Three years after Rod's Soulbook covers album, Hucknall does that bit better, as you would expect from a voice with more than a decade's less wear and tear. [Dec 2012, p.106]

A deranged and thrilling experience, there's been nothing from them to touch it since. [Dec 2012, p.122]

For the umpteenth time, hats off, gents. [Dec 2012, p.122]

Short, but thrillingly witchy and proof that Wolfe can command the quiet as well as she does the noise. [Dec 2012, p.115]

Godrich's production gives the album exquisite depth but also smothers its soul. [Dec 2012, p.114]

An epic, genre-defying sonic stunt indeed. [Dec 2012, p.114]

Trust have a problem in Robert Alfon's unengaging, reedy mid-range quiver of a voice. [Dec 2012, p.114]

It's executive producer Eminem and his tin ear for a beat who dominate the LP's direction--or, rather, lack of it. [Dec 2012, p.112]

Trash Talk's speed punk is the musical equivalent of the third can of Red Bull: a great idea at the time, but may well produce a headache after. [Dec 2012, p.113]

Tender New Signs is full of cracking tunes that help avoid the formlessness that effects-laden atmo-pop often slumps into. [Dec 2012, p.113]

Each and every track is subservient to a formula which demands a whistling filter sweep, a rattling, super-hyped snare roll and the inevitable canyon-deep drop before it all goes nuts. [Dec 2012, p.113]

The album's closing songs blur into a somewhat too-cushioned landing. [Dec 2012, p.112]

File besides Peaking Lights as odd couple doing weirdly accessible wonders. [Dec 2012, p.112]

While the songs remain wonderful, Mr. Blue Sky feels like Lynne righting imaginary wrongs. [Dec 2012, p.111]

Long Wave seems like great fun for Jeff Lynne, less so for the rest of us. [Dec 2012, p.111]

It delivers patches of sheer brilliance, but the overwhelming urge is to ask them to cut to the chase. [Dec 2012, p.109]

Thrilling stuff. [Dec 2012, p.109]

The result may be less straightforward to dance to, but can play dizzying tricks on the ears. [Dec 2012, p.108]

Hayes has a tendency to wisp but this is offset by more exciting tunes such as the Cure-y single Keep running. [Dec 2012, p.106]

The Death Cab For Cutie man turned his vision to a series of alternate realities. [Dec 2012, p.105]

This could be the most finely realised piece of work by a teenager since Arctic Monkeys released Whatever People Say I Am... in 2006. [Dec 2012, p.104]

Fagen's fourth albums is as airtight as his others. [Dec 2012, p.104]

The band sound bored. [Dec 2012, p.103]

Guitars jangle and fuzz to no clear purpose, the rest of the instrumentation plods behind, and singer Wayne Petti fails to convince. [Dec 2012, p.103]. [Dec 2012, p.103]

The real delights are the dreamily sinister instrumental sections. [Dec 2012, p.100]

It doesn't quite touch the invention of the people who inspired it. [Dec 2012, p.100]

They offset their cosmic silliness with molten rock surges and spacey interludes. [Dec 2012, p.99]

ChesnuTT's thrilling unorthodoxy remains in off-kilter arrangements and strange details. [Dec 2012, p.101]