The atmosphere is organic and engaging, the only problem being that amid the fug of good vibes, no one remembered to write a killer song. [July 2008, p.94]

Songs In A&E swells with tender, cautious optimism.

A facinating treatment, and really rather groovy. [Sep 2008, p.89]

Same Old Man won't upend the form-book, but it's an agreeably unpretentious addition to the Indiana-born veteran's canon. [June 2008, p.93]

Welcome is necessarily all over the place--and that place is pretty damn funky. [July 2008, p.108]

CD2 is a quirky new mixtape which proves he's still up to his old tricks. [Dec 2008, p.116]

It's occasionally redolent of Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, but the likes of 'Hornett' retain a heady, defiantly exploratory quality. [Dec 2008, p.92]

The Pigeon Detectives' second in a year smacks of too much haste and too little thought. [June 2008, p.98]

Their primitive dance beats and carefree, nostalgic melodies recall Saint Etienne, and their endearingly earnest efforts to summer upon tracks such as 'No Excuses' and 'June Evenings' are a joy to behold. [Jan 2009, p.85]

Johansson’s bland, flat contralto leaves you admiring the Cocteau Twins-style sonic backdrops and wondering how another singer--Liz Fraser, perhaps?--might improve them.

The Lucky Ones frames this new worldview in a punchier, tauter, leaner sound--less fuzz but more crunch. [July 2008, p.104]

This is a less than ideal introduction to the oeuvre of the usually intriguing 'Dolls. [July 2008, p.93]

Hailing from the wrong coast, the Charleston, South Carolina-based Explorers Club have done the near-impossible, turning an obsession with everything Beach Boys into an utterly beguiling pop album. [June 2008, p.88

Lie Down In The Light is his most coherent LP since the bleak masterpiece "I See A Darkness." [Aug 2008, p.85]

Maybe it's not Albini's fault that El Rey lacks the melodic thrust of earlier projects, but this is wiry, unappealing fare. [July 2008, p.114]

Inherit strips back rock, baring its constituent parts without flourish or fanfare. [Aug 2008, p.93]

Rockferry is almost a very good album, but, for all the classic hallmarks, there's little insight into the soul of Duffy herself. [Apr 2008, p.84]

In a world of fast thrills, WAS remain admirably opaque. [Apr 2008, p.109]

This is the sound of a band surprising itself. [July 2008, p.92]

The players' tight grip on the material reveals a first-rate band in peak form. [June 2008, p.98]

Listening to this is like being followed home by a puppy--initially cute and guilelessly affecting, but rapidly irritating. [July 2008, p.104]

The mood is sweet and slightly whacked-out as Cabic brings campfire cheeriness to Norman Greenbaum;s 'Hook & Ladder' and wistful resilence to Ian (Fairport) Matthews' 'Road to Ronderlin.' [June 2008, p.109]

It's dark, powerful and groovy, but some more variety wouldn't go amiss. [July 2008, p.90]

While there is no doubting the power of Marc Ribot’s off-kilter twanging or the noirish density of the music, the songs don’t really work on their own.

The slick sequel starts strongly.... Alas, the album then falls into a compentent but monotonous groove of priapic Prince-old-porno-funk, its minor flashes of OutKast-style irreverence ultimately overshadowed by routine reto-pastiche. [June 2008, p.99]

It's all charmingly rendered and, as in the wigout 'Pigeonhold,' teeming with joyous abandon a la the Arcade Fire. [Sep 2008, p.98]

The Airing Of Grievances is one of the smartest, most joyous records in an age, channelling the spirit of other too-clever-by-half suburban punks from The Replacements to Nirvana and adding a dash of felllow New Jerseyite Bruce Springsteen's eye for detail. [MAr 2009, p.87]

Tracks like 'Couples' prove their trademark sound is still as strong (and smart) as ever. [May 2008, p.102]

With Arcade Fire arranger Owen Pallett draping the songs in sympathetic strings and producer James Ford working overtime on drums, the result is a widescreen epic, full of high fevers and crystal-clear vocal performances.

This is predictably slick and inoffensive stuff. [Dec 2007, p.90]

Taken on its own terms, though, Nouns is a righteous success: delightfully dazed, good-times punk rock for a new generation of Californian dreamers.

