A faithful if condensed cover of Yes' "Heart Of The Sunrise," sweetly sung by Drozd, concludes what is essentially a likeable frivolity, and a stop gap before their next Flaming masterwork. [Sep 2014, p.73]

Taylor maintains the intimacy of Yorkston's sound, highlighting the weary warmth of his voice, and adding instrumental shading, while KT Tunstall and The Pictish Trail bring harmonic depth. [Sep 2014, p.81]

There's artifice in Booker's make-up but the troubled, strutting loner, serving sizzling sides of electrified psyched-swamp blues, is a role he inhabits with conviction and aplomb. [Sep 2014, p.69]

Long In The Tooth, his first full set of secular studio originals since 2005's The Real Deal, has it share [of gems]. [Sep 2014, p.70]

The whole thing feels like a dusky gambol through America's musical past. [Sep 2014, p.81]

Their head conceptualist is now guitarist Helios Creed, who's kept the vision tight, true to the corroded metal, viscous electronics and Burroughsian collages of their signal albums, 1977's Alien Soundtracks and 1979's Half Machine Lip Moves. [Sep 2014, p.71]

It's not earthshaking, but there's nothing wrong with simply being likable. [Sep 2014, p.69]

Wagner is adept at evoking children's half-remembered nightmares. [Sep 2014, p.81]

His wonky debut taps kosmische, post-punk and lo-fi electronic noise, but keeps its sights on the pop hook. [Sep 2014, p.79]

The overall mood is The Band given Taylor Swift's budget, on heartfelt and easily wounded love songs. [Sep 2014, p.78]

L'Aventura could well be his best album. [Sep 2014, p.78]

It's all so ancient that it becomes thrillingly modern. [Sep 2014, p.78]

It's '60s-soul funky rather than frenzied testifying. [Sep 2014, p.76]

Passerby is an acoustic record of great subtlety and warmth, so much that it overcomes the chick-lit preciousness of Randell's lyrics. [Sep 2014, p.75]

If they're sometimes guilty of overdoing the chirpiness, their songwriting crafty is best served on the more subdued "Dearly Departed Friend" and "Sweet Amarillo." [Sep 2014, p.75]

Ex is full of Hawtin's old sleek menace and disdain for obvious peaks, though the sound design is fractionally lusher than that of brutalist texts like Musik (1194). [Sep 2014, p.75]

Chroma strikes a largely upbeat mood, producer Dan Carey foregrounding a McGuinness vocal that's more often irksome than endearing amid the skittering rockabilly beats and lively but derivative soundscapes. [Sep 2014, p.75]

As ever, there's great appeal in his stage patter, where he tests the tension between catharsis and awkwardness.... But he never skimps on emotion. [Sep 2014, p.74]

Credit Dalhous, aka Marc Dall, for making something beautiful but still somewhat unreadable in its intentions. [Sep 2014, p.71]

It's the gently chiming guitars, summery synth lines and Vallesteros' Beach Boy melodies that dominate. [Sep 2014, p.71]

[Robinson] has certainly indulged his preference here, mixing M83-style synth-pop with Daft Punk/Justice bangers and adding assorted nu-rave and EDM tropes, to end up with not much to call his own. [Sep 2014, p.76]

It can feel a little slack-jawed, its dreaminess concealing slight lack of substance. [Sep 2014, p.71]

It's strictly a mood piece, complete with daffy lyrics about mermaids, bicycles and "Gypsy Tears." [Aug 2014, p.81]

Acoustic Classics is a useful update on 1984's live Small Town Romance, with Thompson this time attacking his back catalogue in the studio. [Sep 2014, p.78]

His eighth solo album is a fine place to start investigations of this dappled terrain, in laces a little heavier and more psychedelic than one might expect. [Sep 2014, p.74]

The intensity and drive of the guitars--when they hit--matches the passion and righteousness of O'Connor's mesmerising delivery. [Sep 2014, p.80]

Excessive emoting is unfortunately typical of the record's exhausting inclination toward overwrought histrionics. [Sep 2014, p.74]

[The album] is not so much a radical departure as a dalliance with a marginally more brooding, textural musical aesthetic. [Sep 2014, p.75]

Everything shines out brighter and louder than ever before as they return from a three-year break. [Sep 2014, p.64]

Mellow but heartfelt. [Aug 2014, p.70]

If Hypnotic Eye was just about the snarl, it'd lose steam fast. Instead, it's only one element of a story that's bigger and richer, which is how a storied American band returned to the core principals of yesteryear without having to pretend to forget all they've learned in the meantime. [Aug 2014, p.63]

