Mount's intoxicating amalgam of past and present is the real thing. [Apr 2014, p.114]

The overall impression is one of a band who are now masterfully in control of their craft. [Apr 2014, p.111]

The occasionally super Supermodel is an album of transition rather than a definitive statement. [Apr 2014, p.113]

The concept might sound dry, but Bertelmann's kinetic approach always sound alive. [Apr 2014, p.110]

The Black Lips are on consistent and disreputable form throughout. [Apr 2014, p.104]

It's a record for dusk, for dawn, and for all of the dark corners in which you might find yourself in between. [Apr 2014, p.109]

Mirror's In The Sky's bewitching yet minimal folktronica [is] dominated by the most rudimentary of beats and weird little keyboards. [Apr 2014, p.109]

Liars' untidy room remains a wonderful place to visit. [Apr 2014, p.113]

His follow-up to 2010's From The Cradle to the Rave pulses with similar dancefloor rhythm, and again features a diverse roster of guest voices. [Apr 2014, p.119]

This isn't music designed to be passively enjoyed and it's all the more thrilling for it. [Apr 2014, p.116]

Complete with harmonies from Julia Holter, it's an absolute peach. [Apr 2014, p.116]

The 11-song set is drizzled with plenty of that Minogue jus. [Apr 2014, p.117]

It contains some of the band's most beautiful, idyllic songs to date. [Apr 2014, p.117]

A welcome return for a long-lost treasure. [Apr 2014, p.116]

What really fascinates is the way Davidge pulls the musical strings throughout. [Mar 2014, p.111]

An album of satisfying melodic warmth, Down Like Gold is a winter morning headphone treat. [Mar 2014, p.110]

They adopt a slightly wider palette of influences on the follow-up, with mixed results. [Mar 2014, p.116]

Admittedly, there's a lack of shock here, but plenty of awe. [Mar 2014, p.119]

Until they find their own voice, they'll forever be a tribute band. [Mar 2014, p.116]

Given an open mind and time to unfurl, Working Out is a wholly absorbing record. [Mar 2014, p.107]

Islands Intervals basks in a stately, other-worldly beauty akin to Sigur Ros and Icelandic folk artist Asgeir. [Mar 2014, p.112]

A dream partnership. [Mar 2014, p.110]

An endlessly repeatable mood music masterpiece. [Mar 2014, p.119]

Their eighth LP brilliantly snaps together everything. [Mar 2014, p.117]

Now remastered from the UK tapes, these albums are utterly pointless. [Mar 2014, p.123]

They too often tip into adolescent parent-scaring anguish. [Mar 2014, p.121]

Forward-thinking dance music for head and feet alike. [Mar 2014, p.121]

A major breakthrough beckons. [Mar 2014, p.120]

Warm acoustic folk is the dish of the day, with Reader occasionally dipping into chanson and Celtic tunes, never delivered in anything less than immaculate taste. [Mar 2014, p.119]

The singer hits new highs and broadens her pop horizons. [Mar 2014, p.118]

Warm and beautiful music. [Mar 2014, p.117]

On Word Of Mouth he's finally built a viable path between those old and new worlds. [Mar 2014, p.115]

If the flavor is international, the beef is still all hers, her skyscraper of a voice dominating all around it. [Mar 2014, p.114]

Even the rhythmic energy can't disguise a shortage of quality songs. [Mar 2014, p.114]

Grouplove need to strip their whole schtick back and start again. [Mar 2014, p.113]

Drowners wear their influences with pride, but their charm is all their own. [Mar 2014, p.112]

This daughter of Missouri has merely up-twanged her still-rockin' sound, and boosted the songs' mom, kids and downhome content and the gritty, often rub-tickling detail in the telling that keeps it real. [Mar 2014, p.111]

In the US, Night Time, My Time was the most exciting pop album if 2013. It will be hard to beat this year as well. [Mar 2014, p.111]

It's bracing stuff. [Mar 2014, p.110]

Their [stardom] has been a slow rise. The ascent continues apace. [Mar 2014, p.108]

It's not as obviously retro as, say, techno DJ Paul Woolford's recent Special request project, but there are similar flashbacks to the darker end of '90s drum 'n' bass. [Mar 2014, p.108]

While this maximalist approach might conceivably work well live, on record it often feels overblown, overwhelming and ultimately exhausting. [Mar 2014, p.108]

Throughout Grace is brave and brutally honest. [Mar 2014, p.107]

In modern jazz terms, a masterclass. [Mar 2014, p.116]

The guitar may intrude a little more but Emmaar is still built around gnarled guitar, harmonised chants, hyperspeed percussion and the sense that this music is as relentless as the Sahara sun. [Mar 2014, p.121]

Here the melodies are a forum for a lovely, charismatic voice and some artful, memorable lyrics. [Mar 2014, p.119]

Bristling with ideas, it's an album worth getting to grips with. [Mar 2014, p.115]

A lush, soulful and joyous debut that should haunt us for years to come. [Mar 2014, p.114]

so far, so arty. [Mar 2014, p.108]

The end-times have rarely sounded so sweet. [Mar 2014, p.113]

Trouble feels like a multi-faceted, compound eye of a record, picking up different sides to every story and blending them into a smooth, undeniably odd whole. [Mar 2014, p.113]

Dizzy Heights is a bold, wonderful affair. [Mar 2014, p.113]

