Don't believe a word of it; this mediation on aging has moments as filthy as anything from his X-rated past. [Jun 2011, p.125]

A quietly accomplished record, just not the one people were expecting. [Jun 2011, p.125]

Mixed by Philippe Zdar of Cassius fame, the whole record feels bright, poppy and fresh. [Jun 2011, p.105]

Third album Fake history is a whirl of clattering hardcore, gymnastic screaming and raw-edged, blazing riffs. [Jun 2011, p.114]

While Molly O oozes foreboding, Meet Me In the Alleyway is eerily reminiscent of The The and the Grammy-nominated This City is a genuine gem. [Jun 2011, p.114]

For all the troubled lyrics, these songs pack punches. [Jun 2011, p.111]

Lyrically, they may not be Pulitzer Prize contenders and sometimes--well, a lot of the time--you yearn for a little more musical adventurism, but there's good work here. [Jun 2011, p.123]

Tempos ate slower, moods are darker, moments of infectious pop few and far between. [Jun 2011, p.119]

A record that confounds expectations on every level. [Jun 2011, p.110]

There's something magical about the rapturous jumble of C86-esque indie, WOMAD rhythms and cooing dual vocals from Alister Wright and Heidi Lenffer. [Jun 2011, p.110]

Silver Steps and Slow Cathedral Melt are all howled melancholy, and equally exciting are Triccs' sonic twists and turns, even if they are exhausting, exhilarating listens.

Hardly groundbreaking, but heartfelt all the same. [May 2011, p.116]

Que Veux Tu and La Musique cannily mesh memorable pop hooks and dancefloor energy, but Budet's international aspirations may be offset by her brave, if commercially questionable, decision to sing entirely in French. [May 2011, p.127]

At the end of Monoform, the first track on Leeds five-piece Vessels' second, album, you can pretty much hear the sound of impending collapse, as if the band has begun to implode in the mix.It's at once terrifying and exhilarating. [May 2011, p.127]

Dark, often opaque, but also full of emotion, this is a gem. [May 2011, p.127]

For all the sonic bricolage, nothing upstages Garbus's own force of personality: her vocal range thrillingly from demure cooing through sassy funk to lung-bursting holler. [May 2011, p.126]

It may have been recorded in a church, but this is a record celebrating the celestial and the sinister in equal measure. [May 2011, p.126]

It is sufficiently gritty to at least keep her in the game. [May 2011, p.126]

Idlewild's Roddy Woomble has made a surprisingly decent stab of his concurrent career as a born-again folkie. [May 2011, p.126]

Simon Le Bon's croon oozes with charisma throughout and the elegant, new wave pop hooks of their heyday are revisited. [May 2011, p.126]

Nine Types of Lights finds them boldly going forward with their most cheerful, party-centric effort to date. [May 2011, p.123]

Only the title track, with its surge of guitar fuzz, really matches the idea with the execution. [May 2011, p.120]

An over-thought approach, however leaves Schifino's drumming feeling restrained while Johnson's nasal, perma-positive vocals are overzealous. [May 2011, p.119]

His second album evokes blade Runner's stylish futurism, populating it with Spaceape's paranoid poetry and drowning clean lines in tape crackle. [May 2011, p.119]

Hope St. is an expertly crafted burst of energy. [May 2011, p.119]

Rarely do teenage kicks result in such eloquent, nuanced records as this. [May 2011, p.118]

Music in monochrome needs blacks and whites, but Silesia only has shades of grey. [May 2011, p.116]

Throughout, Hunx nasally trills teenage romantic pain over raw retro clatter, and if Spector heard songs such as The curse Of being Young and Tonite Tonite from his prison cell, he'd surely approve. [May 2011, p.116]

The only problem is that the duo never manage to execute a truly killer pop hook, resulting in a debut that breezes by in a pleasant but ultimately forgettable haze. [May 2011, p.116]

The Unforgiving's rampaging orchestral stabs and hysterical synths, coupled with Sharon den Adel's fevered vocal flourishes, make for awful Euro-pop with the odd distorted guitar. [May 2011, p.115]

But for some off-key warbling, they might have slapped some crowd noise over the fantastically bonkers original. [May 2011, p.115]

Hope delivers the sort of soaring melodies and driving riffs eschewed by their emo contemporaries. [May 2011, p.115]

While they may have broken the slacker's code, the results are worth it. [May 2011, p.115]

