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]

Cupid Deluxe is a more mature and collaborative affair that sees Hynes marinate his songs in an early-'90s soul-funk fusion that foregrounds groove over melody. [Dec 2013, p.65]

The period-perfect production is a little Dukes Of Stratosphear, though as with Partridge and co, the songs are so well crafted as to avoid any sense of prissy homage. [Nov 2013, p.79]

Most convincing are versions of Xiu Xiu's thunderously anthemic "I Luv The Valley OH," Clinic's irrepressible "Tomorrow," and intimate wordiness of David Thomas Broughton's "Ambiguity." Coldplay's "Hurts Like Heaven," however cannot shake off its provenance. [Dec 2013, p.72]

San Fermin proves Ludwig-Leone to be a fantastically ambitious songwriter on the way to finding a voice of his own. [Oct 2013, p.74]

The music does not so much take off as forever taxi toward the boundary fence. [Dec 2013, p.70]

This LP is their most uncompromising yet. [Dec 2013, p.74]

If there’s any justice, Mug Museum should break Le Bon out of her current cult status. [Dec 2013]

Their horizon expands via garage-psych incantation "In The Roses" and chugging closer "Everybody Knows," which suggests a Granddaddy epic; the Shjips' ragged country-rock opus is clearly some way off yet. [Dec 2013, p.75]

Peace On Venus is a fine example of what they produce. [Dec 2013, p.65]

"Comic" interludes like "Tie My Pecker To A Tree" lose them a point, but electronic-strafed epic "I Told You I Was Crazy" shows these proto-grundge "three dumbasses" have interests beyond neolithic riffing. [Dec 2013, p.70]

Rice is at his best when indulging his penchant for punk bubblegum. [Dec 2013, p.71]

Surfing Strange hits similar touchstones to Waxahatchee--Sebadoh, The Breeders, that whole '90s grunge wave--albeit with rather more noisy brio. [Dec 2013, p.74]

Her strident approach to country means she excels at rockabilly-flavoured tunes. [Dec 2013, p.71]

The hooks on tracks like "You'll Carry On Real Nice" are the kind of value-meal stodge that clogged the tail end of Britpop. [Dec 2013, p.66]

Guthrie's work here gives birth to social conscience in pop culture, and this 157-track set, gets it all down in the context it deserves. [Dec 2013, p.82]

This live site from New Year's Eve 2011 reminds why these songs are firmly embedded in NZ music folklore. [Dec 2013, p.81]

The sequel is at least that record's [Just Across The River] equal as he again revisits some of his best known songs. [Dec 2013, p.71]

It's those who deviate furthest from Fela's template who reap the greatest rewards. [Dec 2013, p.71]

Other versions are so microscopically different from the originals that you wonder why they've bothered. [Dec 2013, p.71]

It's an LP that gets through more ideas than most indie bands can manage in a lifetime. [Dec 2013, p.71]

Bitter but sweet enough. [Dec 2013, p.71]

Epic in scale, World Boogie Is Coming is an extraordinary amalgam of envelope-pushing studio manipulation and DNA-fuelled deep gut grooves. [Dec 2013, p.71]

This take on the horrors of 9/11 could seem shallow, but he nails it. [Nov 2013, p.69]

The Coincidentalist, as with most things Gelb puts a shoulder to, is a thing of strange, understated pleasure. [Nov 2013, p.68]

An unusual taste that's well worth acquiring. [Dec 2013, p.66]

Essentially this is Korn returning to their familiar discomfort zone. [Dec 2013, p.70]

The listlessness of the structures is initially offputting, but the tracks begin to reveal luxurious depths. [Dec 2013, p.69]

Those acquainted with the slow and soulful pace of Griffin's recent work may be surprised by her ability to let rip here. [Dec 2013, p.69]

If the results can be unremarkable the album is redeemed by Nelson's engagement on most cuts. [Dec 2013, p.68]

The rest of the album freewheels around American music with a virtuosity and spontaneity that belies the group's indie-rock roots. [Dec 2013, p.67]

The band have come a long way since 2000's reissued Dead Meadow, but some of that early bombast and arresting variety in dynamics would not go amiss, even if, individually, Warble Womb's 15 songs. [Dec 2013, p.67]

The songs are warmly hypnotic: pitch-perfect pop. [Dec 2013, p.66]

A newly acquired taste for Gilbert O'Sullivan-style upright piano puts the accent on cheeky fun on his ninth solo album. [Dec 2013, p.66]

His guttural, rat-tat flow is raw and unleavened, but it's the way he uses it--in flights of fancy and feats of mischief--that's truly the nub of his appeal. [Dec 2013, p.66]

Frankie Rose's 2012 tour de force Interstellar cuts the same fabric slightly more elegantly, maybe, but Blouse's frills are anything but cheap. [Dec 2013, p.65]

Somewhat erratic, yet frequently satisfying. [Dec 2013, p.65]

On the five tracks sung solely by the Blind Boys, the record comes off as Vernon intended.... By contrast, the remaining six, each featuring a contemporary guest artists, are problematic. [Dec 2013, p.65]

It's Isbell's best album yet, and suggests that he'll do better still. [Dec 2013, p.64]

The pair's voices twin eerily and sound effortlessly young and restless on a stream of adorable alt.pop melodies. [Dec 2013, p.70]