Too many of these frictionless Eurodisco makeweights only prove that great, urgent, heart-tugging electro-pop is easy to stimulate but difficult to pull off successfully. [Jun 2013, p.75]

MCII hits you with the immediacy of a record that you're listening to for the first time but feel like you've already heard a thousand times and yet still aren't bored of. [Jun 2013, p.70]

While there's nothing wildly original on In Technicolor, the energy and attitude that relative youngsters Georg Conrad and Marius Bubat stir into their psychedelic synthpop and off-kilter electro suggests that they know the rules well enough to be able to gently subvert techno cliches. [May 2013, p.69]

It's a beauty. [Jun 2013, p.81]

Their fourth album continues in the vein of 2011's Last Night On Earth, divining its inspiration from cool, crisp '80s US new wave, "Every Breath You Take" bass lines, Brat Pack soundtracks and wistful songs about girls. [Jun 2013, p.76]

The songwriting basks in his love of music, freedom, friendship, dogs and tractors. [Jun 2013, p.78]

The sparser moments are undoubtedly tender, but the reverential glow soon dims, and the cliched cries of empowerment don't help. [Apr 2013, p.74]

Cox's wistful croon and a proto-motorik chug are as wonderfully deadly as ever. [Jun 2013, p.71]

It all kinda works. [Jun 2013, p.73]

There are some creative dead-ends, but there is enough here to warrant a reappraisal. [Jun 2013, p.94]

Kate St. John's arrangements are suitably elegant, but most of the performances here are proof that Drake's gaunt, under-performed songs do not welcome wobbly bottom-lipped reinterpretation. [Jun 2013, p.81]

It's an impressive cast, matched by the energy and eccentricity of the contemporary and traditional songs alike. [Jun 2013, p.81]

It's a riot of scattershot styles. [Jun 2013, p.81]

Images Du Futur is an altogether sleazier affair on which Suuns, toughened and grubby from two years on the road, come into their own. [Jun 2013, p.79]

[The] excellent follow-up [to its 2010 debut] finds John Kowalski and Rian Trench playing to their strengths with horizons newly broadened. [Jun 2013, p.79]

Light Up Gold packs 15 songs in 33 minutes, and most are great. [Jun 2013, p.78]

Fandango, their fifth album, is built of the same stuff [as 2011's Buffalo], though with a grander sense of scope and ambition. [Jun 2013, p.78]

While the album is too long, he consistently crafts a fine tune. [Jun 2013, p.78]

Nelson being Nelson, this lackadaisy tends toward the affable and charming more often than not. [Jun 2013, p.76]

Off The Record marks a return to form. [Jun 2013, p.69]

Jello is still in good voice, so this could basically pass for a mid-80s Dead Kennedys album, were it not for the contemporary references. [Jun 2013, p.69]

There is splendid piano-pop, leanly recorded excursions in cosmic prog, and evidence of an occasional charming eccentricity. [Jun 2013, p.71]

While there's pleasure to be had from the band's exuberant MC5-meets-AC/DC racket, their dubious tales of salt-of-the-earth hookers, as found in "Call Girl Blues," and drunken lechery, outlined the willfully crass "Hungover And Horny" takes the retro vibe too far. [Jun 2013, p.71]

Heza still contains several terrific examples of hooky guitar pop. [Jun 2013, p.73]

He successfully channels Sam Cooke, especially on "We Don't Sleep" but the album's length and lo-fi production makes Bye Bye 17 appear disconcertingly slight. [Jun 2013, p.74]

Audacious and urgent. [Jun 2013, p.74]

It's all enjoyably preposterous. [Jun 2013, p.75]

The tone of observational distance build to an understated climax with "Shadow Boy." [Jun 2013, p.74]

This second album feels less mannered than 2010 debut Fields. [Jun 2013, p.75]

It works beautifully. [Jun 2013, p.75]

Recording session helmed by Spoon drummer Jim Eno drew the band out of their comfort zone, with generally positive results. [May 2013, p.65]

Cigars all around for these sludge-metal/grunge veterans, then, with a set that values hand-on-heart appreciation over novelty. [May 2013, p.74]

Some nice wordplay and a sultry cameo from Asia Argento ensure that Praxis Makes Perfect is fun, if musically flimsy. [May 2013, p.75]

Ready To Die was never going to match Raw Power. When you’re 65, rekindling youth’s righteous fury can sound like grouchiness or--worse--play-acting. But there are worthwhile moments, mostly when Williamson leaves space for Pop to express his vulnerability.

