[Moby] draws on a long list of collaborators to bring character and depth to his distinct brand of ambient techno, with frequently haunting results. [Oct 2013, p.71]

This third album sees him turn to songwriting for the first time as he channels his inner Lou Reed for a freewheeling take on New York art-rock. [Oct 2013, p.83]

Scattergood's voice may be an acquired taste, but she works it skillfully. [Jul 2013, p.80]

Until The Colours Run casts a spell which lingers. [Oct 2013, p.71]

Take Me To The Land Of Hell is one of Yoko Ono's strongest efforts. [Oct 2013, p.72]

She's made a hugely satisfying album of slinky electronic soul. [Oct 2013, p.71]

A magnificent comeback. [Oct 2013, p.57]

His latest is no less a mixed bag. [Oct 2013, p.75]

Their first album in almost two decades, David Roback and Hope Sandoval are on stunning form. [Oct 2013, p.71]

Kings of Leon zeroed in on their gifts for visceral rock grooves and soaring hooks--lifting standout tracks on their sixth album to a Springsteen-like level of gritty grandeur. [Oct 2013, p.70]

The band's amiable punk-folk chunter lacks a little of its usual charm. [Oct 2013, p.74]

A genuine emotional affinity underpins the marriage between Lanegan's lupine growl and 12 melodramatic songs of masculine despair. [Oct 2013, p.70]

It's an impressively strong set of songs, diverse in both lyrical themes and musical styles, and delivered with a confident range of drama and empathy by a "heritage" act resolutely refusing to rest on his laurels. [Oct 2013, p.66]

While their pristine sound lacks grit, in lyrical terms the troubled "Lies" and "The Mother We Share" show the Chvrches are blessed with hidden depths. [Oct 2013, p.64]

Half of this curious but at times compelling collaboration set lyrics from old songs to new tracks--though not always to their benefit. [Oct 2013, p.62]

A downbeat and occasionally poetic work with some unexpected reference points. [Oct 2013, p.71]

Dream River [is] among Callahan's very best. [Oct 2013, p.63]

The pair unleash a succession of hallucinatory soundscapes that feel hermetically sealed yet confrontational, as if daring us to fire up a fat blunt and allow this sleek beast to burrow into our frontal lobes. [Oct 2013, p.71]

Much of the album mediates on Torrini's new status as a mother but does so through some intensely poetic lyrics. [Oct 2013, p.75]

Her songs don't so much drift as press steadfastly onwards into the unknown--all of them stick in your head despite little trace of a tune. [Oct 2013, p.63]

Some of their most startling material has always been found down the back of the sofa, among such relatively unconsidered trifles as "In The Back Of My Mind" and "Angel Come Home." [Oct 2013, p.82]

Summer Camp are no longer a memory of a pop band, but the real thing. [Oct 2013, p.75]

The result is both an ambitious concept album and a glorious booty-shaker. [Oct 2013, p.68]

A vision of some shadowy Arcadia, its minimal Timbaland beats and lurking Mezzanine-style bass presented with mud and moss under the nails. [Oct 2013, p.67]

A promising debut.... But across a full album the monotony that fuels their material threatens to snuff out any sparks. [Oct 2013, p.65]

Intense, relentless and spellbinding. [Oct 2013, p.65]

Knowingly nostalgic and highly polished, this rich debut contains retro-cool references but also chunky pop hooks. [Oct 2013, p.63]

Having phased out the shoegaze from their sound, Blondes at times struggle to address the dancefloor head-on. [Oct 2013, p.63]

Six albums in and The Icarus Line remain terrifying, riding a tsunami of malevolent noise, sweat and havoc while producing some of the most intense and exceptional rock music around. [Oct 2013, p.70]

The Joe Henry-produced LP is full of subtle beauty and rich imagery, but there's so much of it. [Oct 2013, p.72]

Happily her rugged individuality matches up to the grandstanding platform. [Oct 2013, p.71]

More polished than 2012's ragged debut, Acousmatic Sorcery. [Oct 2013, p.63]

Smilewound finds the woolly jumpered collective coasting through another set of impressionistic glitch-pop and clockwork exotica. [Sep 2013, p.92]

It's poppier than ever before, with big hooks played with funk and bossa nova fills, fat Balkan brass and imaginative lyrics full of bug-eyed images. [Oct 2013, p.71]

