Their fifth album builds on 2007's well-received "Abandoned Language," with MC Dalek's rhymes playing second fiddle to producer Oktopus's darkly imaginative soundscapes. [Mar 2009, p.96]

Dear John is the album he's been gradually building up to, an ebbing and flowing suite best taken as a single musical movement. [Apr 2009, p.107]

Their quirky, inventive take on hip hop deserve a bigger audience. [Mar 2009, p.98]

With stylistic echoes of The Kinks, Pixies and non-dancing Stones roses, the songs' themes of social isolation, romantic frustration and other junior Dylan-isms suggest a talent yet to mature. [Feb 2009, p.113]

His forth album is accessible, furnishing his glitchy sound with nagging hooks, funky flourishes, and some proper tunes indeed. [Feb 2009, p.115]

Once again it's a showcase for some dextrous prog-jazz metal guitar work that on occasion veers dangerously close to tuneless skronking. [Mar 2009, p.104]

Only really worth investigating if you already own everything by the constituents' day-job acts. [Aug 2009, p.109]

Their sound has broadened, too, moving from callow mod-punk towards the big choruses of Kaiser Chiefs. [Nov 2008, p.120]

With Merriweather Post Pavillion, Animal Collective have refined their distinctive vision, once again proving they are ahead of the pack. [Feb 2009, p.1114]

Emotion drips from every breath. [Feb 2009, p.118]

Get Guilty bursts with dazzling tunes and--for him--relatively simple arrangements. [Apr 2009, p.108]

He's never been quite so on top of his game or quite so blessed with melodic magic. [Mar 2009, p.100]

A 26-minute tsunami which hurtles by in a Fiery Furnances-esque blur. [Aug 209, p.112]

In other words, the man's a ham, but a terrific one. [Aug 2009, p.109]

There's much here to justify Alan McGee's awe. [Oct 2008, p.148]

If the whole is too eclectic to eclipse the sum of its parts, it's an exhilarating diversion. [Apr 2009, p.100]

Folie A Deux is mostly a barrelling, hugely confident record that should see Fall Out Boy swiftly elevated into mainstream rock's premier league. [Jan 2009, p.112]

Brighten The Corners found the Califirnian indie five-piece buoyed by a more consistent set of songs than 1995's sprawling "Wowee Zowee." [Feb 2009, p.124]

Old school, but somehow not old hat. [Feb 2009, p.113]

It makes for one of the few Christmas albums that stands repeated listening. [Jan 2009, p.116]

While this circus could have more attractions and you yearn for a flash of lyrical brilliance among the uncomplicated relationship musings, there's no disgrace here and nothing to alienate their audience or embarrass those who grew up with Take That. [Jan 2009, p.117]

As the exclaimation mark in their name suggests, their every sentiment is exaggerated, but they do do careening anxiety rather well. [Nov 2008, p.110]

It's nowhere McCartney hasn't been before, yet it's still richer and more varied than he's been in years. [Jan 2009, p.116]

If this album is a mixed bag for West the producer, then it's a nadir for West the lyricist. [Jan 2009, p.114]

This is an unusually sentimental record, co-written by the man himself, in which many songs bravely cast him as the old man he is. [Jan 2009, p.118]

Galoshes largely succeeds as a document of a delinquent soul finally coming to terms with his own past. [Feb 2009, p.119]

This mixtape is broad in scope and delirious in flavour. [Jan 2009, p.1222]

So the crude arithmetic of Day & Age is not encouraging: four great songs, two so-so ones and four duds. But the spirit in which it was made merits goodwill. [Dec 2008, p.124]