Johnston's own songs, though jauntily paced, come with familiar themes of isolation, despair and the cruelty of love. [May 2013, p.73]

Electric guitars squall in the climax of "Gonna Be Good," setting up the cinematic strings of "Someone New." Thereafter, however, the muted acoustic arrangements convey little of the poignancy contained in Kelly's lyrics. [Feb 2013, p.74]

It's an accomplished, evilly wrought set piece, but the acid-etched disco blues of "Poison Apple" is a standout. [May 2013, p.79]

An engagingly simple and yet sophisticated third album, full of elegant melodies, shuffling percussion and bewitching Marling-esque vocals. [May 2013, p.67]

While all perfectly pleasant and expertly played, there's a nagging wish that Richey would break out of her comfort zone more often. [May 2013, p.76]

Hardy's voice is considerably less breathy than in her '60s and '70s heyday, though it now has a pleasing steeliness to it. [May 2013, p.72]

Occasionally things get somewhat overcooked into Del Ray-ish melodrama. The More understated moments--"Fool" and "All Of Me"--are beautiful, slow-burning torch songs. [May 2013, p.68]

SeiTang's solo project is about extracting the trance-inducing goodness from equipment resurrected from the cusp of analogue and digital ages, so Badalamenti/Lynch Twin Peaks and Vangelis' Blade Runner are key reference points. [May 2013, p.78]

Pretty straight by the Puppets' wobbly standards, but still bewitchingly unhinged. [May 2013, p.74]

For those of us in love with Something/Anything and A Wizard, A True Star, recent Rundgren LPs have us squinting our ears, trying to locate the genius hidden behind obfuscating layers of electronic bluster. [May 2013, p.76]

There's nothing insubstantial about this fabulous comeback. [May 2013, p.68]

The Low Highway settles into a sustained crosshatching of strummed and plucked strings, paralleling the feel of a road trip, the initial elation giving way to an endless pattern of forest and farmland as America whizzes past as a steady 90mph. [May 2013, p.72]

Though the 18-minute celestial sludge of "The Opulent Decline" conjures all the right imagery, you suspect Oneohtrix Point Never invariably got there first. [May 2013, p.67]

It's too early to pass judgement, but in pursuit of Burdon's stated ambition to "finish my career with my head held high," 'Til Your River Runs Dry finds his mission fully on course, a hero returned. [May 2013, p.64]

Dawes come into their own as an articulate, self-assured SoCal rock band. [May 2013, p.69]

Humility and sobriety suits a band who have never sounded more fresh and alive. [May 2013, p.73]

Passages of modish electro show that they're certainly on top of things, yet their heart remains pure pop. [May 2013, p.75]

The results are extraordinary. [May 2013, p.76]

They don't sound so zeitgeisty anymore, but [single] "Mosquito" caterwauls mightily, and the closing "Wedding Song" is a feat of lip-quivering sensitivity up there with "Maps." [May 2013, p.79]

It's the record fans of her explosive live shows always hoped she would make and a career highlight. [May 2013, p.79]

It's a tough, late-night, soul-searching kind of process that Kurt Vile signed up for here. It's a testament to his talent that he takes it so seriously, but makes it all sound effortless. [May 2013, p.61]

The results may lack the stamp of originality, but the likes of "Silver Living," "Giving Out," and "I Know It's You" are vibrant, brimful of melody and lots and lots of fun. [May 2013, p.71]

If Sigur Ros shared a cottage in Dovedale, they might just sound as magical as this. [May 2013, p.71]

From the Ground Up takes a heartland rock template and imbues it with tougher, weather-beaten elements asking big questions. [Apr 2013, p.72]

It's the bruised and pensive love songs, such as "Broken Thoughts" and "Ninja," and the sci-fi sleaze of "Chainsaw," that stick and make The Ascent a contrived pop product with its heart and mind intact. [May 20113, p.79]

The arrangements are bigger, the language more dense, the symbolism darker. [May 2013, p.72]

The themes are invariably dark but there's always a groove. [May 2013, p.67]

You Have Already Gone to the Other World, produced by Deerhoof's John Dieterich, is their best yet. [May 2013, p.65]

Holiday is resolutely sombre, but the arrangements make inviting drama out of Principe's impressionistic lyrical intimacies. [May 2013, p.75]

If Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix was the album that gave Phoenix everything they'd always strived for, Bankrupt! is the record that finds them trying to come to terms with it all. [May 2013, p.80]

