While traces of heaviness remain--see the cacophonous climax to "B&E"--Guilty really finds itself in tender moments. [Apr 2014, p.78]

There are a few moments of longueurs, where the songs come off a little too session muso. But this new, becalmed Perhacs reveals a clear eco-political message articulated with subtlety and nuance. [Apr 2014, p.79]

While English Oceans carries its quota of Truckers staples, there's also much that sets this fantastic 10th studio album apart from its predecessors. [Apr 2014, p.82]

Holly lacks the heat and fire that makes the best so damn thrilling. [Apr 2014, p.83]

Songs from the wellspring of third-album VU; a few nods toward New Order; some charming turns of phrase. And on it goes.... [Apr 2014, p.83]

Double Exposure can sometimes come off sounding precious, a bunch of genre studies without that mysterious extra something--this grit ain't turning into a pearl. But when they stretch out, as on "Mandorla At Dawn," The Helix move with loose-limbed grace. [Mar 2014, p.83]

Occasional throwaway aside, there are some real gnarled beauties on display here. [Mar 2014, p.80]

Quality levels are high, with Cate Le Bon's sleek Krautpop chanson "Gallant Foxes" and Claire Tchaikowski's aqueous ambi-folk ballad "That Fever" helping to excuse a small handful of underpowered, over-polished numbers. [Mar 2014, p.73]

His band know their way around '80s-influenced bluster-pop, and carry it off through sheer deadpan lack of irony on this strangely beguiling second album. [Mar 2014, p.79]

You Should Be So Lucky is tailor-made for connoisseurs of musicianship at its headiest and most tasteful--the kind of record you're proud to own, matching the pride of all those who participated in its creation. [Mar 2014, p.68]

These pallid songs comprise a barely disguised homage. [Mar 2014, p.80]

The mix of cryptic lyrics and childlike whimsy wears a little thin over the long haul. [Mar 2014, p.75]

Cherry's still youthful voice and angsty lyrics feel somewhat disconnected from these dubby rumbles and dirges. [Mar 2014, p.73]

More fun are the African-tinged "Radio Bemba," "Odeon," where New Orleans meets Irish tin whistle, and the Mexico-meets-Chopin "Black Hibiscus." [Mar 2014, p.80]

It's sensitively poised and technically perfect. [Mar 2014, p.80]

Over 10 minutes or more, he wisely avoids manipulative builds and drops, leaving a compelling opacity. [Mar 2014, p.76]

Understated acoustic shuffles give the record a sense of the passing of time, as does the tender regret of "Snowflakes In The Sun." [Feb 2014, p.81]

Four of these tracks run well past the 10-minute mark and pack in an exhausting series of musical ideas that most artists would be content to spread more thinly over an entire album. [Mar 2014, p.79]

The material forms a coherent, hard-hitting song cycle about blue-collar hard times. [Feb 2014, p.76]

For the fourth album in a row, they've moved the goalposts, challenging themselves to apply their whooping idiosyncrasies to a new aesthetic framework. [Mar 2014, p.70]

Darkly entertaining, thoughtful and a little threatening, St. Vincent fizzes with enthusiasm and the uncontrollable strangeness of life. [Mar 2014, p.74]

The record's best moments are slow-mo funk cuts like "Laughter" and "Praise" where Jones' silky falsetto finds a sweet spot east of Prince and Earth Wind & Fire. [Mar 2014, p.78]

Cumulatively Morning Phase can feel too consistent in mood and pace. [Mar 2014, p.65]

Burn Your Fire for No Witness feels like a big step forward from its predecessor, Half Way Home. [Mar 2014, p.81]

This box set might test that familiarity [of the Beatles catalogue]. It's like returning home to find the furniture has been moved around, or thayt someone has built new rooms to put your stuff in. It's not that these are bad rooms--they're just not quite where you expect them to be, and certainly not how the architects conceived the building. [Mar 2014, p.90]

Ellis' purist, even traditionalist, voice is the perfect vessel for his sanguine portraits of ordinary people, battered and bruised but never without hope. [Mar 2014, p.72]

Persson shows she is still a dab hand at melodic indie-pop, as she tackles floundering relationships, failing memories and new horizons. [Mar 2014, p.82]

Illum Sphere has been well-placed to see how dubstep fragmented into house, garage, minimalism and avant-garde gestures, and he reflects all of these in his debut LP. [Mar 2014, p.78]

Finn's third solo album is a lush, multi-layered affair, making full use of its producer. [Mar 2014, p.76]

