The debut is a mix of styles classic and unorthodox, mythic American themes and sounds overlapping with futuristic textures. [Jan 2010, p.119]

Its grit and graft will keep his cult following happy. [Apr 2010, p.112]

The loose-limbed beats, fuzzy keyboards and faraway trumpet on Which One Of You Jerks Drank My Arnold Palmer? are loungecore at its best, while The Daily Routine's distortion is full of atmosphere. [Feb 2010, p. 103]

Clearly aiming for som eof the Lady Gaga's action, debut album Animal contains more of the same surging synth-pop and invitations to party. [Mar 2010, p.110]

He's hardly renowned as a pin-up, which lends his fourth album's Prince-ly fixation with carnal knowledge a touch of the absurd.... Still, it's delivered with panache, thanks to Thicke's versatile pop-soul vocals and some slick production work. [Jun 2010, p.131]

And while there's no escaping the notion This Is War would be easier to love could Leto decide whether he wanted to be in U2, Linkin park, or Marillion, one can't help but admire his style. [Jan 2010, p. 117]

The woozy G-funk of 2 Minute Warning and 1800's crunk rat-a-tat show his trademark drawl has lost none of its subtle menace, though too often it's left to guest cameos to supply the spark - rising R&B star Jazmine Sullivan brushing her host aside on soul-powered highlight Different Languages. [Jan 2010, p. 118]

It's the very real emotional core that save Straight No Chaser from being just a slickly anonymous pop confection. [Nov 2009, p.100]

A hip hop album of raw and unusual playfulness. [Jan 2010, p. 118]

Yet while these tracks might bring Nelly Furtado's Timbaland-fueled makeover to mind, there is more to She Wolf than glossy dance-pop. [Dec 2009, p. 124]

A live document of his wildly acclaimed 2008 tour, Glitter And Doom further amplifies that uniqueness, backed up by an entire second disc of surreal storytelling. [Jan 2010, p. 126]

Her fifth solo album mixes positive-message R&B, hip hop and funk with variable and often unsubstantial results. [Mar 2010, p.110]

Functional but fun. [May 2010, p.122]

The majority of Reality Killed the Video Star - a reliably punning title, and this one almost works - seems to have taken its glum atmospheric cue from Morrissey's Vauxhall And I or Rufus Wainwright's less fruity concoctions - without necessarily taking on board any of their melodic or lyrical gifts. [Dec 2009, p. 108]

The result was a record stranded between the two [mainstream or underground cool], hummable, but too quirky to cross over. [Nov 2009, p.101]

The Fall contains more than a few copper-bottomed classics: the languid and steamy I Wouldn't Need You, the Ryan Adams co-write Light As A Feather, and Chasing Pirates, a near-perfect two-and-half minute study of the racing thoughts that get in the way of sleep. [Dec 2009, p. 114]

Anyone familiar with Portishead's magisterial Third and Barrow's production on The Horrors' Primary Colours knows the terrain-metronomic rhythms stretched like elastic; percussion as precise as surgery; disembodied keyboards and vocals. [Dec 2009, p.11]

For both Grohl and Homme, Them Crooked Vultures isn't a supergroup pitched at the world's stadia, but rather a pressure release valve from their highly successful day jobs, an opportunity to kick out the jams - this is very much an album based around heads-down, brain-disengaged, rock 'n' roll boogie jamming - and revisit the classic hard rock sounds they were reared upon. [Jan 2010, p. 114]

While Heartbreak Warfare and War Of My Life chug pleasantly along in their Police-lite way, and Taylor Swift makes the briefest of cameos on the bittersweet half Of My Heart, true inspiration, as ever, remains a conspicuous absentee. [Jan 2010, p. 120]

Sometimes less is more. [Jan 2010, p.117]

Having cornered the market in MOR pop, he brings these well-honed chops to bear on OneRepublic's second album, throwing up an immaculately mixed cocktail of soft-focused rock, white-bread R&B and heartstrung balladry. [Mar 210, p.107]

After a rocky couple of years, Good Evening New York City is proof that Paul McCartney's mojo appears full recharged. [Jan 2010, p. 116]

A complex album that reveals more with each hearing. [Oct 2009, p.110]

The lightness of touch is a pleasant surprise, but not as pleasant as the sound of summery Sumner re-engaging. [Nov 2009, p.101]

The 11th Bunnymen album is a reminder that the elegiac guitars and uplifting choruses of indie rock were invented by this band way back in the ealy '80s. [Nov 2009, p.104]

If Bob Dylan can do it, so can Tori Amos, whose own nod to the festive season, Midwinter Graces, is a rather more palatable, ornately arranged selection of self-penned songs and such carols as Star Of wonder and Emmanuel. [Jan 2010, p. 126]

More than a quarter century down the line, Bon Jovi are still living and selling the rock 'n' roll fantasy on The Circle. Why Not? They've done very nicely out of it. [Jan 2010, p. 126]

His debut album isn't quite as off the wall [as his mixtape], but taps an irrepressible post-Kanye West mood. [Jun 2010, p.133]