They've pulled together their most digestible record yet. [Feb 2008, p.84]

Cosmopolitan, anglophile, afrobeat--Vampire Weekend are in an Ivy League of their own.

Women As Lovers may be his best yet. [Mar 2008, p.107]

Walla creates intricate, fugue-like patterns featuring guitars, analog synths and harmonies, enabling his spiralling melodies to unfold progressively while also providing a cushion for his diminultive but genuine vocals--making for a record that's taut and affecting. [Feb 2008, p.95]

The emphasis on Jackson's piano is obviously no problem, but his focus drifts from the punchy pop that characterised its predecessor. [Feb 2008, p.81]

If there’s something odd about an authentic Southern girl reworking a singer from Ealing who longed to emulate her American heroes, then it’s perhaps best to judge this record on its own merit. Which, as it turns out, is very high indeed.

A haunting cover of the Pixies' 'Where Is My Mind' rounds off a quite remarkable debut. [May 2008]

it's full of lovely moments, but it nees more edge to keep you from snoozing. [Apr 2008, p.91]

Hey Venus! is an attractive album with a broad appeal – Rough Trade wanted a pop record and got one--but it also feels like a missed opportunity, a consolidation of affairs rather than a step forward.

Always led by the miraculous voice of Ch'hom Nimol. So beautifully and effectively, in fact, that they end up giving fusion a good name. [Feb 2008, p.78]

But where Black Mountain's message begins to get woolly the music is never anything less than exhilarating

If anything, Jukebox is bolder than "Covers," not least because two of the more obvious songs have been dropped from the original intended tracklisting.

This is a stunning album, bristling with astute and funny words, glorious tunes and delivered in performances all the more impressive for sounding so utterly effortless. [Mar 2008, p.80]

If you wish The Hold Steady didn't look so clean, this is the band for you. [Aug 2008, p.113]

A sugary feast for the senses. [May 2008, p.98]

This is scant compensation for his lack of fire, lyrical inspiration, or indeed anything that might distinguish him from his legion of peers. [Mar 2008, p.85]

Evangelicals sing of skeletons, snowflakes and things that go bump in the night with witty samples and imaginative arrangements. [Mar 2008, p.87]

It's pleasing to come across a record that not only sounds old-fashioned, but whose author seems like a man of principle. [Nov 2007, p.108]

His willingness to scribble over the pretty surfaces of his songs brings a bristling edge to his Beatlesque pop. [Feb 2008, p.79]

He may be treading water a little until he really gets into his groove as the 21st century Sondheim, but Distortion at its best is beguiling and quietly devastating.

Liverpool 8, which stands happily beside Starr's recent hits compilation, holds its own as a companion piece to McCartney's similarly vital "Memory Almost Full," and makes a nice day off from having to like Radiohead.

Her lyrics lack both Wino's wit and realism, and her orchestral-pop backdrops are pallid. [Feb 2008, p.89]

Angels Of Destruction sounds like one almighty road trip, barrelling along to piano. blustery guitars and the odd honk of E Street sax. [Feb 2008, p.86]

This simply sounds like junior Jay-Z. [Mar 2008, p.96]

On record at least, Wu-Tang have made the comeback of the decade.

This live set sees them mash the Kraftwek-ed likes of 'Aerodynamic' and 'Robot Rock' into the girlfriend-on-your-shoulders set that's seen them own 2007's festival season, at least for anyone more interested in decks than guitars. [Dec 2007, p.89]

It might be playful, and it might be versatile, but however light-hearted it may sound initially, it ends up sounding serious.

Her music is similarly annoying, with her sugar-fuelled rockabilly-pop, she's the female Jack Penate. [Jan 2008, p.93]

Shelter From The Ash displays some pretty wigged-out guitar work, but balanced by ruminative, minor-key acoustic moments that recall the mood of America's "Horse With No Name."

Gorillaz' second round-up of offcuts, noodles and sketches still has an excellent strike rate. [Dec 2007, p.84]

Here they often come across as Hard-Fi playing the songs of The New York Dolls--infinitely more irritating. [Nov 2007, p.104]

More organic than their 2004 debut, Parades is just as richly rewarding. [Nov 2007,p.98]

If you’re willing to overlook Simon Le Bon’s always peculiar lyrics and occasionally strained singing, 'Red Carpet Massacre' is actually pretty impressive.