Bombay Bicycle Club might have veered all over the track, switching between the folk lane and the electronic one, elbowing indie-pop out of the way, but they still aren't setting the pace. [Mar 2014, p.112]

The overall effect is warmly intoxicating and that the album comes so close to matching up to the records it's in thrall to means you can forgive its obvious debt to others. [Mar 2014, p.110]

What Sun Structures lacks is a bit of fire in its belly. [Mar 2014, p.109]

Vega's still small voice of calm remains where the action is,kin to early-'70s Leonard Cohen in her lyrics of enigmatic confession, tarot-casting romance and cool mystique. [Mar 2014, p.121]

Lyrically and musically, as remarkable an album as you'll hear all 2014. [Mar 2014, p.119]

[Olsen treats] heavy weather with an impressive lightness of touch. [Mar 2014, p.117]

The work of a richly creative entity still in the ascendant, those with a mind to will drink deep. [Mar 2014, p.116]

This fourth solo album is daring and hugely composed. [Mar 2014, p.115]

In short, Beck Hansen has properly re-acquired his mojo. [Mar 2014, p.106]

Atmospheric and unsettling, it's a thrilling, long dark night of the soul. [Feb 2014, p.116]

The result is another emphatic celebration of Malian musicianship. [Feb 2014, p.111]

Rogers's 63-year-old voice sounds uncannily well preserved. [Feb 2014, p.119]

This definitive 77-track anthology favours the early years, illustrating how quickly Stone and his multiracial crew evolved from a decent R&B outfit into a trailblazing psychedelic-soul gang show, [Oct 2013, p.117]

A dozen familiar tracks, minus their overdubs. [Oct 2013, p.116]

Sound System gives the full, eclectic picture. [Oct 2013, p.116]

Get cherry-picking. [Oct 2013, p.116]

The sound more fully formed than ever. [Oct 2013, p.114]

It's pretty--but also pretty pointless. [Oct 2013, p.113]

This seventh official LP is definitively their best so far. [Oct 2013, p.113]

Supported by appearances from My Morning Jacket's Jim James, Neko Case and kd lang, Veirs still manages to find the magic and wonder in the big bad world. [Oct 2013, p.112]

A hit-and-miss affair that sporadically hints at what the man is capable of. [Oct 2013, p.111]

They run short on tunes during the album's second half, but by powering through 10 songs in 33 minutes they at least opt to burn-out rather than fade away. [Oct 2013, p.110]

The overall impression is one of a garbled sonic soup. [Oct 2013, p.110]

The vocals are more textural than Blake's, and Stefanski's electronic textures are as distinctive as his instrumental releases, giving this a strong personality all of its own. [Oct 2013, p.110]

It's a winningly demented mix of ADHD garage rock, wonky psychedelia and massive, foot-on-monitor guitar riffs. [Oct 2013, p.109]

It's only on a frazzled but euphoric Raise Your Head that DeLaughter achieves the sonic rapture the Spree promised from the outset. [Oct 2013, p.109]

Live At The Cellar Door is the sound of a man enjoying his self-imposed set of limitations. [Feb 2014, p.121]

This is a luxurious but ultimately hollow Faberge egg of a record. [Feb 2014, p.121]

There is a whiff of leftovers to You Don't know Anything's six songs. [Feb 2014, p.120]

Trad country and honky tonk duke it out with outlaw attitude and roadhouse rock, a high ground meeting point between early R.E.M. and Drive-By Truckers. [Feb 2014, p.120]

Creatively there are signs he's struggling to keep it up. [Feb 2014, p.114]

Its riveting, yarn-spinning intimacy enhanced by the singer's dry patter. [Feb 2014, p.113]

Without any shifts in emotional temperature, You Gots 2 Chill follows the thread that connects homespun to woolly. [Feb 2014, p.113]

A joy in itself, but watching the accompanying film to experience the full audio-visual wallop is a must. [Feb 2014, p.113]

Even the welcome presence of Boston's original singer Brad Delp, who committed suicide in 2007, can't save it. [Feb 2014, p.119]

Not oversold, sensitively handled and direct, consider the tribute a success. [Feb 2014, p.112]

It's a one-tempo caramel cream of an album--sticky-icky and irresistible. [Feb 2014, p.110]

There's comfort in the intensely melodic Surfer's Lament, and if there must be impossibly soapy love songs, they might as well be as lovely as My Heart Belongs To You. [Feb 2014, p.119]

It's the most consistently enjoyable Malkmus/Jicks LP since his excellent self-titled album of 2001. [Feb 2014, p.117]

Not for the casual listener, but enormously rewarding if you hanker for some NY loft space in your croft house. [Feb 2014, p.115]

They're better when operating at full-throttle, as on the muscular Blood and carefree Our Ego, but for music intended to elevate, the rest remains strangely earthbound. [Feb 2014, p.118]

[Linden's] breathy vocals elevate these warm, enveloping songs to a richer level. [Feb 2014, p.116]

When it swells and soars, it doesn't just work. It werks. [Feb 2014, p.115]

The laser-guided synth-pop of The Natural World, hip-thrusting disco epic Like An Animal and Erosion's Invocation of early New order all pulsate with the excitement of a band discovering new capabilities, even if Cleverly's somewhat histrionic vocal style can take some getting used to. [Feb 2014, p.115]

The panoramic melancholy may lack variety for some, but sorrow rarely sparkles this wonderfully. [Feb 2014, p.112]

This beautifully-packaged set certainly provides the perfect overview of that fine series of records. [Feb 2014, p.125]