The Canadian synth-pop duo are still partying like it's 1984. [Nov. 2010, p. 106]

Underachieving alternative heroes finally come up with the goods. [Nov. 2010, p. 110]

A typically disorienting affair, Skik I Allt divides itself between pastoral, paisley-patterned '60s pop and, more troublingly, the toothless prog-rock of Hogdalstoppen and Blandband. [Oct 2010, p.107]

The resulting brew takes some getting used to, but there;s levitating force behind the rumbling Thunderdrums and Satt Nam's astral harmonics. [Oct 2010, p.112]

Uptempo grooves such as Bobcat Gold Wraith may be too workmanlike to build up much momentum, but there are some lovely moments here. [Jul 2010, p.128]

Ominous fourth album from the masters of emotional turbulence. [Oct. 2010, p. 118]

Swedish popstrel on fine form, midway through her trilogy. [Nov. 2010, p. 114]

Helmet have fleshed out their minimalist grinding with proper tunes, but the question remains: will anyone care these days? [Nov 2010, p.105]

Not a lot of thought has gone into changing the formula. [Nov 2010, p.111]

Corey Taylor's side project finds him ditching both the mask and the won't-tidy-my-bedroom ire in favour of more eardrum-friendly grunge redux. [Oct 2010, p.103]

Theo Hutchcraft and Adam Anderson prove to be a depressingly ordinary package of overblown melodies and musty lyrical cliches, expensively ribboned with choirs and orchestras. [Sep 2010, p.116]

Richer and more rewarding than their Mercury-nominated breakthrough, Isla still has jazz running through it's veins, based as it is largely around sax and double bass, but the London band have broader ambitions. [Nov 2009, p.111]

Award-winning country from the school of hard knocks. [Oct. 2010, p. 103]

There's enough here to satisfy the faithful, if nothing to enlist new recruits. [Oct. 2010, p. 108]

While you'd hope there is some post-concert studio enhancement afoot, the result is in effect an overly basic live album of new songs. [Oct 2010, p.120]

At 25 minutes, Minotaur is slight but still a fine distillation of the band's deceptive charms and retains the sense of something very unsettling lurking at its core. [Oct 2010, p.105]

Selway understands that he starts with a blank slate and that his extracurricular activity need sound neither drummery nor Radiohead-esque. Instead, he's blessed with a warm and gentle voice, he sings of heart, hearth and on the aching "broken Promises," the death of his mother in 2006. [Sep 2010, p.120]

Willfully schlocky, surprising witty. [Sep 2010, p.113]

This finds the Californians bulking out five lead-footed new tracks with live versions of their handful of hits. The whiff of desperation. [Oct 2010, p.103]

Self-consciously clever yet compelling, thanks in part to singer Jonathan Higg's hyperactive falsetto and garbled surrealism. [Sep 2010, p.116]

This is a collection of grooves rather than songs, but there's depth. [Sept. 2010, p. 113]

Texan sluggers The Sword shoulder-barge the deadly "hipster rock" sobriquet out of the way with a patchouli-splattered update of Black Sabbath's noise. [Sept. 2010, p. 113]

Pieced together over a two-year period, the results are often stunning. [Oct 2010, p.104]

The arrival of J Mascis for Giving It All Away lightens the mood, but it's impossible to shake the sense Sugar is the sound of a band in transition. [Oct 2010, p.107]

The magic isn't totally absent, but this self-conscious debut falls just short of the hype they've garnered on US blogs. [Oct 2010, p.111]

She's got some distance to travel before she's a truly mind-blowing, norm-shattering pop star. She's not the new Madonna, just a very naughty girl. [Oct 2010, p.117]

Sadly this spirit of renewal doesn't translate to the music. [Sep 2010, p.114]

The best parts of Hawk, where Capbell's voice slips around Lanegan's like a membrane and the duo assumes a single, menacing persona. [Sep 2010, p.121]

The five Retina tracks are hauntingly intense....Iris is far warmer-sounding. [Sep 2010, p.123]

It's thrilling stuff and a reasonable guide to where the Klaxons are heading with Surfing The Void, this dense, doomy, psychedelic album with its tough punk edge. [Sept. 2010, p. 112]

If there's one complaint, its that pop commercialism occasionally gets the better of her. [Aug 2010, p.123]0

Alive As You Are is a harmony-packed, relaxed affair, reminiscent of mid-period Byrds and Tom Petty, with the influence of The Beatles often hovering near. [Sept. 2010, p. 114]

