Sparhawk builds on the melodic sensitivity that frontman Dave Simonett revealed on his Razor Pony EP. [Sep 2014, p.79]

The 2 Bears' faith in the unifying qualities of a good rave-up has a tendency to spill over into hokey sentiment at times, but such criticism feels like pure humbug in the face of the album's unexpectedly trippy and heartwarming final third. [Oct 2014, p.65]

Trick is the Bloc Party singer's comedown record: confessional, emotional and, in places, a bit much. [Nov 2014, p.76]

Some odd production choices slightly blunt the impact of straighter rockers like "Piss Pisstoferson," but "Onions Make The Milk Taste Bad" confirms their skill for combining the heavy, the catchy and deliriously strange. [Nov 2014, p.77]

[An] excellent debut album. [Nov 2014, p.73]

Allo Darling' have become more accomplished since their 2010 debut without losing the intimate charm that make their brand of "real indie" an enduring choice for outsider pop fans. [Nov 2014, p.69]

As befits a compilation of songs that weren't up to scratch the first time around, 24 Karat Gold contains a few tinpot tracks that even the Nashville boys couldn't fix. Most, too, spill over the five-minute mark. But as fresh testament from one rock's great survivors, it makes for a fascinating listen. [Nov 2014, p.82]

Something on High obsesses on matters of faith, most compellingly on "Bodies," a dystopian reimagining of the Ark story. [Nov 2014, p.83]

Dissonance and propulsion remain watchwords. [Nov 2014, p.78]

It's a scuzzy Swans-like behemoth. [Oct 2014, p.77]

More suited to contemplation and drift than dance, perhaps, and with Gavin Bryars-like strings and low-level electronics making the 11 pieces more voluptuous than ever. [Oct 2014, p.67]

Playland is pretty much "The Messenger Part 2." [Nov 2014, p.77]

It strips out their usual psychedelic sprawl, leaving something leaner and more insistent, if no less Technicolor and joyously hypnotic. [Nov 2014, p.80]

If Heartleap does indeed prove to be the final destination of Bunyan's old horse and cart, it's entirely worthy one. [Nov 2014, p.79]

He sings plenty, with engaging huskiness, while leading his band down ever more inventive tangents. [Nov 2014, p.76]

A colorful fusion, blunted underground hip-hop flowing into delirious live bass jams and cosmic balladry. [Nov 2014, p.75]

Best yet and then some from an artist whose vision continues to expand with every release. [Oct 2014, p.68]

At times the elemental pounding can become an aural bludgeoning. [Oct 2014, p.80]

A considerably more fully formed affair, rich in texture and atmosphere, though reprising Familial's aura of downbeat anxiety. [Nov 2014, p.83]

ZW have sensibly resisted the urge to shape their sound for arenas, the gaseous disco of "Coming Up For Air" and the darkly glittering instrumental "Elusive" underlining the poignancy that was always their trump card. [Nov 2014, p.84]

Perhaps they lack the arty flourishes of elder statesman Damon Albarn's solo work, but these bold, brassy tunes serve to remind that it wasn't only about Union Jacks and DMs back then. [Oct 2014, p.69]

There's plenty to admire--not least "Without You" and "Innocence"--but you sense their moment may have passed. [Oct 2014, p.71]

No longer quite so greasy, but rewardingly slick. [Oct 2014, p.80]

Technology's presence just goes to show how untamable Amidon's unself-conscious, creaky-rope voice is. [Nov 2014, p.71]

There are no songs here to touch past glories, [3rdeyegirl's] excitement in the studio is captured.... They just remind you he's still around; short of a tune, but the unique inhabitant of a purple planet all his own. [Nov 2014, p.80]

Too many average slow jams.... They just remind you he's still around; short of a tune, but the unique inhabitant of a purple planet all his own. [Nov 2014, p.80]

There's a haunted, frequently unhinged quality to its songs and performances. [Nov 2014, p.83]

The skinned-back arrangements on the self-produced Madman isolate his voice's primal expressiveness and the plainspoken emotion of his songs. [Nov 2014, p.81]

Snaith has perfected his recipe for bite-sized psychedelia. [Nov 2014, p.71]

It has its charms.... but the naivety of their debut remains elusive. [Nov 2014, p.84]

Slick and seductive. [Nov 2014, p.78]

An unexpectedly excellent set of sinuous and sensual techno. [Nov 2014, p.76]

It's hard to really connect with most of In A Dream; not only does it play through as tirelessly, tiringly arch, many of the songs just don't quite cut it. [Nov 2014, p.76]