Supreme Balloon adds up to the duo's most consistently enjoyable albums yet. [June 2008, p.98]

It's not a ballet or a string quartet, but Costello sounding more "Attractions"-like than he has in over 20 years. [Oct 2008, p.83]

This four-track mini-album is something of a departure from [previous works, this is] a relatively straightforward, stripped down techno work with a few mischievous touches. [June 2008, p.88]

Some of it is as good as anything Diamond has done.

Predictably, it's all over the map, but The Golden Hour fizzes with invention. [July 2008, p.106]

Everything's The Rush plays it safer, eschewing the Cocteaus-esque material and dance-pop for a more route-one, stadium approach, hoofing it up to the big chorus. [July 2008, p.93]

Despite the starry cameos and production turns, Shine lacks a little lustre. [May 2008, p.94]

Third is the most stunning, stark and superb Portishead album yet. [May 2008, p.84]

The world-view is challenging and heart-felt, the playing deft, the conviction clear. [June 2008, p.88]

He's at his best here on the playful Beck-like 'Hurricane' and the sweetly mournful 'Rope of Sand,' but Jamiroquai-averse listeners would do well to avoid 'Figure Me Out.' [May 2008, p.102]

And though it sometimes plays safe, Hard Candy could be her most unpretentious and consistently enjoyable pop record since Like A Virgin.

White is undoubtedly talented, but neither she nor her record company seem to know what to do with her. [July 2008, p.100]

A cover of 'Flower Sun Rain' by '70s Japanese supergroup Pyg sounds like the Super Furries, while a 16-mkinute doom jam with SunO)))'s Stephen O'Malley is as titanic as you'd hope. [May 2008, p.91]

The Evangelist isn’t a Go-Betweens album, but it’s more cohesive than any of Forster’s other solo albums, and more moving.

Metal has teken giant evolutionary strides these past few years but, like mammoths frozen in ice, Def Leppard remain perfectly preserved in their own oblivion to them. [July 2008, p.91]

Not as muddy as one might have hoped, then, but this was definitely a revisit worth making. [July 2008, p.96]

Much of [Buckshot's] edge is lost but fans of hip hop's yellowing indie template will find much to enjoy nonetheless. [Sep 2008, p.90]

As reassuring as Nine Lives will be to longtime Winwood fans, it’s bound to leave them wanting more--like a full album of Winwood-Clapton interplay.

Her passion may be sincere, but the songs are a mixed bag. [July 2008, p.108]

This is knowing, glitzy, trash. [July 2008, p.96]

'The Tipping Point' is typical of the album as a whole, a rush of hoe-down guitars and echo-laden drums topped off with a half-yelp of a vocal that recalls a slightly more unhinged Jack White. [July 2008, p109]

A superb new Fall album.

The album works as whole--beginning with an eruptive blast of noise and ending with the gentle farewell that is 'Friend Of Ours.'

His best work transcends politics. Mr Love & Justice contains both he best and worst of Bragg.

No shocks here, but a laudably short and sharp effort. [June 2008, p.94]

It's safe to say this is the most endlessly playable comedy album of the new millennium. [May 2008, p.95]

On first listen, this follow-up is less impressive, but subtle melodies soon sugar the melancholy of 'Glory to the Owlrd' and 'Happiness Won Me over.' [June 2008, p.100]

If only all music was this fun. [Nov 2008, p.102]

Adhering to commercially fixated standards of production line R&B, E=MC2 charms soon melt away. [Aug 2008, p.87]

Saturdays=Youth is embarrassingly earnest. [May 2008, p.102]

Two years and two million album sales later- and minus raffish bassist Max Rafferty--their sugar-rush enthusiasm has dissolved almost entirely.

The truth is, this is actually rather safe music. [Apr 2008, p.94]

My Bloody Underground is the sound of someone geting My Bloody Valentine about two-thirds right, which is to say that while BJM can certainly conjure interminable, feedback-slathered drones, they lack Kevin Shields' gift for sonic invention or melody. [June 2008, p.83]

Reduced to aural bones, Gossip's live show in Liverpool last year still rocks, but in a diminished way. [May 2008, p.100]

Just Us Kids in part repeats the forumla, targeting SUV drivers, filthy corporations, and Dick Cheney, in an affecting but familiar preach to the converted. [June 2008, p.97]

The band has never sounded better, and Cave seems to have relaxed into the hysteria of his vocal style; like Elmer Gantry singing Leonard Cohen at a tent-revival.