While the songwriting stays high, it's her strong but sensitive voice, with its lonesome hint of yodeling, that captivates. [May 2011, p.115]

The effect is evocative if nothing less than a 21st-century Caledonian Spirit Of Eden. [May 2011, p.119]

The novelty soon fades and the collision of styles rarely coalesces into anything approaching a song. [May 2011, p.120]

The English Riviera is a major progression for Metronomy, idiosyncratic but also as instantly accessible as, say, Hot chip. It's a winning combination. [May 2011, p.114]

After a promising start too much else glides by as a wash of warm, organic--yet unremarkable--background music. A Shame. [May 2011, p.116]

The focus on Darnielle's wonderfully evocative phrasing makes his songs sound like enigmatic fragments of short stories. [May 2011, p.120]

Get Well Soon is a starkly beautiful record that mines the sounds of the last four decades of Americana. [May 2011, p.126]

Hard to get a handle, but easy to love. [May 2011, p.119]

They've taken their time, but this fine record suggests it may not be too late. [May 2011, p.124]

The six tracks on Take care... are beautifully realised mini-symphonies that invite comparisons with a leaner Godspeed You! Black Emperor, all defined by epic, awe-inspiring crescendos. [May 2011, p.115]

If you can cope with the intensity, tracks such as Done and the almost unbearably sombre $20 draw a mesmerising beauty from their anguish. [May 2011, p.119]

The length and sheer number of guest stars mean it;'s somewhat rambling, but when you're talking P-funk, what's new? [May 2011, p.112]

A refreshingly upbeat counterpoint to 2006's opaque, Brian Eno assisted Surprise. [May 2011, p.124]

The sentiment of the latter is clearly that the doubts and fuzziness of the past have gone and the future is now dazzlingly bright. On the strength of this sharply-focused, wholly impressive record, that much is certainly true for Guillemots. [May 2011, p.113]

By definition, it's a water treader and there's nothing surprising. [May 2011, p.124]

What was often missing was much in the way of engaging, nuanced songwriting. Four alums in, though, there are clear signs of progress. [May 2011, p.121]

Her sense of foreboding remains intact, as does her way with a spooked Portishead-esque rhythm and a keeningly intelligent lyric. [May 2011, p.119]

{The Birthday party is ] more like an unfortunate scratch on what is otherwise a miniature jewel of an album and one of those rare side-projects that deserves a long life of its own. [May 2011, p.117]

Such is the electronic murk elsewhere, it feels better to dabble your toes in this record than plunge right in. [May 2011, p.120]

He makes a quantum leap forward on his new album. [May 2011, p.112]

He's not the first person to have exploited the uranium half-life of the '80s but on Confetti's doomy missile-silo clang and the brassy Robert Smith jive of Alchemy And You, he customises it smartly for a newly paranoid generation. [May 2011, p.112]

If his vocals sound phoned in on those, when he does engage, his half-spoken, half-threatening drawl on the homesick America! and Universal Applicant evokes Gil Scott-Heron, but it;'s not enough. [May 2011, p.112]

The defining album of his career, Wasting Light is the sound of Dave Grohl putting his whole life in context. [May 2011, p.110]

Jollett's weighty musing are all but neutered by his determination to cover all musical bases but, as an alt-rock starter-kit, it's just about perfect. [May 2011, p.109]

He fashions an album that's playful and dewy-eyed, without being juvenile. [May 2011, p.109]

There's no doubt Glasvegas are on the side of the angels; they just need to remember that the Devil is in the detail. [May 2011, p.108]

Unfortunately, too many of their other choruses aim high yet fall flat. [May 2011, p.109]

Radiohead's ambitions are so modest that it's hard to tell whether this is just creative throat clearing or the quieter path they've settled for. If it's the latter, well, Radiohead sound calmer and more content than ever. [May 2011, p.106]

Simple, yet irresistible. [May 2010, p.118]

Interplay sees him continuing the retro-futurist experiment. [Apr 2011, p.102]

It stays true to their quirky synth-with-Indian-influences sound, while adding club beats, but displays a penchant for half-explained, possibly sinister scenarios involving, variously, alcohol, agoraphobia and hospitals. [Apr 2011, p.95]

She does more than enough to establish herself as a contender. [Mar 2011, p.112]

the expectancy of being universally tipped for greatness may yet sink her, but she's delivered here. [Mar 2011, p.109]