These 18 short tracks comprise a refreshingly un-self-conscious reinterpretation of lo-fi punk, '90s slacker rock, shoegaze an d bedroom electronica, but each one dodges categorisation. [Mar 2014, p.78]

These dead-earnest takes are suffused with existential melancholy, as the group's feathery vocals bring uplift to the heavy emotional burden of the songs. [Mar 2014, p.71]

There's very little quite like it, and it's much wilder than it first seems. [Mar 2014, p.77]

Cheatahs brings to mind the era's second-tier acts, such as Swervedriver and Drop Nineteens--faint praise, but praise all the same. [Mar 2014, p.73]

Immaculately crafted as ever, even if his enviable ability to pastiche everyone from Elvis to The Beach Boys ultimately obscures his own musical identity. [Mar 2014, p.75]

As a collection of friendly collisions, an impulsive document of how music can bring people together over musical and cultural boundaries, it's well worth the visit. [Feb 2014, p.79]

It's a most welcome trip back to what he does best. [Feb 2014, p.81]

This English-language version is a beautiful thing. [Dec 2013, p.63]

It all too often sounds like Metronomy's secret Hackney-themed indie project. [Mar 2014, p.78]

Tremendous stuff. [Mar 2014, p.83]

These are strong songs, only occasionally hampered by the over-ripe allegorical nonsense advertized in the album's title. [Mar 2014, p.85]

{The album] bears many of the assured and lyrically deft hallmarks of Basher's own work. [Mar 2014, p.79]

It's an album of disco torch songs with the usual glib lyrics about good times and sexy dancers replaced by light-hearted queer/feminist sloganeering. [Mar 2014, p.82]

A happy music that isn't bland; Held In Splendor makes that toughest of tricks sound easy. [Mar 2014, p.82]

Sumie blends Japanese and Scandinavian folk, singing crisply over repetitive acoustic guitar patterns. [Mar 2014, p.83]

A focus on electric violin adds a mildly jarring echo of Curved Air to the Canadians' seventh, but the apocalyptic "Austerity Blues" and wistful "Rains Thru The Roof At Thee Grande Ballroom" encompass their extremes of post-rock paranoia and Popol Vuh transcendence. [Mar 2014, p.83]

Infinite loops and surging crescendos constitute a psychedelic session more about melancholic beauty than foreboding. [Mar 2014, p.83]

This arrestingly adventurous debut is a densely layered mash-up of shudders and drones, narcotically twisted beats, gospel-infused vocals and surreal wordplay. [Mar 2014, p.85]

Angel Guts: Red Classroom is by turns darkly unsettling and unintentionally funny. [Mar 2014, p.85]

Welcome signs of movement after a lengthy stasis. [Mar 2014, p.80]

Smith's lyrical flights of fancy come off somewhat top-heavy, but by and large such bookish pretentions feel like something to appreciate, not castigate. [Mar 2014, p.79]

Bold, visionary and, in places, spine-tingling. [Mar 2014, p.78]

McGuire's experiments with more conventional structures and arrangements don't always come off--the chuntering drum machines can makes things feel a little brisk and muzaky--but when he hits the spot, track titles like "In Search Of The Miraculous" don't seem too far-fetched. [Mar 2014, p.78]

Katy B weaves various threads of London clubland into glittering pop flax, and this second LP is a triumphant consolidation of her position as the voice of nocturnal youth. [Mar 2014, p.78]

A substantial return to form. [Mar 2014, p.73]

The first half of Mind Trap is dedicated to a sort of naifish folk-rock, flirting with the banal but occasionally happening on moments of quiet loveliness. [Mar 2014, p.73]

There remains a belligerent subtext to his nostalgic fantasias. [Mar 2014, p.73]

While the familiar swagger is present and correct both in the Bowie-influenced "Spiderhead" and the crackling "It's Just Forever," these moments are leavened by quieter, more reflective tracks such as "Hypocrite." [Mar 2014, p.72]

[The] mostly instrumental pieces point up the rich musical subtleties and contemplative mellowness of the originals. [Mar 2014, p.72]

Their slick, mirthless approach and Roman Rappak's self-satisfied delivery threaten to turn Breton into Topman art-rock mannequins in the mould of Everything Everything and Alt-J. [Mar 2014, p.72]

[The album] fires out volleys of convincing Metalheadz-style jungle breakbeats, embedded in brooding sound collages apparently influenced by Jonny Greenwood's score for There Will Be Blood. [Mar 2014, p.71]

A brooding, impressive return. [Mar 2014, p.71]

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]