System is like travelling backwards to a time when Trevor Horn and Steve Lipson ruled the earth, except this time the studio overlord is Madonna collaborator, Stuart Price. [Jan 2008, p.100]

This seems geared for maximum market penetration rather than songwriting excellence. [Jan 2008, p.91]

A collection that aims to sweep up the moments when the spotlight isn't on, Sawdust, therefore, might just be their defining document [Jan 2008, p.91]

Commissioned by Nike as an exercise mix for iPods, this euphoric, largely electronic set finds Murphy adapting DJ dynamics for the running machine.

With his delivery having reached comfortable cruising altitude, this is an effective reminder of what success is about--leaving the hustle behind. [Jan 2008, p.91]

The five new tracks that open proceedings, however, fail to add much to band's remit. [Dec 2007, p.102]

Williams' voice is weakly anonymous, Verlaine minus the venom. But his obsessive recreation of his heroes' studio tricks compensates. [Aug 2008, p.113]

Untrue is altogether warmer than its predecessor. [Jan 2008, p.87]

Best enjoyed with your brain set to simmer, it's harmlessly high-octane fun. [Dec 2007, p.119]

Buck 65 returns to abstract hip hop, but injects it with cool, psych jazz and '70s cinematic funk. [Dec 2007, p.86]

Sighing, panting and smouldering her way throufgh a dozen digitized come-ons, she maintains the fiction of a robo-pop nymphomaniac while all around her, Rome burns. [Jan 2008, p.102]

That band’s ambition is intact is remarkable--that they’ve made an album that captures the zeitgeist is maybe even more so.

The result is a collection that sounds like nothing so much as a modern-day Dock Boggs signed to the Lost Highway label.

The theme of lost innocence is ideal for the sad sweetness of Conor Deasy’s voice, which has never sounded better than on 'This Year,' a rush of noise which restores the busked immediacy of their debut.

Street entirely avoids DIA’s flinty spectrality and staticky crackle and turns a bright light on the smart, compact and relentlessly exciting arrangements he’s here coaxed from the band.

The album is a powerful exploration of faith, with Young circling his own mortality.

You leave Load Blown feeling that Black Dice, unlike many of their kin, are actually genuine experimentalists--even if it's with the caveat that sometimes it all rather blows up in their face. [Nov 2007, p.96]

Tankian combines prog pomp and a variety of vocal techniques, all irritating, to uniformly unlistenable effect. [Nov 2007, p.125]

'Object' is a highlight, as is the lovely 'Sweetheart In The Summer.' [Dec 2007, p.119]

Gahan is a way off from being a David Sylvian–-but not as far as you might think.

The pairing of the wily old tomcat and the classy country thrush turns out as magically in reality as it seemed unlikely on paper.

Preparations smudges the distinction between Herren's Prefuse 73 and Savath & Savalas aliases, and shares with Golden Pollen, his summer S&S release, a listless drift. [Dec 2007, p.101]

A full LP exposes their limitations and suggests that the songs may work best as soundtracks to their elegant stop-motion videos. [nov 2007, p.108]

Unsettling to the last, it’s Blanche all over.

In The Vines reveals more of its peculiar candlelit charm with every play. [Dec 2007, p.106]

Hooking up with Butch Vig, evidently--and trying for a heavier sound, It's a fair effort, certainly, but an unconvincing strategy. [Dec 2007, p.98]

This is a finely polished album, but low on guts, grit or urgency. [Nov 2007, p.129]

This conservative collection feels more like musical air freshener than any kind of statement. [Dec 2007, p.104]

It's harder to fault the tunes, however, smeared thick with QOTSA sludge or pretty 'Dakota' clones 'It Means Nothing' and 'Daisy Lane.' [Nov 2007, p.123]

The result is a delight. [Nov 2007, p.115]

Radiohead have made their most well-behaved, classically structured album since "OK Computer."

The results are frequently souless and over-produced. [October 2007, p.93]

If you can forgive Condon’s mannered delivery and overabundance of drunken waltz rhythms, this is an audacious experiment in cultural appropriation, an enchanting musical holiday in someone else’s misery.

