What makes this record so impressive is how effortlessly he has claimed his big pop moment without sounding compromised, and how easily he makes his producers bend to his strengths instead of vice versa. [Jan 2011, p.132]

Chained as they are to the demands of the dancefloor, there's a little room for subtlety in these frantic mash-ups of Coldplay and Empire Of The Sun, but then whoever did their thinking under strobe lights? [Dec 2010, p.115]

Dazzling with its intensity, the futuristic splice of swooping symphonics and grimy looped percussion once again sets Stevens in his own orbit. [Dec 2010, p.114]

Wonder of the Younger shows they're still expanding their songwriting palette with out sacrificing the hooks or pop smarts. [Dec 2010, p.114]

Hemingway's Whiskey is very much par for the course. [Dec 2010, p.114]

An extended celebration of shopping, partying, and exercising youthful hormones. [Dec 2010, p.114]

Shontelle's diva vocal is pitch-perfect, but given Rihanna's bust-up with Chris Brown the domestic abuse subtext seems ill-judged at best. [Dec 2010, p.113]

Not for the first time, you find yourself wondering whether Squarepusher is taking the piss. [Dec 2010, p.113]

Steve's boy finally finds his voice on this third record. [Dec 29010, p.104]

Rushes to the head aside, Progress is a triumph musically, conceptually, personally. [Dec 2010, p.100]

Like so much of his troubled catalogue, it disarms you with its beauty. [Dec 2010, p.124]

The Promise itself is a strange thing, less a companion to Darkness than the blueprint for a lost sequel to Born To Run. [Dec 2010, p.118]

The Union has pulled off the canny trick of allowing Elton to revisit his past, while still sounding like a songwriter looking and moving confidently towards the future. [Dec 2010, p.106]

Cudi is very much in a world of his own. [Dec 2010, p.110]

Barbed but Gregarious. [Dec 2020, p.110]

Not surprisingly, To Dreamers doesn't stray far from what's gone before. [Dec 2010, p.114]

Their first full album polishes some rough edges down to a soft-focus burr as synths eddy away in a fog of sound that is often only given direct form by the haphazard beats beneath. [Dec 2010, p.113]

The likes of Up The Junction and Cool For Cats still sound fabulous, but it's a mystery why they didn't just remaster one of their collections. [Dec 2010, p.114]

Danger Days doesn't sound like the future, but it does sound like the sate of My Chemical Romance's art. [Dec 2010, p.102]

Terse songwriting and Hutch Harris's emotionally strained vocals create a liberating sense of urgency--and there's something both modest and succinct about a 32-minute album in the age of infinite MP3s. [Dec 2010, p.115]

Steeple is a big, old hairy beast capable of stirring the most primal of instincts. [Dec 2010, p.115]

It turns out to be a bit of an understated charmer. [Dec 2010, p.114]

The follow-up To 2008's ProVisions is another fine addition to his cannon. [Dec 2010, p.109]

The grandstanding result sounds like U@ if Bono had decided tattoos, obscure piercings and the occasional sore-throated growl were the way forward. [Jan 2011, p.135]

First album in seven years by dreamy Alabama duo. [Jan. 2011, p. 135]

Canadian rocker goes live and (almost) solo. [Jan. 2011, p. 135]

The post-punk provocateurs' 13th album finds them straddling post-millennial metal and ritualistic pounding, Jaz Coleman still still roaring like he's the only sane person in a world of fools. [Nov. 2010, p. 105]

Not Music presents more of their signature future-retro pop exotica. [Dec. 2010, p. 114]

While Coco Sumner certainly makes her mistakes, not least a stumbling cover of Neil Young's Only Love Can Break Your Heart, she's her own, electro-poppy woman. [Nov 2010, p.112]

Brooding is the word for their claustrophobic jams, forged on skeletal guitar lines and smothered in reverb. [Dec. 2010, p. 112]

It seems that Ferry's singular blend of elegance and dissolution still hasn't gone out of style. [Dec. 2010, p. 111]

Joel and Benji Madden's fifth album of anthemic dumbness. [Dec. 2010, p. 110]

With assistance from fellow electronicists and past creative foils Leo Abrahams and Jon Hopkins, this translates as otherworldly synthetic miniatures, rhythmic techno tension-builders and, on Forms Of Anger, a sudden rush of motorik rock menace. [Dec. 2010, p. 109]