Cool to the touch, but vanilla sweet as well. [Nov 2014, p.76]

Gamble is a dab hand at sound design and creating textures that convey anxiety and paranoia--some tracks are smothered in hiss--but because of its sprawling length, parts of KOCH feel rather one-dimensional. [Nov 2014, p.75]

Close to monomaniacal in their passions--weed, Satan, vintage British horror--Time To Die nonetheless introduces a gnarly edge to their downturned churn. [Nov 2014, p.73]

The Tom Waits-ish jazz of the title track, the slinky CCR-ish trundle of "My Baby Drives" and the gentle pedal-steel-led-weeper "White Gardenias" confirm that Earle's quieting of his demons has lost him little. [Nov 2014, p.73]

It's a strong return, though bad luck for the copycatting Royal Blood and DZ Deathrays who'd been counting on their obsolescence. [Nov 2014, p.72]

Trouble is a typically tender, casually contemplative, occasionally tearful goodbye. [Nov 2014, p.72]

This is songwriting with a stunning paint job, but with its training wheels still on. [Nov 2014, p.71]

While there's nothing as pop as "Windowlicker" here, it's still thrilling to hear him romp deliriously through all manner of styles in the key of Apex for the bulk of these dozen tracks. [Nov 2014, p.71]

The overall mixture of anger and longing, fierceness and calm, is breathtaking. [Nov 2014, p.68]

There is more raw drama here, a prevailing starkness. [Nov 2014, p.65]

The good news is that Something Shines also enriches her puritanical sonic palette with lush instrumentation, mid-song tempo shifts and free-jazz digressions. [Oct 2014, p.77]

Owens has never been afraid to comet to terms with his troubled past, but here those stories are slathered in such cliched schmaltz that it's hard to empathise. [Oct 2014, p.76]

The third suffers from a bit of improv cliche in its fox-sex vocals, but the central melodic theme is robust enough to return for a warm-hearted final track. [Sep 2014, p.73]

Ben Glover makes his fifth album a bringing-it-all-back-home beauty. [Oct 2014, p.73]

This is quicker, sleeker and punkier [than Water On Mars]. [Oct 2014, p.77]

Her fourth full-length album effectively showcases the breadth of her sound. [Oct 2014, p.76]

An album of great depth and richness, Sukierae finds Tweedy at his most dignified, addressing life-changing events across all aspects of the full emotional spectrum. [Oct 2014, p.64]

If there's a faint veil of disappointment hanging over all this excellence, it's that Allah-Las haven't built m,ore adventurously on the foundations of their debut. [Oct 2014, p.66]

This underrated band progressively unleash waves of measured ferocity over he turbine drumming of Brandon Young toward payoffs that are staggering in their intensity. [Oct 2014, p.71]

It's a stunning comeback that whets the appetite for an autumn tour. [Oct 2014, p.74]

The dozen sly and witty songs are all Setzer originals, but it takes a liitle suspension of disbelief to imagine "Calamity Jane" and "Cock-a-Doodle Don't" could've been authentically written 60 years ago. [Oct 2014, p.79]

Rapid-fire delivery often make catching his drift difficult, but when spaces allow it, as on the hallucinogenic "Upsweep" or pointed "Retirement Ode," Busdriver's wit and wisdom flash through. [Oct 2014, p.69]

There's a little too much preciousness here. [Oct 2014, p.72]

A triumph. [Oct 2014, p.77]

A more contemplative, intimate offering that in its own heavy and soulful way is just as thrilling. [Oct 2014, p.79]

[A] solid offering in a drizzle of bleeps. [Oct 2014, p.79]

It's a blazing set for a 70-year-old, but Winter gains traction from his fretboard duets/duels with Eric Clapton, Billy Gibbons, Joe Bonamassa, Joe Perry, Brian Setzer et al. [Oct 2014, p.80]

Commune is less immediately striking than World Music. [Oct 2014, p.81]

Adrian Thaws is another decent entry in the latterday Trickypedia, rolling along on circular bluesfunk grooves and furtive whisper-croak boy-girl vocals. [Oct 2014, p.79]

It lacks the debut's punchiness, and a compelling thread to bind those disparate elements. [Oct 2014, p.67]

Derivative, perhaps, but reconfigured in a way which is both expert and highly seductive. [Sep 2014, p.69]

It's '80s pop, but not as you know it. [Sep 2014, p.69]

