Ultimately you're left frustrated by the safety first approach. [Mar 2014, p.71]

Her weakness is the occasional lapse into 12-step blandness on the big--and rather underwritten--choruses. [Mar 2014, p.69]

Benji is brutally sad, which may prove a deal-breaker for anyone who appreciated the comparatively light Among the Leaves, but it never feels gratuitous or exploitative. [Mar 2014, p.84]

[The interviews with dock workers, WWII veterans and itinerants whose stories inspired nine of the 12 songs make] little material difference to his music. [Feb 2014, p.77]

The mood is melancholy, the voice crystal clear, the folk-based songs deadly direct. [Feb 2014, p.78]

The 14th installment of influential Cologne label Kompakt's superlative Pop Ambient series provides plenty of surprises. [Feb 2014, p.83]

The duo's sophisticated feel fro arrangement, the primary point of interest, is on display throughout. [Feb 2014, p.71]

There's lots to admire in this wry, beautifully finger-picked set. [Feb 2014, p.71]

Singer Ciaran McAuley's words get lost in the dry ice a little, but a sense of quasi-religious wonder prevails. [Feb 2014, p.80]

Rather than the '80s rock Oh Yes I Can or the guest-strewn covers of 1993's Thousand Roads, this frequently lovely, folky album instead recalls the ease and space of that debut [1971's If Only I Could Remember My Name]. [Feb 2014, p.73]

Little is overstated, but Low fans will find much to love in "New Lights For A Sky." [Feb 2014, p.80]

A great leap backwards. [Feb 2014, p.80]

Inscrutable, unsettling and utterly unique. [Feb 2014, p.69]

The lack of outside input and studio polish only intensifies the trip. [Feb 2014, p.73]

The London quartet signpost the album with handsome literary and academic allusions in anticipation of an edifying dance direction, but end up trotting out the kind of meek synthfunk once propagated by the likes of Hot Chip and Metronomy. [Feb 2014, p.73]

It's a mysterious affair, but never obscure. [Feb 2014, p.68]

Too True is a bold album. [Feb 2014, p.73]

Kohncke hasn't yet managed to pull off a completely successful, consistently great album. Wonderful Frequency Band is the closest he's come, terrible punning aside, largely due to its focus on the dancefloor. [Feb 2014, p.77]

Tales of protest, battle, compassion, camaraderie, segregation and loss are recalled in rich tones. [Feb 2014, p.83]

Sweet at its core, but pleasantly dark around the edges. [Feb 2014, p.76]

As with their prime influence PJ Harvey, they explore much beyond. [Feb 2014, p.80]

It's all delivered with gusto and buckets of charm. [Jan 2014, p.76]

It sounds timeless, and oddly familiar. But subsequent listens add intrigue. [Feb 2014, p.70]

A magisterial set. [Feb 2014, p.75]

The rhythmic, melodic and thoughtful After The Disco stands as impressive proof of the strength of their partnership. [Feb 2014, p.74]

A sharp, stirring contrast to the delicate lustre of its 2012 predecessor, Back Into The Woods. [Feb 2014, p.76]

Frivolous but elegant. [Feb 2014, p.75]

Delicately arranged, and sympathetically drenched in reverb by producer Jason Quever, its six tracks find him in typically hushed mood. [Feb 2014, p.83]

It's an extraordinary set. [Feb 2014, p.92]

With hindsight, the Rough Trade album with its seamless mix of folk, blues country, cajun and rock can be seen as the album that launched the phenomenon we would come to know as alt.country. [Feb 2014, p.97]

In short--a monumental album.

The LP's seven originals are solid, but the five country covers hit with sweaty immediacy. [Feb 2014, p.95]

So far, so far out. [Feb 2014, p.89]

As a representative trawl through Lanegan's solo albums, Has God Seen My Shadow? gets it very right indeed. [Feb 2014, p.94]

The heavy-lidded atmosphere grows stifling on Warpaint, a codeine fog muddled by synthy tricks from the arsenal of producers Flood & Alan Moulder. [Feb 2014, p.83]

Wig Out At Jagbags presents Malkmus at his most eager to please. That it does so while still honoring his idiosyncrasies makes it a particular delight to behold. [Feb 2014, p.82]

There us ab agreeably lo-fi C86 sloppiness to much f this debut, even if it sounds more cheap than raw in places. [Feb 2014, p.81]