Not all of it convinces; Buttery's vocals can stray into a chill-out. But this is still an absorbing record that deserves to break hearts beyond the confines of the dubstep scene. [Dec. 2010, p. 108]

Dani Filth's ninth album ramps up the Carry On Screaming! schtick; the result is one he's behind you short of a pantomime. [Dec. 2010, p. 103]

Recorded in 11 days in Nashville and LA, National Ransom sees Costello continuing his obsession with bluegrass and Americana, under the watchful eye of producer T-Bone Burnett. [Dec. 2010, p. 104]

The sleek return from Swedish indie-pop collective. [Dec. 2010, p. 104]

The jazzier the arrangements, however, the more effective his soul-searching becomes. [Nov 2010, p.105]

It's a trawl through pop's murky subconscious, all mangled electronics, lurching beats and warped mantras. [Nov. 2010, p. 116]

Stuart Murdoch's lyrical muse is a touch subdued but Come On Sister's moreish synth-pop and the gleeful bubblegum, of Stevie Jackson's I'm Not Living In The Real World prove their sense of indie wonder remains undimmed. [Nov 2010, p.114]

The pattern continues, as vocal tracks alternate with instrumentals, building toward the 33-minute title track, an opus that contrives to be both ambitious and aimless. [Oct. 2010, p. 121]

For the most part it's a decent but needless reworking of her Compass Point trilogy of albums from the early '80s. [Nov 2008, p.117]

On these songs and the anthemic "Hard Times," Drew achieves what's he's aiming for: a gritty urban update on '70s socio-political classics by Curtis Mayfield and Marvin Gaye. [May 201, p.119]

The former Verve leader attempts urban crossover. Look away now. [August 2010, p. 114]

Resurgent indie icon with added Drums, Cribs and Franz Ferdinand. [Oct. 2010, p. 105]

Lovely stuff. [Sep 2010, p.120]

Goulding is packed with intriguing contradictions and you can sense most of them on Lights.[Apr 2010, p.107]

At times brilliant, as on the 10CC-gone-disco title track or Belgian pop cover Without Lies, which features California wild-child Sky Ferreia, there are also one too many homages to '80s Italian disco and Euro-trash soundtracks. [Oct 2010, p.103]

There's still a feeling that the two albums might have worked better as one. [Nov 2010, p.114]

First single "Stop The Music" suggests they may yet escape this postmodern cul-dul-sac, but by the time they get to "I Vibe You," it feels like being trapped in a lift with The Saturdays. [Aug 2010, p.124]

Wyatt continues to be full of delightful surprises. [Nov 2010, p.117]

Come Around Sundown is the sound of them trying to wrestle its relationship with fame back under control. On a musical level, they've succeeded--they've scaled back the ambition with out throwing the baby out with the bathwater. [Nov 2010, p.102]

He'll always be too mannered for mainstream acceptance, but there's unarguable brilliance here. [Nov 2010, p.105]

The 50-minute opus is an ambient masterclass. [Nov 2010, p.112]

Too Many Miracles, I Saw You Walk Away and This Electric come lovingly swaddled in strings and, if only for their duration, make the world a nicer place. [Nov 2010, p.105]

For this stunning first offering South London producer Derwin Panda connects organic harmonies of Noah Lennox's Panda Bear project with Four Tet's dizzying cut-ups. [Nov 2010, p.109]

It's warm and heartfelt, but the scaled down production allows his grating Treesside vocals dominate to distraction. [Nov 2010, p.114]

As ever, she's at her best when her guard is down. [Oct. 2010, p. 113]

Another smart and limber record. An astute choice of collaborators plays its part. [Oct 2010, p.116]

Clinic have performed a remarkable metamorphosis for the melodic, dreamlike Bubblegum. [Nov. 2010, p. 106]

The odd electronic twist sugars the pill, but it's mostly relentless if brutally effective stuff. [Nov 2010, p.105]

Lyrically, though, he's got strangely little of interest to say, no a particularly distinctive way of saying it. [Nov 2010, p.111]

The airier sound allows room for some soaring melodies, which find their ideal melodies, which find their ideal centrepiece in Michael Vidal's dolorous croon. [Oct 2010, p.103]

You could forgive the incoherence if every song punched its weight, but too often design-by-committee dilutes rather than enhances individual strengths, producing generic electro-pop filler. [Oct 2010, p.106]