This duo's songs are genetic pop mutations, scampering out of control. [Apr 2013, p.73]

Professor Beam has made his first art movie, and it's a stunner. [May 2013, p.70]

The Besnard Lakes' fourth album doesn't really add anything new to the heady concoction of symphonic shoegaze, doo-wop and spy stories they perfected on 2007's Are The Dark Horse, but it's always a pleasure to hear them work up a storm. [May 2013, p.67]

A couple of the more freeform screamers may be a holler too far for some ears, but there's no denying the passion and power of Bradley's formidable lungs. [Apr 2013, p.67]

Always confident in his ability, here he conjures sublime moments with "Retrograde" and ""digital Lion" before violating each with curdled klaxons, his voice throughout pitched persuasively somewhere between Antony Hegarty and Jeff Buckley. [May 2013, p.67]

Four albums in, and Cold War Kids still feel like a band trying to decide what they are. [May 2013, p.69]

There's only one possible word for this: rad. [May 2013, p.79]

Impossible Truth says more with six strings than most records manage with a thousand words. [May 2013, p.79]

It's a soul-searchingly strong set. [May 2013, p.78]

Marnia tones down the more extreme histrionics that made earlier albums and acquired taste. [May 2013, p.78]

The debut album by this French five-piece sends an icy wind cutting through their shoegaze haze. [May 2013, p.78]

Inspired song choices further deepen the spell in a beguiling instant classic from a masterful soul stylist. [May 2013, p.78]

As with most "difficult" albums, the more one listens, the more forgiving they become. [May 2013, p.77]

Even if this [air of refined sophistication] can occasionally make Women feel a little bloodless, you have to marvel at the exquisite execution. [May 2013, p.76]

Some may find it too clean, but it's still thunderously good. [May 2013, p.75]

"FBI" sounds like a comatose disco track being sung in a toilet, but the default position is a weirdly bluesy take on Krautrock. [May 2013, p.75]

The partners [Peyroux and producer Larry Klein] and arranger Vince Mendoza breathe new life into iconic songs. [May 2013, p.75]

Pearl Necklace seem to be honing their edge, not losing it. [May 2013, p.75]

These moody, brooding pieces avoid TV cliche and occasionally produce gems in their own right. [May 2013, p.74]

Afropop sparkle to jazzy bounce and shoe gaze shimmer, but too often these exotic ingredients feel like undigested dilettante dabblings. [May 2013, p.74]

Lapalux is already in the foothills of greatness. [May 2013, p.73]

Pure pleasure for lovers of deep soul music? Absolutely. [May 2013, p.73]

It's very generously produced, with effects bursting from every crevice, but the melodies are (just) strong enough to weather it all. [May 2013, p.73]

With Gotan Project's Philippe Cohen producing, the sixty-something plunges into assorted weirdness here. [May 2013, p.73]

Elsewhere, Garner sounds like he's been spending time with Revolver, while songs like "The Ballad Of Little Jane" and the genial swirling "Lullaby" further the rich tradition of Dutch psychedelic pop. [May 2013, p.71]

There's a twisted melancholy to vocalist Brooks Nielsen's lyrics on this third album. [May 2013, p.71]

In spite (or maybe because) of their flaws, there's a vivid presence to tracks like "Heaven" and "My Little Universe" that fans will flock to and onlookers can't help but smile at. [May 2013, p.69]

This year's Slowhand again, for the most part, delves deep into bygone songbooks, flitting between styles with consummate ease. [May 2013, p.69]

It hard to work out what's more annoying from the rest, be it Dustin Payseur's forgot-my-gym-kit vocals, the self-important but frankly juvenile ambient interludes, otr the neat riffs, which sound like plugins from some indie-pop iPad composition app. [May 2013, p.67]

Despite a tendency to drift slightly, BSP remain a reliably warm-hearted antidote to the bustle of modern life. [May 2013, p.68]

Vanishing Point is a riot of dirty--yet never cluttered--Detroit riffs and Mark Arm's laconically enrage vocals. [May 2013, p.74]

American is seldom better than its title track, searing swamp-punk that recalls Grinderman in its diabolic abandon. [Apr 2013, p.78]

Musically, it is business as usual--out-on-the-floor, stack-heeled indie stompers all the way--but if 2010's stark Losing Sleep was a little on the abrupt side, this is more concise still. [Apr 2013, p.75]

New guitarist Matthew Simms has refreshed Wire's sound. [Apr 2013, p.79]