Out Of Touch may be sophisticated and complex, but it's also damned groovy, hugely heartfelt and packed ti the gunwales with fizzing tunes. [Feb 2013, p.71]

A second LP that builds on the promise of their 2009 debut, Harum Scarum. [Mar 2013, p.72]

Hammer Down may just be their best yet, the quintet's intense mix of mandolin, banjo and fiddle given added zest by a recent shake-up in personnel. [Feb 2013, p.79]

There's much to admire here, but Flume needs to fix his identity. [Mar 2013, p.72]

Blue Hawaii are more about atmosphere than impact, with the production clearly influenced by Cowan's time in Germany studying at the university if Kompakt. [Mar 2013, p.68]

It's a guarded affair, drawing from the same muted palette of emotions throughout. [Mar 2013, p.73]

Though Mitchell and Hamer avoid the kind of astringent vocal blends favoured by most British singers of these ballads, there's still an intriguing piquancy to their harmonies, with Mitchell's girlish timbre resting against Hamer's milder, warmer tones.

Some stunning inventive improvisation, with pianist Danilo Perez sounding like 10 excited monkeys jumping up and down on the keys. In a good way. [Mar 2013, p.76]

At times the pace crawls, but James' supple, intimate vocals are engaging, and the sonic palette shimmers inventively. [Mar 2013, p.73]

There's something deeply satisfying about the way the songs fit together as an album, their sequence strengthened both by the homogenous tone of the music with its air of wistful melancholy, and by the way each song seems to push the next one forward. [Mar 2013, p.61]

White-knuckle anthemicism is order of the day, and vocalist Elias Bender Ronnenfelt seem to gave grown into his skin. [Mar 2013, p.73]

For all the stray premonitions of patchouli-scented funk-rock, these are less jazz-rock meltdowns and more muscular free improv sessions, ones which suggest a very different direction from Bitches Brew. [Mar 2013, p.89]

The Messenger isn't an album that will blow any non-believer away. It is old fashioned, in many ways. [Mar 2013, p.65]

This seamless synthesis of sinew and silicon is crucial to the album's slippery feel: there's a pleasing fluidity and crooked funkiness to the arrangements that Yorke sometimes struggled to achieve on The Eraser. [Mar 2013, p.66]

Deez's second album ups the wonky'n'witty ante with out sacrificing heart or tunes. [Mar 2013, p.70]

Ives Sepulveda's vocals can be a little puny, but the music is full of clever twists and suddenly blossoming choruses. [Mar 2013, p.73]

A glorious album. [Mar 2013, p.76]

The album is dominated by her fine, Jolie Holland-style whimsical vocals, backed by gorgeous arrangements from the mulch-instrumental band. [Mar 2013, p.70]

Other than the limp "Money," they ["Lose Control" and "Push Yourself"] pull these off pretty well--they're certainly more memorable than bog-standard guitar anthem "welcome To The Rave." [Mar 2013, p.69]

It's a vibrant set with a live feel, alternating between rowdy folk-rockers and some of Thompson's most poignant ballads. [Mar 2013, p.77]

12 pummeling songs of Black Flag-like thump, laced with bleak humour. [Mar 2013, p.76]

Country Sleep will never get a party swinging, but if you're in the mood to have your heart ripped out, it does the job beautifully. [Mar 2013, p.75]

The quality zigzags, but Doughty maintains an agreeably impish spirit. [Mar 2013, p.70]

James Devlin adds orchestral strings and cinematic melodrama to his hard-edged urban rhymes on this cluttered second album. [Mar 2013, p.70]

Holy Fire doesn't quite unfurl its devil horns.... But the production heft from Flood and Alan Moulder, as well as the shameless but satisfying amount of delayed guitar, means it all has serious stadium credentials. [Mar 2013, p.72]

At their best, they sound like a still-warm, half-remembered dream. [Feb 2013, p.79]

The bucolic reverie can't mask the suspicion that something vital is missing. [Mar 2013, p.69]

The songs, musically dazzling with strings and fetching arrangements, sometimes organise themselves into forceful hooks. [Mar 2013, p.77]

A delicate, moving album. [Mar 2013, p.80]

Depleted, but not defeated. [Mar 2013, p.92]

Increasingly straight, maybe, but Wooden Wand still possess a magic touch. [Mar 2013, p.79]

