Fuzz and reverb are everywhere, but The Soft Pack are also refreshingly unafraid of the sax solo. [Nov 2012, p.81]

She's at her best on the lachrymose likes of "Close To The Edge" and "Just A Dream," less successful when angling for Grand Ole Opery classicism or-- as on "Un-Break"--flirting with funk-metal pop. [Nov 2012, p.81]

Muse redeem high-camp absurdity with a genius for sumptuous arrangements, mighty pop hooks and irresistible melodrama. [Nov 2012, p.79]

[Their indulgences] can be tiresome--"People On Strong Stuff" plods without purpose--but equally provides passages of uncontained elation. [Nov 2012, p.79]

Silver Age revisits Sugar's thick-set pop style. [Nov 2012, p.79]

The sheer velocity with which they throw ideas out makes this a mighty exhilarating record. [Nov 2012, p.77]

Mala finds his skills somewhat exposed across a whole album as he seeks to balance frisky Cuban percussion with his own muscular poise. [Nov 2012, p.77]

Producer Craig Street's customary forte is smoothness but the grittier Muscle Shoals influence he's channeled here is perfectly tailored. [Nov 2012, p.77]

The album, reminiscent of Jon Spencer at times, exudes a deep love of rock 'n' roll on each track. [Nov 2012, p.77]

Aiming for Springsteen-like glory, they settle instead for overcooked melodrama on parade of would-be anthems sufficiently over the top to make Muse envious. [Nov 2012, p.76]

An intriguing new artist has found his voice. [Nov 2012, p.76]

This 12-song return tones down the pomp, in favour for a return to the band's breathless takes on Ramones/Buzzcocks pop-punk formula. [Nov 2012, p.75]

Where Flying Lotus scatterbrain brings emotive grooves out of madness, GLK can only manage ugly, mostly boring sketches. [Nov 2012, p.75]

It's hard to shake the sensation that the band have become rather more ordinary as a result [of the departure of Frank Carter.] [Nov 2012, p.73]

Folds stays true to his career-long mission to whisk up a melting pot of musical styles. [Nov 2012, p.73]

It is often reminiscent of auntie's work, but with a solid beat underpinning. [Nov 2012, p.73]

Breakup Song is all right, but ultimately, it's an unnecessary listen. [Nov 2012, p.72]

A discreet, quietly rapturous record. [Nov 2012, p.72]

A collection that feels more art project than album. [Nov 2012, p.71]

The country shadings are less obvious, but the mood has darkened, with cinematic strings wrapping themselves around the pedal steel. [Sep 2012, p.80]

Under the deft guidance of Alabama Shakes producer Andrija Tokic, even her tendency to outbreaks of over-shrill soprano trilling sounds strangely compelling. [Oct 2012, p.79]

Tasteful without being sterile, diverse but grounded in Knopfler's melancholy mumble and quicksilver guitar, Privateering is a quietly soulful triumph. [Oct 2012, p.83]

Frivolous fun, if that's allowed. [Oct 2012, p.86]

[The album] churns and lumbers with ominous, swampy certainty. [Oct 2012, p.83]

A perfect introduction to a musician currently in full stride. [Oct 2012, p.71]

Bingham's steak-potatoes-and whiskey voice hardly makes for a smooth listen, but he pours plenty of passion and desperate visions into his ragged working-class grooves. [Oct 2012, p.73]

the focus on matters of the heart is limiting, reducing the genre to the level of rusticised boy-band pop. [Oct 2012, p.84]

Konkoma's sound is rooted in 1970s Afrobeat, complete with blasting horn section and gloriously fuzzy organ, but shot through with touches of highlife, funk and rock. [Aug 2012, p.75]

West is far from rap's deftest lyricist but his neurotic grandstanding is compelling and often pretty funny to boot. [Feb 2011, p.84]

Her split personality makes for an oddly polarised debut. [Feb 2011, p.84]

The fault lies in the lightweight material. [Feb 2011, p.84]

{A] far superior effort [than Rebirth]. [Feb 2011, p.84]

A cycle of slushy but well-written R&B ballads which pay tribute to his soul heroes. [Feb 2011, p.84]

Charmer plies the familiar recipe on a bed of pealing guitars and burbling synths. [Oct 2012, p.84]