Much of this album resembles the kind of murky '80s proto-techno recently unearthed by Trevor Jackson for his Metal Dance comps, with Nik Colk Void's monotone vocals ceding centre stage to the restive machine rhythms that constantly threaten to rise up and over throw their human masters. [Oct 2013, p.67]

There aren't many groups whose experimental cojones nestle comfortably alongside arch-classicist songwriting, but Califone solved that thorny equation long ago. [Sep 2013, p.85]

The result is a provocative and sensual album. [Sep 2013, p.90]

It's more fireside snooze than woodland romp. [Oct 2013, p.68]

AM feels a considerably more self-assured album: heavy in a dramatic and confident way, conceptually strong and not without groove. [Oct 2013, p.73]

For the most part it works, the innate simplicity of the originals lending itself to makeovers, although country purists are advised to steer clear. [Oct 2013, p.77]

Roaring 20s provides cod-reggae backing for Jordan Stephens and Harley Alexander-Sule to discuss the impact of social media and the nature of fame. [Oct 2013, p.74]

While it's not a great record, the world would be a marginally better place if people were drooling over John Wizards rather than Vampire Weekend. [Sep 2013, p.90]

Nothing here is exactly restrained, but KK&TS seem to have realised that the slower burn can be just as effective as the full blaze. [Oct 2013, p.70]

[The Silver Gymnasium is] the sincerest, most heartfelt album they've yet assembled, and it's all the more powerful for it. [Oct 2013, p.60]

On The Worse Things Get, Case asserts herself less in a literal sense, but paints the most emboldening and endearing portrait of herself yet. [Oct 2013, p.76]

Mon Pays draws defiant inspiration from the recent crisis in Mali. [Oct 2013, p.67]

In short, dense, mesmerising, involving. [Oct 2013, p.63]

This record has all the earmarks of Vernon's next big thing. [Oct 2013, p.69]

A power-shower of dour. [Oct 2013, p.68]

Black gothic grandeur, but with a beige, biscuit-coloured centre. [Oct 2013, p.72]

The album tends toward generic, blocky sci-fi-tronic. [Sep 2013, p.90]

Aldred's voice has also upped a register, his yearning falsetto perfect for pocket space opera "Progress" or the lubricious Al Greenisms of "Fingers Through The Glass." [Sep 2013, p.94]

He left an enormous amount of music in those 10 years, the bulk of it gathered in this much-needed career overview of the forgotten solipsistic genius of rock’s golden age, in which the strike-outs turn out to be as fascinating as the home runs.

It's united by the long shadow of Ibizan euphoria that hangs heavy over his genre-crossing dance music. [Sep 2013, p.95]

This 11-piece ensemble of accomplished veterans positively struts on its third LP since forming in 2011. [Sep 2013, p.95]

[An] intense and atmospheric instrumental debut. [Sep 2013, p.92]

Anyone who's still mourning the passing of Emeralds should shack up with these druids. [Aug 2013, p.68]

"It's A Common Life" is haunted by the ghost of Snapper, a sort of Antipodean Suicide, while the likes of "I Had The Starring Role" and "What Gets Me By" recall the prettier moments of Straitjacket Fits and Bailter Space. [Sep 2013, p.95]

An irresistible set. [Sep 2013, p.97]

Danilova's vocals have a cadence that hovers between uplifting and exhaustingly overwrought, but fans at least will love these vivid, live-feeling renditions. [Sep 2013, p.97]

Impassioned, sparkling with energy and absurdly bouncy, it's a reminder of everything the North Carolina quartet did well. [Sep 2013, p.95]

A work of lyricism and maturity, this is one of Veirs' finest yet. [Sep 2013, p.97]

Nowadays they're of more select appeal, and Where You Stand suggests they're actually quite comfortable with that. [Sep 2013, p.95]

A perfect summer record for those who found the last Beach House album too wintry. [Sep 2013, p.94]

Intriguing and hauntingly lovely, if almost totally one paced. [Sep 2013, p.72]

All their songs unfurl slowly, gracefully... and some might say a little laboriously. Luckily, singer Jamie Lee has a voice that can just about carry his lofty lyrical themes. [Sep 2013, p.92]

This one keeps the focus tight and intimate. [Sep 2013, p.93]