They might've allowed the collage more space to breathe, for the bandwidth is densely layered to bursting with blissed-out sampling; but the rapture makes it churlish to complain. [Feb 2014, p.80]

The result is a meditative, wide-open form of celestial American folk music. [Feb 2014, p.78]

A powerful and accomplished album. [Feb 2014, p.78]

Gone are the stark acoustics of his noughties output, replaced instead by a layered warmth and gorgeous, semi-orchestral settings that make him sound like a spiritual descendant of early '70s Laurel Canyon. [Feb 2014, p.77]

Oddly, this works a treat. [Feb 2014, p.77]

The meanings might be obscure, but Chiaroscuro is still deluxe cinematic pop by hugely accomplished composer-producers. [Feb 2014, p.76]

A Major new British talent is born in William Doyle's solo debut, which sounds like the great lost album that Brian Wilson, Eno and Bjork should have made together. [Feb 2014, p.75]

Climax is both poundingly heavy and pleasingly melodic, at times recalling the Sisters Of mercy in their crossover pomp. [Feb 2014, p.71]

Eighteen Hours of Static is a brutish rocker with its eyes in the gutter, reminiscent of The Jesus Lizard and Minor Threat in its scabrous mid-pace grind and occasional lurch up to hardcore speed. [Feb 2014, p.71]

The band's love of jamming bears fruit when they find a real groove on "Bulldozer Love." [Feb 2014, p.71]

[An] ambitious, stylish left-turn. [Feb 2014, p.72]

There's a sombre edge to almost all these songs, even when the Hammond organ is wailing and the backbeat is a mile wide.... Morello's presence is crucial to the tone of the album. [Feb 2014, p.65]

It's Cash, at the top of her game as a singer, who carries the day. [Jan 2014, p.65]

It the bits between the notes that rescue this from the status of pointless fidelity and make it so compelling. [Sep 2013, p.90]

There's plenty here to suggest that the combination of Skinner's skillful, funny songwriting and Harvey's bluesy choruses will deliver something special soon. [Jun 2013, p.73]

The group's ambition is admirable, but they come unstuck on the over-egged samba shuffle of "Lost Winter," while even Florence Welch might consider "Mellotron" to be a bit much. [Mar 2013, p.76]

Still gauche and somewhat silly the Moseley mods continue to rehash the first two Traffic albums expertly. [Mar 2013, p.76]

12 dark, noisy tracks blessed with unexpected details. [Mar 2013, p.75]

This will make a happy memento of a rollicking show, but set against the invention and distinctive voices elsewhere in folk, it;s rather marking time. [May 2013, p.71]

Nothing is too self-consciously retro. [Feb 2013, p.71]

Barker's fourth album has a clean, rootsy feel. [Aug 2013, p.67]

Once heard, they are not easily forgotten. [Jul 2013, p.76]

For a record that often shifts all over the place--someone busks "Wonderwall" on "U1"--it's an absorbing listen. [Jan 2014, p.74]

Her real metier is the conjuring of moods via soft layers of twangy guitar, piano and understated strings, her voice bringing an impressionistic air to stand-outs like "Have You Seen" and the balletic "Wouldn't Go Back." [Sep 2013, p.92]

Witty takes on mortality showcase Kirchen's weather-beaten country voice, but it's his six-string eloquence that warms the heart on Dylan's "It Takes A Lot To Laugh..." and the breakneck brilliance of "Hot Rod Lincoln." [Sep 2013, p.91]

It's a bit Lenny Kravitz at times, but the excellence and ear-popping sound see Coffee through. [Jan 2014, p.72]

As a whole, it's brilliant. [Dec 2013, p.68]

Los Lobos play their myriad (and rather dazzlingly) legacies straight, swerving masterfully from irrepressible dance-floor faves to Spanish styles to tearjerker folk-rock ballads. [Nov 2013, p.74]

Sidi broadly draws on the same blues traditions Ali Farka Toure, but there are subtle differences here, too.[Jan 2014, p.78]

Old weaknesses remain, with Sullivan's declamatory lyrics often mistaking grandiosity for gravitas, but Between Dog And Wolf is mostly an impressive beast. [Jan 2014, p.76]

At times their desire to wrongfoot the listener can seem deliberately perverse, but when they properly collapse down a wormhole, as they do on second-half highlights "Magicville" and "Success In Circuit," the results are terrifically psychedelic. [Jan 2014, p.72]