Hornby and Folds would seem to be a good fit in the checkered history of author/musician collaborations. And so it proves, up to a point. [Oct 2010, p.107]

Slavishly retro, but done with infectious enthusiasm. [Oct 2010, p.112]

Exhilarating end-of-days from the US trio. [Oct. 2010, p. 113]

Tired Pony have given side-bands a good name. [Aug 2010, p.121]

Clapton sounds exactly like what it is: the work of a musically satisfied 65-year-old. [Nov. 2010, p. 106]

With singer Jim Adkin's genuinely inspiring vocals and thoughtful lyrics separating them from the herd, there's much more life here than might have been expected. [Nov. 2010, p. 111]

Deerhunter might be fascinated by the vanishing tricks people play, but Halcyon Digest is a thing of unmistakable substance. [Nov. 2010, p. 113]

Truly one of a kind. [Nov. 2010, p. 117]

This follow-up goes one further [than his 2006 debut], pushing Dawkins to the forefront of modern soul voices, his delivery suggesting a less showy John Legend. [Nov 2010, p.105]

This 11th album refines their sound and gives it a modern productive tweak. [Oct 2010, p.112]

You would not have predicted, however, he'd settle for an album of songs that sound like leftovers from the Dear Science sessions. [Sep 2010, p.116]

Solid, if a bit derivative. [Oct 2010, p.116]

The splicing of classical instrumentation with electronica and jazz flourishes may alienate his old band's fans, but there is much to admire here. [Oct 2010, p.120]

Still raging, not drowning, their flame burns unfashionably on. [Oct 2010, p.110]

The result is the album Roots Manuva has always threatened to make; approachable yet with real substance. [Oct. 2010, p. 113]

Terrific, politically charged covers album from soul's Mr. Nice Guy. [Nov. 2010, p. 107]

She excels when she stacks up layers of her ghostly choirgirl voice within a more lush framework. [Nov 2010, p.114]

It all makes for an engaging and frequently charming solo debut. [Nov 2010, p.114]

My Father Will Guide Me Up a Rope to the Sky isn't all cranium-crushing bleakness, just mostly. [Nov 2010, p.116]

Friedmans and Everdell have struck gold. [Oct 2010, p.108]

What we have here is a Killers record made without the Killers that sounds like The Killers and is almost as good as The Killers, but not quite. [Oct 2010, p.101]

Band Of Joy is a good place for him to stay a little longer. [Oct 2010, p.114]

This is perhaps their strongest yet, their angular sounds augmented by a succession of memorable hooks, any one of which could be the one to break them into the mainstream after 14 years. [Oct 2010, p.121]

It's what Spiritualized might sound like before Jason Pierce sprinkles his gospel fairy dust on them. [Oct 2010, p.104]

The rumble of My God's bigger Than Your God offers some respite, but can't save a disappointing return. [Oct 2010, p.121]

While on the secular likes of Randy Newman's Losing You she's never less than majestic, it's when celebrating her Lord that things really click. [Oct 2010, p.116]

Recorded at LA's Ocean Way studios, his 10th album sees his screwball pop vision go widescreen. [Oct 2010, p.112]

There's a focus here that would have your average Grateful Dead fan running screaming for the hills. And that in itself is a triumph. [Oct 2010, p.112]

Much more than a collection of second-hand shoegaze though, Sleep Forever is also endowed with a glam-rock swagger and a fondness for euphoric choruses that fans of Kasabian would do well to investigate. [Oct 2010, p.105]

What really matters here is texture, delivered in abundance as she plucks and picks her way around harps, guitars and all manner of acoustic backing, her celestial freak-folk voice bewitching the listener. [Oct 2010, p.103]

Where Grinderman 2 does possess unique ace is its skillfully employed shot of psychedelia. [Oct 2010, p.102]

Given the strength of their earlier work, Penny Sparkle is a big letdown. [Oct 2010, p.104]

Fans of Gonzalez's intimate solo bedroom folk may be taken aback by the kaleidoscopic bells and whistles of Fields, but the rest of us should be thankful the sales of those two previous releases have given Gonzalez andd his mates the freedom to indulge every whim. [Oct 2010, p.109]

Alongside an early double hit of the two best pop songs the band have written in a decade and a rabble rousing take on their own Sproston Green, the album sees Tim Burgess pay respect to lifelong influence Crass. [Sep 2010, p.118]