014, p.118]

An afterhours ambience attending his salty evocations of vintage soul, R&B and rock and roll. [Jul 2014, p.117]