There's nothing here to suggest either a problem with what he's doing--Heavenly is as heavenly as its title suggests; Middle of Love shows how friendly Sexsmith can be; and the jaunty-sounding Eye Candy is covertly acerbic as they come--or that things will turn around for him. [Apr 2011, p.109]

This follow-up to their debut shows more polish and a firmer grasp on rhythm. [Apr 2011, p.106]

Given Mascis's croaking rasp this shouldn't work, but it does, because he's turned in his best collection of songs for a long time. [Apr 2011, p.104]

A high-risk strategy, then, but one that largely succeeds thanks to Fink's languid delivery. [Apr 2011, p.103]

Their fifth long-player finds them back at their corrosive best. [Apr 2011, p.102]

At 21 minutes at least it doesn't outstay its welcome. [Apr 2011, p.102]

As ever, the gravel-voiced Lightburn sounds as if singing for his life rather than his supper yet, without sacrificing that epic feel that always set this band apart, he's broadening his horizons. [Apr 2011, p.101]

Take Me Over makes a misplaced attempt at funk, which grates slightly, but it's hard to dislike the well tuned synths and dreamy choruses of tracks such as Hanging Onto Every Heartbeat. [Apr 2011, p.101]

Wounded Rhymes is the moment Lykke Liu has edged ahead of the pack. And she still understands the value of a mighty percussive wallop. [Apr 2011, p.100]

The real revelation is Kaur herself, a wonderfully gifted singer whose shimmering vocals prove every bit as effervescent as her name. [Apr 2011, p.98]

Matt Shultz makes a natural showman firmly in the mouth Perry Farrell mould. Front of house taken care of, it's then just a matter of pairing the noise and excitement, something they achieve in short, sharp bursts with room to spare. [Apr 2011, p.98]

The Ballad of The Kingsmen is just about the best distillation of free speech and the delusion of democracy ever recorded, while Mushroom Story will have you laughing and crying. [Apr 2011, p.98]

Unfortunately, Collapse Into Now is not nearly as consistent, vital or accomplished as either Out Of Time or Automatic For The People. [Apr 2011, p.94]

Angles fits 10 songs into a brisk 34 minutes and doesn't waste time gunning for gravitas. [Apr 2011, p.92]

it ens up a tie between waffling self-indulgence and occasional moments of inspiration. Definitely not predictable, though. [Apr 2011, p.110]

There is plenty here to treasure here. [Apr 2011, p.111]

She establishes herself as the freshest voice on the dancefloor. [Apr 2011, p.109]

It all makes for a strangely seamless collection, with enough moments of brilliance to excuse the lack of progression. [Apr 2011, p.114]

It's DIY-spirited, non-conformist and humourous, making this punk-war veteran's return a flavoursome treat. [Apr 2011, p.109]

The Sisters' eponymous first release throws up the unlikely comparison of John Lennon fronting The Flaming Lips, only to result in something that's too unfocused and self-indulgent to be more than a passing curiosity. [Mar 2011, p.116]

This debut proves equally effervescent. [Apr 2011, p.109]

The newly remastered version is also bolstered by three additional track as reclaimed from the vaults. [Apr 2011, p.114]

Ambitious and crackling with smart riffs, the end result achieves a brooding intensity all of its own. [Apr 2011, p.111]

The absence of a monstrous lead track, though, suggests the appeal will remain selective. [Apr 2011, p.110]

While Oakey's lyrics still have a near-surreal banality, with Privilege surely the most bizarre song yet to tackle the credit crunch, the two-finger riffs of Sky and Get Together are as addictive as ever. [Apr 2011, p.104]

Though the symphonic funk samples that power his free-flowing wordplay sound as if they could do with an upgrade. [Apr 2011, p.95]

Though consistently strong, in the absence of dancers or plot it's hard to make sense of this subtle album's jolting transitions between subtle mood pieces and bombastic orchestral techno. [Apr 2011, p.106]

Their sound brilliantly pays homage equally to the sparkling melodies of C86 and the lunk-headed bounce of punk rock. [Apr 2011, p.110]

The result is a more direct sound. [Apr 2011, p.106]

Here, melody and charmingly lo-fi electronics vie for attention next to moshpit riffing. [Apr 2011, p.106]

He and his demons haven't come in from the cold just yet, but thankfully, Pearson's muse has caught fire once more. [Apr 2011, p.105]

But for all their obvious influences, they're as youthfully exuberant as MGMT and surely no band has used echo quite so deftly since interesting-period Jesus ANd Mary Chain. [Apr 2011, p.104]