You leave the record feeling a bit like you've visited a museum. [May 2014, p.116]

More varied stylistically, it offers a powerful reflection of the band's consistently bleak worldview. [May 2014, p.116]

Chaotic and raw, it exemplifies the best of US punk rock. [May 2014, p.116]

Settle Me Down is an elegantly executed ballad and Dark Waltz evokes Creedence Clearwater Revival at their finest, but the unspectacular Another Night gets bogged down in sub-Springsteen-isms. [May 2014, p.115]

If there's a touch too much retrospective pastiche, there's also wit and mellifluousness. [May 2014, p.115]

The infinitely superior Cope might expand their reach further still. [May 2014, p.114]

Caustic Love is a truly excellent modern soul record. [May 2014, p.114]

It's a mixed bag. [May 2014, p.114]

Amid such fussy eclecticism, however, they can't always stop Lucius sounding like an idea for a great band rather than the real thing. [May 2014, p.113]

Many of the songs on this fourth LP begin promisingly enough, but some lose their way when frontman Alexei Barrow and bassist Kelly Southern pitch in with mildly hysterical vocals, the clashing combination descending into a shouty mess. [May 2014, p.113]

What makes those sounds compelling here are Ingersoll's buttery rhymes and an ability to zero in on your rhythmic G-spots. [May 2014, p.113]

At times it's almost too much to take in, the album's secrets and flavours gradually revealing themselves on the third or fourth listen. [May 2014, p.112]

There's nothing here to suggest Holtkamp should think about giving up his day job anytime soon. [May 2014, p.111]

Hoop's magic-realist folk idiom can veer a little too close to being the work of that free spirit who helps out at the health-food co-op, but here, the delicacy and subtlety of her songs is laid bare. [May 2014, p.111]

In places it lacks the character to make Horse Thief truly stand out, but this first outing is a fine enough place to start. [May 2014, p.111]

Teeth offers more upbeat songs about downwardly mobile characters, complete with Springsteen-scale musical drama and clever lyrics about dive bars. [May 2014, p.111]

The overwrought Fall From Grace is the only bum note: otherwise Singles is a brilliant, bewitching album. [May 2014, p.110]

With gospel tinges and road-dusted melodies, this is high-end Americana and piano balladry, his brothers' loss is everyone else's gain. [May 2014, p.110]

As always with the finest of Eels albums, Everett's loss is the listener's gain. [May 2014, p.110]

Cthulu has the melodrama, but not the bite, of Nine Inch Nails and So Blonde is pointless grunge landfill.... 100 Years achieves so much with just a delicate vocal, minimalist piano and lowing strings that the harder-edged songs seem like empty noise. [May 2014, p.109]

The pleasure was all ours. [May 2014, p.108]

Food is grown-up, womanly, but for all the hearth-and-home warmth, it doesn't forget the way to a listener's heart is through their ears. [May 2014, p.109]

Five tracks from the album were released as the Wake Me Up EP late in 2013, but on an album packed with possible alternative hits, the future is already his. [May 2014, p.107]

Band Of Skulls may be taking a slow route to the top, but the peak is definitely within view. [May 2014, p.107]

After a decade as pop's court jesters, Kaiser Chiefs have finally found their true voice. [May 2014, p.106]

It's a thrilling snapshot of a young rock'n'roll band bent to no-one else's will but their own. [May 2014, p.105]

File under "trip-pop." [May 2014, p.105]

Everyday Roberts is a wonderful record. [May 2014, p.104]