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]