Schnauss' trademark keyboard washes are a significant feature, at times helping stimulate euphoria beneath often gauzy melancholia, elsewhere adding a soothing Pink Floyd-ish balm. [Sep 2014, p.73]

The template remains classic American pop-rock served with a glaze of summer-fried weirdness, redolent of The Shins, Flaming Lips and Neil Young, but now there's real heart beneath the often twee facade. [Oct 2014, p.67]

Taylor's no alchemist--not yet at least--though Lateness Of Dancers suggests he can write songs that transcend the everyday by hymning its subtleties. [Oct 2014, p.78]

In the absence of original recordings, it's hard to know what to judge these against. [Oct 2014, p.80]

The signature combination of upbeat music and somewhat gruesome lyrical themes works so well for Shovels & Rope that a few leaks spring when they commit themselves to a dive to the depths. [Oct 2014, p.75]

A little over-joyous for most, but a fair achievement regardless. [Oct 2014, p.73]

A finely crafted record, whose artfulness is mediated by informality. [Oct 2014, p.69]

Ryan Adams is very much Ryan Adams being Ryan Adams. [Oct 2014, p.68]

The fragility in her performances is delivered with just the right amount of internal integrity. [Oct 2014, p.79]

Business as usual then--though any choice moments are somewhat let down by Roy Thomas Baker's sterile production and some badly dated keyboard sounds. [Oct 2014, p.80]

Deja Bu, but a thrill worth experiencing again. [Oct 2014, p.77]

Although the The Courteeners are newly mature, they're oddly not yet their own men. [Oct 2014, p.69]

Ganglion Reef configures plenty of their benefactor's favourite modes of garage rock into moderately fresh, often terrific new shapes. [Oct 2014, p.80]

The addition of bassist Bi;ll Herzog lends Earth a gnarliness absent in recent folk-inflected outings. [Oct 2014, p.71]

Beyond the clever production and judicious musical blend is a sensibility and a voice and songs that find Plant still on his quest, still grappling with the intricacies of love, still seduced by distant, misty mountains. His Uniqueness has never been more apparent. [Oct 2014, p.61]

It's for fans only, but that's where Crush Songs' power lies. [Oct 2014, p.76]

Guitarist Hugh Harris can still finesse a scintillating riff, but derivative would-be hipster anthems with hip-hop bolt-on "Around Town" and "It Was London" suggest a band aware that their time has come, and gone. [Oct 2014, p.74]

They sound refreshed again here, even if their classy, Music From Big Pink-inspired roots-rock has changed little from the default settings established by their brilliant debut August And Everything After 20 years ago. [Oct 2014, p.69]

The tense chemistry has been, to some degree, recaptured. [Oct 2014, p.68]

Banks is an earnest singer with an ear for complex anthems--she's at her best when letting big emotions rip. [Oct 2014, p.67]

On their fifth album, it's back go icy, slightly Gothic basics. [Oct 2014, p.73]

Surprises are few on the pair's excellent fourth album Par Avion. [Sep 2014, p.81]

He's a great country singer, armed with the sardonic humour of Todd Snider and the loping grace of Waylon Jennings. [Sep 2014, p.70]

Dico's strong, rich voice dominates an intense, and rather Cohen-esque suite of songs which frequently find her switching gender roles. [Sep 2014, p.73]

If his 20th solo album, The Man Upstairs, is less excitable than the likes of Underwater Moonlight, Fegmania! and Queen Elvis, it's a change that many Hitchcock agnostics will welcome. [Sep 2014, p.68]

Every note of this compelling album backs her up. [Sep 2014, p.72]

Distance takes the intensity of 29013's Blindspot, and doubles it. [Sep 2014, p.77]

Bell's racked howl brings a hardcore intensity to it all, but there's bags of melodic nous just below the scorched surface. [Sep 2014, p.81]

They're immersed in keyboard-assisted '80s pop and brooding white soul, with overtones of New Order and Lloyd Cole, while XCox's Morrissey-like vocals again underscore their love of The Smiths. [Sep 2014, p.75]

Blessed by an amiably husky voice, Jurvanen unfurls elegant melodies and intelligent economical arrangements. [Sep 2014, p.67]

His latest mixes John Fahey-like acoustic work with occasional brief bouts of his familiar electric shredding. [Sep 2014, p.75]

No song here exceeds the five-minute mark, and each one feels finely honed, melodically generous, and designed to penetrate your consciousness. [Sep 2014, p.66]

Alias is where the giddy exhilaration and buoyant lift of early Magic Numbers grows into a bold, spacey and sensational creation. [Sep 2014, p.75]