Like any new city, this album may take some getting used to--there's beauty everywhere, but the streets are far from a neat grid. But as you walk them, Holter's genius as a sonic town planner reveals itself. [Sep 2013, p.96]

A potential Urban Outfitters house band, yes, but very far from just brainless cool. [Sep 2013, p.87]

A band that long ago perfected their sound, such collaborations rather suit them. [Apr 2013, p.68]

It's an insinuating set, bordering on morose in places. [Aug 2013, p.74]

Producers Todd Terje and Bjorn Yttling help effect a subtle but distinct shift, without sacrificing FF's Identity. [Sep 2013, p.89]

A record that's complex, inventive and terrifically free-spirited. [Sep 2013, p.92]

Combined with June's remarkably careworn vocals--they suggest that the young Tennessean has been around the block more than once. [Jul 2013, p.77]

It's a colourful, cartoonish world they inhabit, but its trippy qualities are packed with ambitious detail and worthy of serious attention. [Sep 2013, p.94]

It's hypnotic and mind-altering, like a fruitful collision between Boredoms, Neu! and the Grateful Dead. [Jul 2013, p.78]

"I Like It In The Dark" [is] a hurricane of piano boogie, metal guitar, echoes, poetry and reverb that the rest of the LP can never quite match. [Sep 2013, p.86]

It's not much of a move forward, and arguably a step back. [Sep 2013, p.85]

Portentous electronic rock made for audiences that stretch out as far as the eye can see, and choruses pilfered from a mid-'80s installment of Now That's What I Call Music! [Sep 2013, p.97]

No one can actually improve on the perfection of "Wichita Lineman," but the version of "Rhinestone Cowboy" included here, stripped down to grunge guitar and a Willie Nelson-esque vocal, is bold and definitive. [Aug 2013, p.68]

It's an ensemble work, but the tremulous "An Old Peasant Like Me" is especially affecting. [Sep 2013, p.87]

The post-punkish synth-funk of "Pagliaccio" and the "Unchained Melody"-referencing 6/8-time epic "Saviour Self" adds variety, but beneath the sonic modernism lies an artist rather too eager to be Hot Chip's more earnest little brother. [Sep 2013, p.85]

Yes, it's true--this is a great record. [Sep 2013, p.94]

His pieces for banjo, like the revenant lyricism of the title track, are charming, moist eyed miniatures. [Jun 2013, p.74]

Hardcore Poco-heads will reshaped group's Alll Fired Up.... The songwriting, though, is mere genre exercise, mostly, and thin on the ground. [Jun 2013, p.78]

Seductive, maybe--but it rather lacks character of its own. [Sep 2013, p.92]

The terrific Hobo Rocket has many of the admirable assets that made BWD great, but there's a sense in the album's overall finesse that things as far as possible are being taken perhaps a little more seriously than hitherto. [Sep 2013, p.82]

The Civil Wars proves more than capable of producing its own dark drama. [Sep 2013, p.79]

Booker T can still effortlessly access the pleasure principle that transcends musical trends and fleeting fashions, with an instinctive grasp of groove and momentum that speaks directly to heart, feet and head alike. [Sep 2013, p.84]

The Cairo Gang's superb, weighty, meticulous album still manages to pack a mighty punch. [Sep 2013, p.85]

The spread, encompassing piano and mellotron, is pretty; the songs rather maudlin. [Sep 2013, p.85]

The pair's Run The Jewels hits hard but has brains to spare. [Sep 2013, p.87]

Full of sound and furry. [Sep 2013, p.89]

Songs like "That Loneliness" can make Jagwar Ma sound a little clean-living, while the ingenuous "Let Her Go" simply bowls you over with sun-bleached pop-psych. [Sep 2013, p.90]

Jay-z attempts to balance his great wealth, tough history and news responsibility while retaining his grit. Magna Carta... generally pulls it off. [Sep 2013, p.90]

What's here feels a bit decaffeinated, downbeat Moby-ish electronica over which Lynch speaks or sings in a shaky blues croon. [Sep 2013, p.91]

Like a blurrier version of Tame Impala's Lonerism, each listen reveals further pleasures. [Sep 2013, p.91]

Uncanny Valley mostly just splashes around pleasantly in the easy-listening shallows. [Sep 2013, p.91]