A fascinating portal into one of the great musical minds. [Jan 2014, p.89]

There are many sterling moments to escape from Young's vault--but none seem quite as unguarded as the best ones here. [Jan 2014, p.84]

A refreshing badass entry to a genre whose purveyors tend to be overly mild-mannered. [Jan 2014, p.79]

The Warlocks return with an album that intensifies their drifts into darker and experimental territory while also tipping a nod to some of their US inspirations. [Jan 2014, p.79]

There's no denying the wind-rush thrill of the title track, nor the malevolent pull of "Fall Out Of Love," but you'd expect such a capable band to disguise their affection for MBV, Ride and Kitchens of Distinction rather better on their second album. [Jan 2014, p.78]

A restorative step, perhaps, and we await his next move with interest. [Jan 2014, p.78]

Their selections here are a predictable roster of left-field rock dosed with Anglophilia. [Jan 2014, p.78]

The album's best moments shrewdly recall the stark, booming sound of Clipse's 2006 coke-rap masterpiece Hell Hath No Fury. [Jan 2014, p.76]

This power trio makes no attempt whatsoever to hide their stylistic sonic cathedral. [Jan 2014, p.76]

Matangi is her most exhilarating and mulch-faceted album. [Jan 2014, p.75]

They're the true inheritors of the psychic disconnect and crude abstraction that marks out those early Royal Trux albums: less Stones, more stoned. [Jan 2014, p.75]

Ballads like "Chill In The Air" and "Burden" have a stately gait, but Lee is more engaging when he turns playful huckster. [Jan 2014, p.75]

[The single "If You Didn't See Me (Then You Weren't On The Dancefloor)"] is sumptuous, sad and beautiful, as is the res of the album. [Jan 2014, p.73]

Static's production is bright and punchy, which has the unintended effect of sabotaging softer moments. [Jan 2014, p.73]

Though their ongoing debt to the Krautrock canon remains evident, their stoner brew is now heavily spiced with influences drawn from Afrobeat, funk and space-rock. [Jan 2014, p.72]

Articulate, emotional and primed for the dancefloor. [Jan 2014, p.71]

Some delectable details pop up early on, like the swirling organ that shape-shifts "Thirsty Man," but the nearly unrelieved combination of Early's tang and the Cripple Creek cadences grows wearisome by the LP's second half. [Jan 2014, p.71]

The songs on You Were Right are orthodox but unusually clever, evocative of fellow wry strummers such as Nick Lowe and Old 97's' Rhett Miller. [Jan 2014, p.71]

It all adds up to an album that is pleasantly quirky rather than revealing. [Jan 2014, p.71]

More than standing as a document of a particular time and place, it makes not having been there feel like a real loss. [Jan 2014, p.68]

Askew's voice and tiple remain distinctively sui generis, as does the air of fairytale enchantment about his songs of children's dream, birds and fishes, city streetlife, blue-eyed babies and brown-eyed boys. [Oct 2013, p.61]

The thing with the L-event EP is that across four tracks, there isn't the room afforded on their best LPs for something resembling accessibility. [Nov-Dec 2013, p.100]

Decidedly shy of office-party pumpers, the avuncular pair decorate Snow Globe with originals and standards. [Dec 2013, p.67]

Volume 2 contains more talk than its predecessor, and by linking the 39 songs on these two discs with snippets of dialogue, the compilers attempt to replicate the mood and flow of those shows, showing us how the group broke through the barriers of formality hitherto erected between performers and audience. [Dec 2013, p.77]

A stripped-down production adds intimacy, though Hersh's voice isn't quite as strong as it once was. [Dec 2013, p.74]

Here he bends the two impulses on a dark, pulsating album that sits alongside other neo-industrial work from Raime and the Haxan Cloak. [Dec 2013, p.74]

The synths and drum machines that supplant those albums' painstaking arrangements highlight robust songwriting underpinning standout "The Place I Live," while new vocal counter-melodies lift Elverum's "O Superman" choir out of the murk. [Dec 2013, p.70]

These 11 tracks, recorded at various locations, also confirm he's more than a neo-classical specialist. [Dec 2013, p.68]

Her most orthodox album, perhaps, and by some distance her best. [Dec 2013, p.68]

Not an easy listen, but an accomplished one. [Dec 2013, p.67]