It includes great music, but it still has that hairy, unpredictable, somewhat demented aspect that gives the Blues Explosion its unique spark. [Oct 2012, p.72]

Snatches of flute, sax, and female vocal harmony vocals add sympathetic colour to these sad yet inquisitive songs. [Oct 2012, p.83]

If their painstaking studiocraft has in the past seemed over-refined or even fussy, here they've discovered a new wildness, a liberating sense of drama. [Oct 2012, p.70]

There's uncommon immediacy to Crazy Horse-style bashers like "Knock Knock" and "How To Live," as well as big-sky ballads like "Long Vows." [Oct 2012, p.73]

The duo's artfully woven sonic tapestry is somewhat spoiled by the po-faced new age banalities of their lyrics. [Oct 2012, p.74]

That the album never loses it s way is testament to Deacons' fearless approach, his mastery of different genres and from the thrilling sense of urgency that propels it all forward. [Oct 2012, p.75]

An affecting, lyrical record that makes you feel blessed for not having lived through it, but wiser, so graceful for the ride. [Oct 2012, p.74]

The most infectiously tricked-out rock LP since El Camino. [Oct 2012, p.77]

"Don't Pretend You Didn't Know" is a one-off messing with their recipe, still as compelling a mix of hardcore, jangle-pop, country and speed-metal as it was 25 years ago. [Oct 2012, p.77]

Coexist is a masterpiece. [Oct 2012, p.80]

Much of what is great about Stockholm's Holograms can be located in their debut single "ABC City," a testament of the "desolation" of the grim suburbs of their home city delivered in a rowdy street-punk sneer. [Oct 2012, p.81]

The samey pace and understated mood can drag, but Pena strikes gold with the light-touch dance-pop arrangements. [Oct 2012, p.81]

This is creating at its most creative as he thrillingly twists the blues into phantasmagorical new shapes with an almost Beefheartian sense of adventure. [Oct 2012, p.83]

Damon Albarn and Portishead's Beth Gibbons drop by to provide some haunting counterpoint to DOOM's gruff verbal gymnastics. [Oct 2012, p.83]

For My Parents is an sentimental as it is majestic. [Oct 2012, p.84]

Mostly, though, Morrisette succumbs to her dual predilections for quasi-spirituality and stultifying sappiness. [Oct 2012, p.84]

This, then, is a rich and strange new sound for Marshall. [Oct 2012, p.85]

The remainder of In Limbo colonises the liminal space between harmony pop and spacecraft noise with giddy style. [Oct 2012, p.86]

This compellingly skewed mix of '60s neat, garage psych and country folk is business as (un)usual. [Oct 2012, p.86]

Sumptuous and sprawling, his major label debut comfortably backs up the hype. [Oct 2012, p.86]

More of this arch British sourness next time. Please. [Oct 2012, p.86]

Drew's desire to be all things to all 'hoods is the weakness of the soundtrack to his debut movie. [Oct 2012, p.86]

The Ethan Johns-produced follow-up sees their punky, Spectorish pop continue to evolve.[Oct 2012, p.87]

Number 14 sees them rejigged as a quintet, allowing their reverb-drenched sounds to spread where they will. [Oct 2012, p.87]

"The Reason Why" and "Motoring" swath Tom Dougall's sighed vocal in sheets of Ride-like guitar. [Oct 2012, p.87]

Trent is as solid as an anvil in his straightman's role, while Hearst is a real firecracker. [Sep 2012, p.85]

Porterfield has a way of entwining lyrical detail and broad sentiment that is compelling and original. [Sep 2012, p.76]

Given a fuzzed-out, subterranean production glaze, Butter filters everything from surf and lounge touches to Spaghetti Western flourishes, but is best when spinning cool pop hooks up out of the muck. [Oct 2012, p.87]

Centipede Hz is an album that both gazes up into the cosmos, and stares down into the dirt--and perhaps that's not so weird.

Tempest is in many respects the most far-reaching, provocative and transfixing album of Dylan's later career.

Live with it a little and Algiers reveals itself to be a warm and compassionate affirmation of the band's deep-rooted DNA, with enough fresh twists to keep this compelling story moving forward.