It's a record packed with earworms and a deliciously deadpan charm. [Mar 2013, p.79]

A thrilling, surprisingly melodic dialogue. [Mar 2013, p.77]

The scratchy lo-fi production doubles its mystery, resulting in an album of sensual pleasures and magical power. [Mar 2013, p.77]

A well-rounded triumph. [Mar 2013, p.76]

The songs are all traditional but are given a cool Scandinavian edge. [Mar 2013, p.75]

Wonderful, Glorious sounds, throughout, overwhelmingly like an Eels album.... This consistency has to be admired as testament to the robustness of E's vision. [Mar 2013, p.74]

The effect [sung wordlessly, a cappella, with a multi-tracked choir humming the arrangements] is initially comic but soon becomes utterly mesmeric. [Mar 2013, p.72]

The result is a lovingly recorded scrap of splendour and beauty that takes some of the more interesting elements of MMJ and runs with them in a series of unexpected directions. [Mar 2013, p.71]

The result is a fresh and invigoratingly modern take on black music and as far removed from a musical history lesson as you get. [Mar 2013, p.69]

[It's] a kind of remedial emo-psych-rock, where dunderheaded riffs meet go-nowhere spurts of electronics, while ponderous guitar shadows equally ponderous keys. [Mar 2013, p.68]

It's not as scintillating as we've come to expect from the OutKast camp, but plenty of fun nonetheless. [Mar 2013, p.67]

His technical prowess is thrilling in its time signature hopping. [Mar 2013, p.65]

Mid Air amounts to 14 enigmatic variations on this mood, just piano, voice, the occasional pale moonbeam of orchestration, which miraculously never feels monotonous or morose.

The album seems designed to be experienced immersively in the solitude of a dark room. [Feb 2013, p.78]

Their chemistry is obvious. [Feb 2013, p.74]

Howling from the eye of the storm, Scott Hutchinson's raw holler and bleakly poetic worldview remain the key points of emotional connection. [Feb 2013, p.73]

Theirs is a likably punked-up take on the noise blizzard thing. [Feb 2013, p.74]

Sun-dappled, retro Americana dominates their second album, albeit overlaid with an arsenal of sonic tricks. [Feb 2013, p.70]

Not as good as the original, but an interesting afterthought. [Feb 2013, p.79]

Reviver is a plugged-in, dreamrock album that owes more to the beardy Brooklyn scene. [Feb 2013, p.70]

Less outre than much of Patton's work. [Feb 2013, p.80]

For the most part, Green and Shapiro come over like a couple working their troubles in group therapy through gritted teeth. [Feb 2013, p.73]

It's certainly a bold move that will either send them stratospheric or sink them completely. [Feb 2013, p.71]

This luminously lovely collection is well-judged and intensely personal. [Feb 2013, p.74]

All up, a subtle repositioning that deserves attention. [Feb 2013, p.79]

La Costa Perdida brings them full circle, back to their Californian roots. [Feb 2013, p.80]

He's made one of the great albums of modern Americana, and one suspects that a reluctant star is born.

He shines brightest on the slower material.

This is desert blues that doesn't just trudge into the horizon, but stops to admire the sunset. [Feb 2013, p.69]

More pastoralism wouldn't go astray, but Centralia is very charming. [Feb 2013, p.77]

Welcome tweaks to the template, but Schnauss could do with taking a more dramatic step out of his comfort zone. [Feb 2013, p.78]

Few, if any, artists are pushing the boundaries of traditional music further. [Feb 2013, p.79]

Whispering Trees presents rain-sodden English romanticism of the Nick drake/Bill Fay school occasionally ramped up to cosmic proportions with the help of the Radar Brothers' effects units. [Feb 2013, p.78]

The band excel at giving fans perfectly plotted two-minute bursts of disgust and attrition, epitomised by the splendidly immature, "F*** You." [Feb 2013, p.69]

Only the lovely, finger-picking folk of "Ceilings" and the pulsating "Breakers" approach the perkiness of their breakout single, "Airplanes." [Feb 2012, p.74]

They sacrifice a bit of their identity in the trade-off [to be more pop.][Feb 2013, p.80]

It can at times be truly excellent 21st-century pop, but too often the songwriting just doesn't match up and many tracks are just multitracked signifiers with no connecting tissue. [Feb 2013, p.81]

It's all well-crafted, but the end result can often sound like a slightly disjointed compilation album. [Feb 2013, p.70]

Let It All In is all kitchen-sink realism and mordant one-liners best exemplified in the TS Elliot-influenced "Some Day Better."