The overall effect is almost hallucinatory. [Jul 2014, p.83]

Odd--and oddly impressive. [Jul 2014, p.81]

His fourth album is leaner and meaner than 2010's A Train Bound For Glory. [Jul 2014, p.77]

Calling this Wells' pop album does a disservice to its cheerfully experimental tone. [Aug 2014, p.76]

Soul Mining is arguably Johnson's defining work: ambitious, strange, exciting. And, 30-odd years on, remarkably fresh. [Aug 2014, p.86]

Anthology is no means definitive, but it remains a comprehensive overview of a terrific and influential band. [Aug 2014, p.89]

Brilliance and beauty, abounding in equal measure. [Aug 2014, p.79]

The Shabazz sound is sprawling and promiscuous, but also deep, which might make for uneasy listening. [Aug 2014, p.79]

Lewis conducts what navel-gazing there is on The Voyager with her characteristic mordant wit, and she has shed none of her way with an irresistible, deadpan pop melody. [Aug 2014, p.75]

A risk of pastiche is never far away, but Presley staves it off with energy, songcraft, cunning and a renewed, relatively streamlined focus. [Aug 2014, p.81]

From Scotland With Love successfully and movingly unites past and present, old and new, sight and sound. Another diamond. [Aug 2014, p.77]

Over the course of a whole album, a little more ribaldry is required. [Aug 2014, p.81]

Honeyblood is a captivating debut that prizes atmosphere over precision and is characterised by soaring melodies and terrifically spiky lyrics. [Aug 2014, p.94]

Gulp's debut Season Sun is spooked set of crepuscular pop, a Moogie wonderland furnished with some very good songs. [Aug 2014, p.73]

[A] stunningly assured fifth studio album. [Aug 2014, p.80]

My Love IS A Bulldozer is of a similar vintage [as 2005's Rossz Csillag Alatt Szuletett]. [Aug 2014, p.79]

After soothing us with smoothness, this slick excursion into semi-unlistenable easy listening sounds fantastic. [Aug 2014, p.75]

For the most part, though, this is the Manics as you'd want them to be--thrilling, bombastic and sometimes ridiculous, but still raging. [Aug 2014, p.75]

Feck's gracious lyrical observations of the minutiae only sharpened by such a lovely contrast [to The Clientele's James Hornsey]. [Aug 2014, p.71]

A much warmer, more luxurious record than the brittle debut, the shrillness wiped from Jackson's voice in favour of uncontrived and appealing attitude. [Aug 2014, p.74]

High Life has none of its predecessor's busy, over-caffeinated temperament. [Aug 2014, p.73]

The album has its fair share of filler.... But, at its best, World Peace feels like a perfect penultimate episode in the last season of a beloved TV series. [Aug 2014, p.66]

The 73-year-old [is] in fine voice. [Aug 2014, p.71]

This is one old timer who's still in his prime. [Aug 2014, p.72]

Behind the abundance of route one hooks and rather beige, Gary Barlow-esque vocals, however, there's evidence of emotional heft in the lyrics. [Aug 2014, p.70]

They've got a food ear for summer anthems but Jungle lacks the knowing self-deprecation and tender lyricism of Hot Chip or Metronomy, so all you're left with here is a pleasant pastiche. [Aug 2014, p.75]

By and large, it's contemplation they're seeking. [Aug 2014, p.81]

There's antique gusto, politics, wintry picking from a master, some gothic touches from Britfolk's finest fiddler, and grand notes. [Jul 2014, p.71]

The results are spectacular. [Jul 2014, p.66]

A cherry if tad predictable offering. [Jul 2014, p.71]

A cult classic in waiting. [Jul 2014, p.69]

This isn't mainstream music in any sense of the world, but it's one of the first glass-rattling industrial-noise records you could imagine getting stuck in your head. [Aug 2014, p.81]

While somewhat novelty, it's hard not to appreciate Daniel's conceptual moxie. [Aug 2014, p.79]

For purists, "Lonely Island" and "River Jordan" are closer to a bygone Nashville sound. [Aug 2014, p.78]

This is as good as the "soundtrack for an imaginary movie" gets. [Aug 2014, p.78]

The Orwells ape highlights of the last 25 years of indie rock on their second album. [Aug 2014, p.78]

Meshell's search for love and meaning rarely asserts itself over the sense of muso friends at play. [Aug 2014, p.76]