An assemblage of electro-pop, affecting melodies and Dear's sonorous voice, Black City variously recalls Talking Heads, LCD Soundsystem and The Magnetic Fields. [Sept. 2010, p. 114]

He's getting more interesting with each release. [Sept. 2010, p. 116]

Steel-plated national treasures hit the epic button. [Sept. 2010, p. 117]

A bit of a gimmick maybe, but one that pays off, with Mellencamp relishing his role as grizzled troubadour steeped in the rootsy traditions of America's rural South. [Oct 2010, p.111]

As he switches from the blues shuffle of Repo Man to pedal steel laments, country rock, and even lovelorn soul, you can't help but marvel at the knack Ray LaMontagne has for really inhabiting his songs. [Oct 2020, p.111]

It won't dethrone his great works, but there's heart in abundance. [Nove. 2010, p. 117]

There's a late sunburst of sweet vocal harmonies and folk rock riffs on closing track Night And Day, but it's not enough to save this dreary album. [Oct 2010, p.104]

There are questions over his naive writing, which often relies on hokey wordplay, but the horn-filled arrangements, his driving Stax-fuelled band and that voice carry him through. Just. [Jun 2010, p.131]

Album number eight from Zakk Wylde sees him cranking up the macho guitar heroics to superhuman levels. [Oct. 2010, p. 103]

Kaleide proves a little formula tweaking goes a long way. [Sep 2010, p.120]

The result is a mighty leap forwards. [Jun 2010, p.128]

They may well have delivered their masterpiece. [Sept. 2010, p. 110]

Autolux balance droney post-rock and electronics with rare skill. [Sept. 2010, p. 113]

This instrumental mixtape isn't Jaime Meline's best work, but there's no denying the manic intensity as Meline's machine-gun edits cut together old-school electro and spooked Hammond grooves. [Sept. 2010, p. 117]

Despite this concession to orthodoxy [recording in a real music studio], King Of The Beach retains much of his summery charm, the sun-kissed pop-punk choruses concealing lyrics seething with self-loathing, alongside slices of blissed-out pop in style of labelmates Beach House. [Sep 2010, p.123]

Hunting My Dress rejoices in an off-the-cuff dreamlike sensuality, pitching and rolling in all sorts of pleasingly unexpected directions. [Dec 2009, p. 115]

There's nothing here for Jones to be ashamed of. [Sept. 2010, p. 115]

Bontempi organ drum tracks merge together to create a hypnotic funk. [Sept. 2010, p. 118]

They seem ground down by arguments. [Oct 2010, p.111]

Without scaling any great heights, it's a sweetly engaging mix of lo-fi indie-rock and '60s girl group innocence. [Sep 2010, p.122]

The Magic Numbers' central problem remains: too few hooks back up the pretty tunes, and The Runaway becomes an album you want to love, but struggle to recall even as it glides on by. [Jul 2010, p.135]

I Am Arrows finds Burrows ploughing a fuzzy acoustic furrow to delight fans of summery '70s pop. [Aug 2010, p.120]

Their densely textured song structures and layered song harmonies reward repeated listening. [Sep 2010, p.120]

She makes the most with what she's got, along with a decent strike rate for pulling radio-friendly hooks out of the hat. [Sep 2010, p.122]

For all the celebrity firepower, however, Dark Night Of The Soul never quite adds up to more than a handful of great moments. [Aug 2009, p.111]

Who could of predicted, then, that Intriguer would be his best work in nearly two decades? [Aug 2010, p.116]

While Maya certainly shows no diminution of sheer sonic ingenuity, it suffers from a shrinking of the spirit. [Aug 2010, p.112]

Serotonin finds them back in more familiar territory, delivering screwball pop gems under the guidance of veteran knob twiddler Chris Thomas. [Aug 2010, p.123]

It's an addictive dream-pop blueprint, yet it's only when the percussion powers down, as on closer "The Wait," that the band hit the ethereal heights they're shooting for. [Aug 2010, p.125]

Hence the London outfit's second album is an all-acoustic, bucolic affair. [Aug 2010, p.116]

The intimacy of John Bramwell's writing is carefully preserved and the trio's abundant charm still lies in a simple melodic grace and spiky romanticisms of lines. [Aug 2010, p.120]

Nu-metallers try to recapture former glories. Fail.

