On their first LP in five years, Thomas and his 15 collaborators lovingly craft 12 richly layered but never precious songs which burst with invention, melody and surprising saxophone, all underpinned by chief singer Carol Catherine's appealing melancholy. [Jun 2013, p.104]

It's a mess, characteristically dark but the riffs are scruffy and their once-mesmerising power is gone. [May 2013, p.99]

It's Up To Emma feels like eavesdropping on someone's post-break-up revenge fantasy. [Jun 2013, p.104]

Sadly, it plonks them squarely in the polished but unremarkable heartland of inoffensive US shopping mall metal. [Jun 2013, p.99]

Even though Nagalo Ni Piny Odag opens their second album in "traditional" style, all chirping percussion and Nyamungu's stringy twang, the tracks which follows cut across genre with winning flair. [Jun 2013, p.103]

Odd couples don't come more unlikely, nor as complementary. [Jun 2013, p.95]

He gets his message across smoothly without ever needing to resort to heavy-handedness. [Jun 2013, p.107]

True, few tracks contain anything as mundane as a tune, but this sound of the underground taps an exhilarating energy. [Jun 2013, p.116]

For a band who sing so often about matters of the heart and emotional connection, much of Trouble Will Find Me sounds oddly on autopilot. [Jun 2013, p.106]

Rocky Tinder and Eric Phipps's songs have a sharpness to them that makes them sparkle through the lysergic fug. [Jun 2013, p.108]

His originality peaked in '74, but for groovy, tuneful pizazz, Wings Of Love takes it even higher. [Jun 2013, p.115]

While it might have been kinder to leave Bury, Bury, Bury Another and Runnin' Around unreleased, much of the rest offers hints at just what a thrilling band they were becoming. [Jun 2013, p.113]

She might not be as well known, but at times she really is that good. [Jun 2013, p.109]

The band's ability to properly play together more than justifies the album's title, an archaic English word for feeling pleased. [Jun 2013, p.109]

True, he sometimes overdoes the theatrical flourishes, but high drama is what this record is all about, so he can be forgiven for that. [Jun 2013, p.108]

It's possessed and peaceful at once, absorbing and wholly gorgeous. [Jun 2013, p.108]

An intriguing collision of the musical outer reaches and American indie rock. [Jun 2013, p.107]

All 11 tracks on the album jump, shout and twang the heartstrings, albeit with a knowing wink. [Jun 2013, p.105]

They've bottled the lightning in an album of satirical wit, edgy intelligence and what fans crave most of all, raw power. [Jun 2013, p.105]

Functional yet uninspiring, Optica is pop as Ikea catalog. [Jun 2013, p.104]

Parquet Courts are a charmingly old-fashioned band, transmitting cryptic, collapsible songs to an anyone who can build a receiver from Guided By Voices-coloured vinyl and Pavement fanzines. [Jun 2013, p.104]

Occasionally, things lift out of the bluster--unfortunately, in the case of Preacher, a terrible lyric--but even the Everybody Wants To Rule The World guitar on Life in Color or the relatively stately synth-pop of Something's Gotta Give can't make Native Anything but a great gas giant of a record. [Jun 2013, p.103]

Much as their guitars cascade and their lyrics have a dark undertow, there's too much heavy-footed stodginess, notably in the plodding Staying Up, to make them truly engaging. [Jun 2013, p.103]

It's when Pentz dials it down that it gets interesting. [Jun 2013, p.101]

Their take on the latter's [Rustie's] maximal funk inevitably lacks the shock of the new, a heard-it-all-before feeling which persists through bumping house jams and detours into vintage jazz. [Jun 2013, p.100]

Soppiness has become overbearing on recent records, This eighth LP, though, rediscovers their heaviness. [Jun 2013, p.99]

It's a more searing and cranked-up affair than its predecessor. [Jun 2013, p.99]

The sound may gain more traction in a post-Mark Ronson world than his previous electro-based efforts. If only Tillmann didn't have to excise the fun to achieve it. [Jun 2013, p.98]