This latest ventures proves equally unconventional [as his collaboration with Sufjan Stevens and his Kenny Dennis EP], the half-hour running time and Cohn's deadbeat rhymes both at odds with the rap mainstream. [Sep 2012, p.111]

There's no doubt Chasny and his cohorts know all about dynamic underpinning, making Ascent a trip worth taking. [Sep 2012, p.111]

The ideas are all there, they just don't fit together properly yet. [Sep 2012, p.110]

This [is] their best album in an age. [Sep 2012, p.110]

When it works, it's a glorious thing. [Sep 2012, p.108]

On his strongest album yet, Jackson Jr deconstructs the back catalogue of comedian/musician Rudy Ray Moore, star of blaxploitation movie Dolemite. [Sep 2012, p.106]

While Ocean's artistic ambition is impressive, it's his haunting candour that really casts a spell. [Sep 2012, p.106]

The fact that Cohen is nearer to the Pennines than he is to Portland shines through, though, with a dry wit tempering the sunniest songs. [Sep 2012, p.105]

Inevitably some of the surprised factor has worn off for their second album but it's still an exhilarating collision of ideas. [Sep 2012, p.105]

The surreal stoner wit of vintage Little feat is still missed, but this is perfectly respectable business as usual. [Sep 2012, p105]

Diver's appeal is immediate, its effect short and sharp. [Sep 2012, p.104]

Sensitive souls had best avoid, but fans of John Carpenter's soundtracks, early Aphex twin and the creepier end of Doctor Who will find themselves in familiar, if not entirely welcoming territory. [Sep 2012, p.102]

Kimbra has created a sparkling, witty debut that hymns commitment at every turn. [Sep 2012, p.102]

The Heavy remain The Black keys for people who'd rather dance than mosh. [Sep 2012, p.102]

Drew's work is lyrically dense and confrontational, but the music is blissfully rich and specious. [Sep 2012, p.100]

The Flaming Lips and Heady Fwends runs the risk of turning into a cluttered affair, but what unfolds is an atmosphere of uninhibited adventure. [Sep 2012, p.100]

Warm, welcoming and dazzling. [Sep 2012, p.100]

At first it's almost intriguing, then alienating, then irritating; ultimately you're reminded why you never really listened to Animal Collective until they discovered the joys of a good tune. [Sep 2012, p.100]

Beams is more expansive and vulnerable that the nightclubbing menace of 2010's Black City. [Sep 2012, p.99]

For all of its denseness, America feels as panoramic and wonder-filled as the cross-country travels that inspired it. [Sep 2012, p.99]

If the production is a little soft, there's no denying the old boys can still knock out pop thrills. [Sep 2012, p.99]

While his message is clear, the means of conveying it comes up wanting. [Sep 2012, p.98]

It's narcotic, claustrophobic and brilliant. [Sep 2012, p.98]

A daydream of a record, one well worth drifting off into. [Aug 2012, p.115]

Part cipher, part siren, Minogue's odd power is underlined: it's not always clear quite what she does, but she does it brilliantly. [Aug 2012, p.115]

Sugar may have lacked the outsider appeal and cataclysmic cultural impact of Nirvana but he furnace-forged guitar pop of 1992 debut Copper Blue was a handsome match for Nevermind. [Aug 2012, p.114]

These lavish Deluxe Editions are fat with rare tracks and live performances on accompanying DVDs - they are all the Beat anyone could ever wish for. [Aug 2012, p.112]

The singer's greasy, street pimp-talking vocal style is sometimes at odds with The Sadies' cleaned-up garage vibe, but if you can reconcile a 70-year old drug addict growling: "I like my rum, cos I got no teeth, I let it flow over my gums"... with fiddle-led folk rock and surf guitar, then Night & Day will push all your buttons and then some. [Aug 2012, p.111]

[Several songs are] saved by Walsh's unerring ability to produce a wonderful guitar solo from the bottom of the pack. Sadly, it's not enough to transform this into the great comeback album you keep willing it to be. [Aug 2012, p.111

At album length the apologetic beats and tuneful but numbed vocals quickly pall, and it neither delivers one the wig-flipping promised by the intricate Ocean Floor nor the narco-pop of Disappeared and Turn 2 U. [Aug 2012, p.111]