By now the patience of even their most ardent fans must be wearing thin

The results sound like an update of the kind of AOR racket Pat Benatar and Heart were making in the '80s. [Nov 2007, p.116]

It's a sound that devotees of 'Crazy Horse' or 'My Morning Jacket' will find conspicuously pleasing, but fans of Band of Horses might just be disappointed. [Dec 2007, p.84]

Lekman makes the kind of Nick Hornby-ish "perfect pop" that no one actually listens to. Which is a pity, because his lyrics are Cole Porter witty, and his major-key songcraft delicious. [Nov 2007, p.110]

Rumours of emotional maturity are exaggerated...but the reflective moments are best. [Dec 2007, p.98]

Each song works brilliantly in isolation, making this a treasure trove of Wyatt’s finest work ever.

It's a potent combination and one made all more alluring by their refusal to settle for one chorus when about 12 all being played at once will do. [Nov 2007, p.98]

Almost succeeds through sheer force of personality. [Aug 2006, p.108]

The industrial grind of single 'Into A Swan,' glammed-up trashiness of 'About To Happen' and sinister alienation of 'Loveless' prove she's still the uncompromising outsider at heart.

It trades in giddying, irresistible, full-steam-ahead-and-damn-the-torpedoes rock'n'roll. But at its heart, it's essentially a thoughtful wander in search of personal and national innocence.

While the veteran singer's heart is in the right place, she sabotages her messages via the spouting of generalisations and the use of abstract language, with typically grating, inelegant results. [Nov 2007, p.110]

This fifth set strips back the gloss and points to some sort of redemption. [Dec 2007, p.89]

Amped to an industrial sheen by producer Youth and packed with stripped-back stadium choruses, Born Into This rips from the speakers like an irate Velvet Revolver, Billy Duffy’s relentless axe-hero riffing matched by Astbury’s typically waspish lyrics.

Reassessing the past and reengaging with the present, Revival lives up to its name.

The lissom guitars of brothers Dallas and Travis Good still allow for thrilling detours. [Nov 2007, p.121]

Elegant backgound music, better live, you suspect. [Dec 2007, p.98]

An album of lonely beauty and piercing sorrow, White Chalk is P.J. Harvey back at the peak of her considerable powers.

On the last Foos album, "In Your Honour" rock and acoustic music were exiled to different discs. Here, a satisfactory compromise is brokered between the two: the excellent 'Summer's End' is easy on the ear, easier still on the brain, and sets him up in the radio-friendly 'Wonderwall' district one imagines is his spiritual home.

It is, by any measure, a quiet revolution.

When it ends, the impression of Devendra Banhart that stays with you is of the artful songsmith, finding a confidence to express himself in something other than riddles.

Their third album is sprinkled with sensitive instrumental textures and plaintive tinkling noises, but their music remains utterly devoid of personality, not least because of Joel Potts' vapid vocals, while not even the best efforts of Gil Grissom and his eager CSIs could unearth a sniff of a decent tune. [Oct 2007, p.83]

It's all invigorating, wonderful stuff.

The Feist-like 'My Favourite book' and the triumphant 'Today Will Be Better, I Swear!' are songs of rare craft but you'll need to suspend disbelief to make it through to curtain-down. [Nov 2007, p.123]

This meatier effort offers more of the same dog-eared melancholy. [Oct 2007, p.90]

Go Go... is never less than delightful--at its best like Belle & Sebastian having a stab at Portishead. [Oct 2007, p.99]

A gleefully malevolent testament to the cathartic joys of furious, poison-flecked songwriting. [Oct 2007, p.113]

There's an elegiac beauty to these tracks. [Oct 2007, p.114]

This is a rock record, and Samson's band functions as the sharp teeth to his lucid tongue. [Jan 2008, p.112]

Like the five LPs preceding it, Last Light is dominated by autumnal mood pieces--but it rocks harder, making for a pleasing contrast with Pond's poignant lyrics and vocals.

The Connecticut pair's third album taps into the best qualities of alternative music, circa 1988. [Oct 2007, p.99]

There is nevertheless a supreme revitalisation of her deep-seated powers evident here. [Oct 2007, p.96]