Without Reznor's shouting, they're more hypnotic, even, at times, soothing. [June 2008, p.98]

Mountain Battles is marginally more polished than "Title TK" but it still sounds as if it was recorded in one take in Steve Albini’s toilet. A good thing, as it turns out. The intimacy of is what makes it precious.

This is an exciting debut.

Only on 'Time of Songs' do the Tapes sound more than just another bunch of collegiate slackers with cool record collections. [May 2008, p.111]

Main;y, though, we leave Clinic where we always find them: nervously pacing the room, waiting for something to happen. [May 2007, p.92]

Their approach is eclectic, esoteric, and not easy on the ear, though it does have a restless energy which suggests it might work better live. [June 2008, p.97]

It brims with psychedelic electro-pop of the most inventively buoyant and sweetly retro-futuristic kind. [May 2008, p.106]

At 15 tracks, it outstays its welcome, but in small does this is deliciously addictive. [June 2008, p.86]

Boo! has plenty of highpoints. [May 2008, p.113]

The second album from Cheltenham's The Duke Spirit sounds every bit the heads-down attampt at chart-bothering major rock album. Except, well, it's on an indie, and the tunes don't always match the band's stadium-echo ambitions. [Mar 2008, p.86]

St Jude proves that there is much more to The Courteeners than first meets to the eye.

In short, a glittering sign reading "business as usual"--even if it’s not a return to adventurous Kylie gold.

LC! balance their more precious tendencies-winsome vocals, chiming xylophone--with a sharp wit and ideas that arrive in energetic tumbles. [Mar 2008, p.88]

This finds Richard Melville Hall seemingly going through the motions. [Mar 2008, p.96]

The Black Keys are on the cusp of greatness--Attack and Release, produced by Danger Mouse, takes them one step closer, but not quite over the edge.

Accelerate is a simple, pragmatic record built on an uncomfortable truth: sometimes, even the best bands have to retrace their steps, if only to remind themselves what they're really good at.

So far, so agreeable, but a minor niggle is that Morrison evidently continues to favour comfortable rather than challenging accompanists. Then the album hots up.

This blend of Sabbath-inspired riffing, windswept chug and songs called things like 'Fire Lances of the Ancient Hyperzephyrians' has a neat shtick, no particularly awkward edges, and a vague sense of nostalgia for an adolescence maybe you never lived the first time out. [May 2008, p.107]

Few chronicle heartbreak with such methodical, forensic attention. [May 2008, p.111]

There's some shrewd commercial nous behind their retro-wackiness. [Aug 2008, p.85]

In fine and fiesty form, Auchtermuchty's Craig and Charlie Reid effectively slap you round the face with their latest batch of songs. [Nov 2007, p.116]

Less is more, and the Stones are at their best on the spoof country of Faraway Eyes; and Richards’ attack on You Got The Silver, with Ronnie Wood picking holes in an acoustic slide guitar.

Funplex consists largely of a series of witless retreads of school disco hit 'Love Shack,' with Fred Schneider's deadpan "woo!" recalling an increasinglt weary holiday rep. [Apr 2008, p.83]

Pretty.Odd. often tries way too hard to be obtuse, it's true, but you have to admire the band's willingness to grow. [May 2008, p.106

There are moments--notably 'You Can't Count On me'--but the band behind him are wringing diminishing returns from their polished country-rock. [May 2008, p.92]

Twice as long as the band's debut, it's also more than doubly assured. [June 2008, p.99]

It's a modest sampler, with a feel more akin to 1961 than 2008. [May 2008, p.98]

If a few tracks see them flirt with Eno-esque avant garde, thes wayward tendencies are balanced out by pretty folk ballads. [June 2008, p.88]

The Heavy's debut album is a dirty, bluesy, funk rock noise that, on paper, looks deeply uncool but might actually be the album of the year. [Dec 2007, p.97]

A bold leap forwards. [Apr 2008, p.98]

A huge disappointment.