MTMTMK is even more propulsive than their debut. From Kondaine's digitised kwassa kwassa to the deep-house swell of Rudeboy and Mghetto's dub throb, it thumps with worldly street rhythms. [Aug 2012, p.110]

Too often, these songs feel as though they're being executed with an arched eyebrow, Lewis Jr. peering knowingly from behind the curtain with a nod and a wink. [Aug 2012, p.110]

A record that perhaps only Dylan fans need apply for. [Aug 2012, p.110]

Reductive re-workings of his heroes only remind you of his limitations. Lacking a pop compass, Stone just sounds lost. [Aug 2012, p.111]

An inspired hook-up that brings out the best in both contributors [Killer Mike and El-P].[Aug 2012, p.109]

Silencio! really soars when Sadier rails loudly against the injustices of our austerity era, as on Auscultation To The Nation. [Aug 2012, p.109]

Both vocals and music here shimmer with a weird radiance... to dizzying, intoxicating effect. [Aug 2012, p.108]

Pop Etc manage a couple of well-aimed arrows towards the heart. [Aug 2012, p.108]

Gossamer's a pleasant listen, but since when has that been enough? [Aug 2012, p.108]

He's seldom less than wildly expressive, whether pumping out neon-lit disco or radically rewiring acid electro. [Aug 2012, p.108]

Handwritten is pure New Jersey rock, dripping urban romanticism, albeit with extra oomph on the power chords. [Aug 2012, p.105]

There is talent here. If only it could've been matched to a few more original ideas. [Aug 2012, p.105]

It's relentless, totally one-paced, but somehow oddly refreshing. [Aug 2012, p.105]

The general rule with Offspring albums is that their buoyant Californian punk will always be pockmarked by two wildly irritating songs. So it is with Days Go By.

The neurotic twists and nuances that made 1982's Vs so electrifying are still apparent... further confirmation that Mission of Burma have no intention of either burning out or fading away. [Aug 2012, p.104]

No new ground is broken, but there's an admirable conviction in the way Maximo Park fight their corner. [Aug 2012, p.104]

It's only on what passes here for a ballad, Black And Blue (A letter), that they overreach themselves. [Mar 2012, p.106]

Heavy, but not in a good way. [Jun 2012, p.96]

It's sometimes harrowing, sometimes beautiful and quite often both. [Jun 2012, p.105]

While predictable mall-rat anthems in praise of partying, one-night stands and nocturnal hi-jinks now come with a cathartic edge, their first album in almost a decade feels frustratingly shallow. [Aug 2012, p.104]

Bold stuff and proof Shinoda remains a richly talented creative force. [Aug 2012, p.103]

It's the their best album yet. [Aug 2012, p.102]

The songcraft is so taut that whether this howls, drifts, pummels or floats, it remains utterly engaging. [Aug 2012, p.102]

Trespassing is magnificent is its competence, but sadly, it doesn't appear to have an actual beating heart in it anywhere. [Aug 2012, p.102]

If you're it the mood for a trawl through R&B's greatest hits delivered on R. Kelly's own terms, if not always in his own style, that's just how you'll like it. [Aug 2012, p.101]

There's a significant talent emerging here. [Aug 2012, p.100]

[Many of] these clean-sounding, jazz-rock rearrangements of songs from 1928 to 1963 prove successful experiments. [Aug 2012, p.100]

On this third album the four-piece are now an accomplished if spiky group at home whether playing rough-edged guitars or glockenspiels. [Aug 2012, p.100]

Hologram's monotone new wave reeks of a school band rehearsal, released into the wild before its time and without its signature song. [Aug 2012, p.100]

Good Morning to the Night is a truly remarkable record, one that will repay your deep and repeated listening tenfold. [Aug 2012, p.99]

A worthy and wonderful addition to [their] cannon. [Aug 2012, p.98]

Completely beguiling. [Aug 2012, p.98]

Carved Into Stone revisits their sludge-prog-industrial metal roots with impressively honed and effective results. [Jun 2012, p.100]

It's big and clever; also bloody brilliant. [Aug 2012, p.98]

What raises Big Station above the ordinary is the ease with which Escovedo explores his place in the world, whether through love's hard fought redemption or life's barrel-scraping moments. [Aug 2012, p.97]

It's the amped-up riff in the middle of Offspring Are Blank that best sums up their playful approach. They often flex their muscles without feeling the need to land a killer blow. [Aug 2012, p.97]