Pleiades may not live up to the cerebral promise of its title, but boats songs, in the likes of "Play," "Sunset & Echo," and single "Further." [Sep 2012, p.74]

The soundtrack works beautifully without reference to the [1975] movie. [Sep 2012, p.96]

Orfeo's spare soundscape can sometimes seem a bit frugal, but Hield proves a versatile frontwoman. [Aug 2012, p.73]

The irony is that Mature Themes, full of nonsense and wonderful ideas, further cements his reputation as one of the more vital voices of his generation.

Yirga wears his influences too obviously on the introspective solo pieces, but these are early days. [Aug 2012, p.83]

On cutesy likes of "King And Lionheart," they're closer in spirit to the plague of emoters loosed upon the world by the success of Mumford & Sons. [Sep 2012, p.81]

Barwuick's reliably beautiful voice sits at the back of the mix, observing the shimmering sonic haze below her. [Sep 2012, p.81]

Hot Cakes adds little to their hybrid Queen, AC/DC, Van Halen and Gun N' Roses, but their air-punching thrills of "Forbidden Love" and "Concrete" are undeniable. [Sep 2012, p.74]

They appear to have moved back into full-on Afrika 70 revivalism. [Sep 2012, p.73]

The songs are assured, strident and catchy, but often fairly cringeworthy too. [Sep 2012, p.73]

It's clear that if he wants to, he could easily command proceedings alongside his pals Walls and Four Tet. [Sep 2012, p.75]

It's very earnest. [Sep 2012, p.79]

The Chi-Lites' "Stoned Out Of My Mind" is ruined by needless melismatics, and the Broken Bells cover is no match for the White Stripes track on Vol. 1. But Gems include a half-tempo version of the Womacks' "Teardrops" and a stately reading of Eddie Floyd's "Nobody But You." [Sep 2012, p.86]

It revolves around bleak, squalling repetitions and a mood of wretched abjection. But Gira's voice has weathered grandly. [Sep 2012, p.86]

[Perry] rambles--incomprehensibly, as ever--over various trippy soundscapes from Alex Paterson and Thomas Fehlmann. [Sep 2012, p.82]

The result is a record that's primarily dedicated to beauty but with an engagingly playful spirit. [Sep 2012, p.83]

In a recording career that stretches back more than four decades, Ry Cooder has never before made an album as immediate as Election Special.

While James Murphy's homages are leavened with irony and discrete heartache, Dear is more po-faced than pomo. [Sep 2012, p.75]

There are proficient pastiches...[and] there are plenty of chugging, 6/8 neo-soul ballads. [Sep 2012, p.79]

A glossy but incoherent neo-rave pastiche. [Sep 2012, p.87]

Ascent sounds like Chasny channeling a great band's alchemical powers to his own ends, in the process making what may turn out to be a highpoint in his already rich and complex career. [Sep 2012, p.78]

Hardly the most disciplined or versatile singer, Shaver gets over on the strength of his writing. [Aug 2012, p.79]

Nevertheless, for all its omissions and repetitions, the sheer scale of this archive still feels like an exemplary work of preservation. [Sep 2012, p.92]

Despite the contemporary sheen too much here is reminiscent of a certain kind of overwrought mid-80s synthpop. [Sep 2012, p.87]

An oddly one-note follow-up. [Sep 2012, p.76]

Where Yorkston's last album was precisely drawn, the follow-up is looser and less beholden to strict arrangements, and more willing to let the musicians dictate the pace. [Sep 2012, p.84]

Global Fusion at its most accessible. [Aug 2012, p.67]

An album as heartfelt as it is musically and thematically ambitious. [Jul 2012, p.67]

Redd Kross' comeback is a stunner, taut, hyper-melodic songwriting and heavenly harmonies wed to a veritable barrage of fierce hooks and riffs. [Aug 2012, p.78]

The Wolf You Feed slithers through its dark business with reckless abandon and brute force. [Sep 2012, p.85]

It's a little too polite to beak new ground, but it certainly draws attention to more than a dozen fine--and largely overlooked--melodies from Elton's golden era. [Sep 2012, p.91]

Country Funk unearths further lesser-known practitioners of this mythical genre. [Sep 2012, p.101]

The loss of drummer Jimmy Chamberlain smarts, but "Quasar" and the :The Celestials" recall the Pumpkins' '90s heyday with out coming over as retread. [Sep 2012, p.86]