The edges may be sharper, the outlook less austere and self-contained, but Villagers are still defined by songs which deliver hook upon hook. [Feb 2013, p.82]

The best thing about Coming Out Of The Fog, then, is that it's charged with possibility--paradoxically, by stripping Heumann's songs back to their core, simplifying and reducing, he's opened up a space in which the group could really ride into the sun. [Feb 2013, p.72]

Wash the Sins Not Only the Face proves they have the songs to match their mood but too often tend to wallow in kohl-eyed cliche. [Feb 2013, p.71]

The defining breeziness of Buddy & Jim could never be mistaken for an ill wind, as such, but there are moments at which it's hard not to wish they'd invested a fourth or even a fifth day in the work. [Feb 2013, p.70]

The Joy Formidable continue to keep British rock sexily sturdy. [Feb 2013, p.74]

Weber masks the scale of the enterprise with typical grace. [Feb 2013, p.77]

Wobble and Levene reunited for this brightly lit, muscly rock collaboration. [Dec 2012, p.79]

At first, Fade sounds like more of the same--which is no bad thing. Stick with it, and the influence of producer (Tortoise') John McEntire becomes apparent. [Feb 2013, p.81]

He's continuing his romp through totally unfashionable styles, armed with his endearingly earnest voice and a lot of flutes. [Feb 2013, p.77]

The outcome never exceeds the sum of its parts. [Feb 2013, p.73]

Last original member standing David Thomas remains inscrutable, defining Lady from Shanghai as an album of dance music. [Feb 2013, p.78]

Hills and valleys, warts and all, Complete Columbia is simply a singular, staggering body of work, throwing down challenges in all directions.

It's a reflective set, enlivened by joyous offerings from The Civil Wars and Carolina Chocolate Drops. [Feb 2013, p.75]

The expanded set illustrates the inventiveness of their playing and the original template of their sound was a strong one--these were louder protest songs for a louder time. [Feb 2013, p.94]

The production is beautifully OTT, with everything stretched and digital, zeroes and ones working binary overtime to warp some of Herrema and Hagerty's greatest anthems into robotic rock mantras. [Feb 2013, p.94]

Its cavernous production, Massed campfire guitars and rolling melodies conjure prairies, river and mountains from shore to shining shore. [Feb 2013, p.75]

Though feisty honky-tonk numbers like "I Don't Do Windows" shimmer, the worldweary ballads--especially the Johnson/Alison Krauss duet "Make The World Go Away"--are Sublime. [Feb 2013, p.74]

Ferraro pulls off the trick of sounding cheap and luxurious all at once. [Feb 2013, p.73]

Utterly self-contained, 10cc's collision of Brill Building Craft, Beatles hooks and proggish daring still sounds, for the most part at least, curiously modern. [Jan 2013, p.89]

It may just be a hobby or distraction, but on this showing they've got serious legs. [Jan 2013, p.80]

This is music that continually slips away from you even as you chase down its essence. [Jan 2013, p.80]

It doubtless works best heard in the cinema or the home theatre, and especially in the context of Julian House's beautifully lurid title sequence.

There is no better evocation of the dawn of a new, more questing consciousness than Joni's early albums.... Unfortunately, Joni's Jazz Odyssey leads her into less agreeable territory on the double-album Don Juan's Reckless Daughter and Mingus, the tribute album of songs co-written with the late Charles Mingus.

It is not the truly transcendent album some may have read in the runes, but it contains several hints that such greatness may, finally, be within his grasp once more.

With Bergsman's dourly dreamy voice and wistful songcraft, it's recognisably indiepop, but sent delightfully pie-eyed on Blur Hawaiians. [Dec 2012, p.77]

Ultimately, it's that compassionate vision of song that resonates through Life Is People, as Fay observes the passing of the days with redemption in mind.

Cut The World blow Hegarty's songs to grander scales. [Sep 2012, p.73]

This is a good, not great record, which you probably don't need to hear, unless you're already immersed in Fennesz's world. [Oct 2012, p.79]