The key track is We Can't Have Nice Things, envisaged by its writer as a George Jones lost love ballad, an turned into a gripping country soul psychodrama. [Aug 2012, p.96]

While it's not exactly beach music, his ear for uplifting harmonies as on So Lucky's lens-flared sonic rapture and Hand Over Hand's ecstatic evocation of bucolic landscapes, means the songs never fail to glow. [Aug 2012, p.95]

That [metal] grind is almost gone from Mutt in favor of a more mellowed mainstream sound, but his storytelling style has become razor sharp. [Aug 2012, p.95]

Pleasing, brain-squeezing racket. [Aug 2012, p.95]

There's a lot going in here, but it's delivered with an effortless charm that trusts listeners to pay due attention in their own sweet time. So far, so swimmingly. [Aug 2012, p.94]

What is surprising is just how chief songwriter Oliver Ackermann shapes their face-melting shoegaze into something altogether more sophisticated. [Aug 2012, p.94]

It's when the rappers stand down that it hits its stride. [Jun 2012, p.108]

Atmospheric, soulful and cohesive, with beats as strong as rhymes. [Jun 2012, p.108]

Brown's vivid storytelling skills bear testament to a major talent. [Jun 2012, p.108]

As the final stitch in their sprawling psychedelic tapestry ... Universe is a perfectly haphazard send-off. [Jun 2012, p.111]

You wonder how many guitar bands in the interim have matched the standard set here. [Jun 2012, p.119]

How, exactly, do you follow an album like Loveless? It's a question that pop has yet to answer. [Jun 2012, p.119]

Frustratingly uneven. [Jun 2012, p.118]

Brun's incredible voice - direct and moving - is at the centre of everything. [Jun 2012, p.117]

The melancholic croon of frontman Will Daunt, a man who sounds as if he's caressing a broken heart rather than nursing it, give these ever-so-now songs an old-world charisma. [Jun 2012, p.115]

Wonky vocals and a lack of guile strangle the project, not least on Efflictim, where a terminal aimlessness befits the melodramatic-teen lyric[s]. [Jun 2012, p.115]

[Lead singer, Corrina] Repp's spectral omnipresence enhances A Monument's addictive, dark-clouded atmosphere, especially when things get as chilly as later-day Radiohead and as pallid as Portishead. [Jun 2012, p.114]

Footwork newcomers might want to test their stamina with one of Planet Mu's excellent Bangs & works compilations first. [Jun 2012, p.114]

The sulky formula which established them, however, like the seismic chords of Control or the crunching Battle In Me, proves the efficacy of this recycled Garbage. [Jun 2012, p.114]

The Temper Trap are touched by the brilliance of Dougy Mandagi, a vocalist with a set of pipes so extraordinary he could emote a Twitter feed. [Jun 2012, p.112]

Unpatterns continues the left-wards drift [toward minimalism] with no vocals except the ghostly sampled ones and a musical palate of textured house and electric funk. [Jun 2012, p.112]

My God Is Blue is sorely lacking in vision. [Jun 2012, p.112]

It's bold, brassy and way more ebullient than a 75-year-old has any business sounding. [Jun 2012, p.112]

Storm Corrosion deserve to reach a wider audience than their CV, record collections - or suspect band name- would imply. [Jun 2012, p.112]

The San Francisco band plum for a gleaming Bright Lights, Big City sound that instead evokes visions of Crockett and Tubbs. [Jun 2012, p.111]

Their first album since 2009's Broken, gains strength from being all Gahan, all the time. [Jun 2012, p.111]

There are moments when their balance is perfect and the Fleetwood Mac tumble of Feel It Coming Near or the parting-mists of the title track keep their undoubted talents in sharp focus. [Jun 2012, p.111]

Hard to pin down, and all the better for it. [Jun 2012, p.111]

Make-Believe is a record you're more likely to respectfully admire than fall hopelessly in love with. [Jun 2012, p.110]

It's not ground breaking, but its commitment to creating an authentically deranged vibe could see your fringe grow an inch with every song. [Jun 2012, p.109]

It clatters past in little over an hour, lean and propulsive despite its sprawling, scattershot nature. [Jun 2012, p.109]

One for rainy afternoons, or a bottle of red in the small hours. [Jun 2012, p.109]