Despite nods to jazzy glitch and ambient glide, most of these beautifully crafted tracks are united by supple but solid 4/4 rhythms. [Aug 2014, p.75]

Some of the tracks can sound exhaustingly out-of-phase, but such sonic wonkiness works brilliantly on the hypnotic thumb-piano minimalism of "Down And Out," the Afro-funk of "In Praise Of Homeboys" and the Congolese heavy metal of "The Ploughman." [Aug 2014, p.75]

Amid the cheap preset funk and curdled interludes, Bouaziz enchants with moving pieces such as "Heartbeats" and "Hero." [Aug 2014, p.74]

While You Were Sleeping is a curious amalgam of '70s soul, '90s R&B and the epic manoeuvrings of stadium rock. [Aug 2014, p.74]

Brothers shines brightest when Nelson spins out pithy philosophising, or hits a certain inimitable, rambling, jazzy sweet spot with his longtime band. [Aug 2014, p.70]

The musicianship is exemplary throughout, with a stronger focus on roots traditionalism on "The Traveller" and "Ships At Sea." [Aug 2014, p.71]

Gamel is an ecstatic return. [Aug 2014, p.76]

A racket, but a charismatic one. [Jun 2014, p.72]

This is deluxe, bespoke, artisan electronica, only slightly marred by its high seriousness and lack of mischief. [Jul 2014, p.67]

It's well done, but the price of reinvention has been the band's personality. [Jul 2014, p.76]

Cosmic trim to these sturdy songs is mostly provided by keys man Adam MacDougall; odd, though, that his Moog gurgles are often closer to '70s novelty records than anything more notionally psych. [May 2014, p.78]

Producer Max Dingel fashions a crystal clear sound, full but never overblown, bringing an attractive universality to some very personal emotions. [Jun 2014, p.79]

Ultimately, the changes are subtle rather than profound and Gray still sounds like he's been nailed to a cross--which will no doubt come as a relief to loyal fans. [Jul 2014, p.74]

Noise, which might frustrate hardcore types because despite the promise of its title--delivered via speed-metal monster "Quicksiler" and 18-minute, FX-strafed-epic, "Angel"--it leans on their melodic shoegazing tendencies. [Jul 2014, p.70]

Deft lyrical touches and a persuasive commitment nonetheless lift Happyness well above pastiche. [Jul 2014, p.74]

It's to The Felice Brothers' credit that Favorite Waitress never quite becomes oppressively earnest, though it's a near thing at a couple points. [Jul 2014, p.75]

Fear is best when Cowgill strips things back. [Jul 2014, p.6]

Musically, this is probably the richest collection of songs Vlautin has written.

The addition of a horn section brings pleasing texture to the likes of "Hotel" and "Revisited," but it's rarely enough to lift The Antlers out of their willfully wounded torpor. [Jul 2014, p.69]

Illuminate is a rich, alluring debut which nods to Orbital or The Chemical Brothers with its hooky melodies, pulsing analogue synths and supple breakbeat rhythms. [Jul 2014, p.69]

A subtly lyrical and perennially thoughtful writer, Minnesotan Gorka is both stellar and predictable on this, his 14th album. [Apr 2014, p.76]

Greys are able to take these influences forward on tracks like "Cold Soak" and "Guy Picciotto," which seethe, howl and rock, combining the energy of hardcore with some of the more abstract sounds found in contemporary noise rock. [Jul 2014, p.74]

The highlight is a creepy, prowling, marimba-driven take on The Knife's "Pass This On," which retains the female gaze of the original. [Jun 2014, p.82]

This time the compositions are still thoughtful and exploratory and, although a tendency to emphatic angst dulls on the over-earnest, producer Mark Hutchinson is fully attuned to Dunlop's musical resourcefulness. [Jun 2014, p.75]

The songs are simple but seductive; the melodies blissed-out, hypnotic. [Jul 2014, p.78]

A bravura production job, assisted by The Haxan Cloak, gives What's Between arcane depths. [Jul 2014, p.83]

This sequel is more focused and song-based. [Jul 2014, p.69]

Thrillingly heavy and direct it may be, but there are great tunes here. [Jul 2014, p.77]

Norrvide still sounds a little glum, but he's got plenty to be happy about here. [Jul 2014, p.76]

The record arguably lacks a killer track, Chrissie seemingly on autopilot throughout, although the sultry "In A Miracle" contains the occasional echo of past glories. [Jul 2014, p.76]