A somewhat stunted, companion piece to their debut, all the more frustrating for their lack of real development.

Mala in Cuba is a statement of consummate mastery-of a form, of a tempo, of a set of tools-shaped by the implacable creative imagination of one of the finest producers of his generation.

With arena-size atmospherics and every sound endowed with a fathoms-deep dub delirium, Eight is an album as focused on its meticulous sound design as it is on the musicality.

Key to the Kuffs certainly finds one of underground music's true antiheros in irresistibly infectious form.

As gripping as the album is all the way through-it seems to chart an on/off relationship even more directly than their eponymous album did-its best moment is actually its first. Opener "Angels" is one of the meekest xx tracks, but it's easily among their most powerful.

The album has a swampy, overheated feel, which takes some of the impact away from its sharper moments but enhances its more languid stretches.

It's almost too easy to become completely enamoured with the very sounds it's employing, rather than the mood it's ostensibly trying to convey.

Oft-delayed, long-overdue, but quietly, subtly worth the wait.

It's the "electronic music" aspect of Strange Passion that's most fascinating.

Adorned with production that's as sympathetic to UK underground dance as it is to modern R&B and classic soul, Devotion is a classy affair that delights in its own refinement yet stays pinned to the earth, a talented singer and songwriter realizing her potential at just the right moment.

The fundamental problem with Mst is not that it sounds like someone else, but that these ten tracks rarely match the profound emotional gravitas of that significant other.

The album stays reasonably well-balanced throughout, straddling that fine line between understatement and being sledgehammer-esque obvious.

Bring Me the Head Of... will not win Dunn an army of new fans, you are either on his wavelength or you're not. It is, however, among his finest work to date and shows an ever-growing refinement and understanding of his chosen medium.

Regional Surrealism [is] somewhere you'll want to lose yourself again and again.

If such moments [a typically slurring yet splenetic Prefuse 73 contribution or Siriusmo's "Modern Talk,"] constitute the highly enjoyable base level here, then the best moments are staggering.

The Killer seems to reveal a pattern on Pawlowitz's part, yet it somehow remains every bit as viscerally captivating as his best material, a formula still as cryptic as it ever was.

As a closer [song "Shuck"], it's an interesting moment and one particularly reflective of Shrines' strengths and its dualistic intrigues: the serenity of Roddick's buoyant, burbling synths amidst James's hallucinatory full-moon visions.

Overall Passion is an angst-free experience, finely wrought with a view to banishing the black and the blues.

There's no doubt you'll hear a lot of records in 2012 that sound like Whispers in the Dark, but you'll rarely hear it done this well.

If you come to Foals from an exclusively indie rock perspective, this may blow your tiny mind. But if this is Foals' attempt to infiltrate clubland proper, it falls short.

Most tracks have so much going on that it begins to feel like tectonic plates pulling in opposite directions, heaving two ways at once and leaving the listener dizzy and disoriented. It's Ryat's crystal clear, wriggling voice that's the glue just barely holding everything together.

There isn't a bad track on Black Boulder and it is certainly an accessible crossover release that's suited to the long-player format. But it's not very original either.

[The album's] obfuscating mires of navel-gazing perhaps precludes it from attaining Ninja Tune classic status, but those of a darker disposition will likely be of the opinion this challenging opus collates Ortega's strongest work to date.

For those of us undeterred by Halo's vocal approach, Quarantine is an often breathtaking piece of emotive reverie that stands sonically as one of the year's more consistently inviting ambient LPs.

Naturally, the good tracks are sublime... [yet] familiar overreaching, archness even, creeps in elsewhere.

Salton Sea feels engineered for eminent listenability.

For many, it was going to be hard for Tellier to surpass Sexuality's sensuous odyssey. Thankfully, My God Is Blue does at least equal it.