The North Carolina quartet's banjo lopes alongside their classy Americana tunes. [Oct 2010, p.104]

Once cosmic scallies dazzled by pop's sepia-tinted past, Butterfly House is proof that The Coral;s psychedelic pop is now just as beautiful. [Aug 2010, p.118]

The rest lumbers by in a blur of anaemic vocals and dull soundscapes. [Aug 2010, p.117]

This lean, adrenal debut fors one better, blurring the boundaries between dance and rock with a flair not seen since Hooky and co plugged in their keyboards in the early '80s. [Feb 2010, p.113]

Shears is now too smart a lyricist to need this sort of cartoonish carry-on. And, bar a smattering of filler, the tunes are unstoppable. [Jul 2010, p.124]

Solid ground is simply beautiful, David Davison's reedy warble offset by a ghostly mellotron, while campfire strum-along Was and power-pop gem Israeli Caves are proof that their melodic detour was well worth the effort. [Nov 2010, p.111]

Without Pop The Glock's digitised vocals Hartley sounds like a karaoke version of '80s rapper Roxanne Shante. [Aug 2010, p.126]

"Being herself" has resulted in her blandest record yet: it drifts from nondescript disco-pop and cloying R&B to woefully ersatz glam stomp. [July 2010, p. 132]

As the title promises, it's not so much a departure as a significant advancement of a career-long mission. [July 2010, p. 130]

Sparkly fourth set from Zero 7's Australian singer. [July 2010, p. 139]

There's a sleek electronic sheen but also a welcome return to stripped-down songcraft. [Jun 2010, p.126]

The Five Ghosts deserves to chaperone them to greater things. [Sep 2010, p.121]

While this album carries more instrumental and emotional heft than its predecessor, something remains off-balance. [Jun 2010, p.130]

American Slang isn't a record to change the world. But if Brian Fallon is yet to take on the Springsteen mantle of seeing and articulating that world way beyond his own neighborhood, it will surely bringh im closer still to The Boss' heartland audience.

Robin Carlsson has transcended myriad label problems to transform herself into the most glamorous and most fascinating electro-pop diva. [July 2010, p. 139]

A bluesy, guitar-heavy record just like they used to make, then. What's not to llike? [Aug 2010, p.124]

As ever, the drawback is a surfeit of earnestness; some of the irreverent humour of their live shows qouln't go amiss. [Aug 2010, p.127]

It may be too late for the big breakthrough, but Harcourt has given himself a fighting chancce. [Jul 2010, p.133]

The Result is a monochrome masterclass where khol-eyed '60s pop and British Invasion riffs are given emotional depth. [Sept. 2010, p. 117]

Time Flies... is the memorial to the greatest rock'n'roll cartoon of them all, one which, re-formation dreams aside, ends here now. [Jul 2010, p.144]

A guest spot from scene legend Greg Hetson confirms Eyes And Nines as the real deal. [Jun 2010, p.120]

Shadows, their eighth album, piles the instrumental layers back on without sacrificing any of the Scots' traditional strengths. [July 2010, p. 140]

We get their most pastoral outing to date, piano ballads one minutes, laid-back Neil Young the next. [July 2010, p. 129]

This debut seems to tremble on the threshold between the past and the present, the known and unknown, O'Brien's voice and allusive lyrics displaying a mixture of vulnerability and dexterity. [July 2010, p. 137]

The follow-up repeats the trick, scattering dreamy pop between industrial soundscapes. [July 2010, p. 129]

They spent three weeks recording this eclectic set of covers ranging from The Moody Blues to Spoon, all delivered with the steel-trap tightness of a touring band. [Jun 2010, p.128]

His seventh album bristles with ambition, merging influences ranging from hair metal and Merseybeat. [Jul 2010, p.136]

Although the band makes a gleeful clatter on tracks such as "Collector," the record really shines when the live instrumentation takes a back seat. [Jul 2010, p.133]

When she stops bawling (on Colors), Potter reveals herself as an affecting vocalist who deserves better than the barroom. [Sept. 2010, p.118]

His second album Splazsh serves up tense techno without a hint of human warmth. [Jul 2010, p.140]

They have their moments, including the electro-rock riffs on Bambi, but elsewhere the lack of variety soon grates. [Sep 2010, p.121]

Few would guess it was about environmental apocalypse; indeed, you can listen to the whole album with out noticing very much at all. [Aug 2010, p.123]

On their amiably unvarnished debut, they're a bit punky, a little folky, even a bit rockabilly, but always refreshingly themselves. [May 2010, p.126]

With the exception of Bob Dylan, there isn't a single artist, living or dead, who has managed a record this audacious 30-plus-years into a career. Wake Up The Nation is that good. [May 2010, p.114]