This score suggests many of those Nine Inch Nails tricks hold good. [mar 2012, p.97]

2007's Burnt Toast & offerings established her as the natural successor to Lucinda Williams--this does not contradict the notion. [Mar 2012, p.97]

Meiburg's troubled tenor is abetted by sinewy arrangements full of the disquiet of that decade. [Mar 2012, p.95]

In this mood, 57 minutes with Barnes is exhausting. [Mar 2012, p.94]

Already it feels like they're playing to a rapidly disappearing crowd. [Mar 2012, p.89]

This handsome debut bristles with ideas that could lead to some truly remarkable music later on. [Mar 2012, p.89]

The lustrous "In Your Light" alone should see his name on billboards. [Mar 2012, p.87]

It is Lanegan's most accessible to date. [Mar 2012, p.83]

Impeccably arranged, the whole thing plays out like an extended, pragmatic version of "A Day In The Life." [Mar 2012, p.82]

Air seem to have found little fresh inspiration in his bricolage. [Mar 2012, p.79]

Other Lives are clearly kindred spirits of The National, but there's not a single clunky or derivative note here. [Sep 2011, p.93]

The best moments ion this latest from Francois Marry come with added West African sparkle. [Feb 2012, p.86]

The old-timey accompaniment and Dalton's bluesy vocals perfectly suit Hardin's exquisitely sad songs. [Feb 2012, p.83]

All over the shop stylistically--but a keen handle on dynamics and narrative holds it all together. [Feb 2012, p.97]

The patchwork of Orb-like sonic tapestries and guest vocals by some uncharacteristically gnarly rock veterans is not hugely original, but still manages to engage. [Feb 2012, p.84]

The result is four meandering tracks. [Feb 2012, p.89]

Royal Trux's '80s junk aesthetic has since been appropriated by James Ferraro et al, but Herrema does it with a sneer that's hard to resist. [Feb 2012, p.81]

In many ways Clay Class is another helping of their broken blues and Stuckist infra-poetry, charting a Fallen landscape, stripped even of grotesque enchantment. [Feb 2012, p.97]

Dramatic and ravishing, 100 Acres of Sycamore is some achievement.

The trio's blend of live performance, samples and electronica is hardly groundbreaking. [Feb 2012, p.98]

Laura J. Martin's debut album is an extraordinary and eclectic mix of flute, loops, mandolin and xylophone. [Feb 2012, p.92]

All and all, it's a little too cool for its own good. [Feb 2012, p.97]

Cooing fragmentary, dreamlike lyrics in a fuzzy-warm purr, this young singer's kittenish vocal affectations will grate on some... [but] Dillon redeems her whimsy with promising nods towards Bjork, Joanna Newsom and Lykke Li. [Jan 2012, p.84]

The mood flickers between foreboding and playful; blues for modern times. [Jan 2012, p. 93]

Starts loud, alienated and proudly rockist, and stays right there. [Jan 2012, p. 93]

Delrey loves rock'n'roll, but fuses it with drum machines, vintage synths and mischief. [Jan 2012, p. 84]

An unusually poetic songwriter revelling in his proximity to nature. [Jan 2012, p.88]

These Aesop-style animal-themed fables combine elegantly quirky orchestral chamber-pop arrangements with barbed and knotted lyrics. [Feb 2012, p.84]

Back On Time is restlessly inventive without being overwrought. [Feb 2012, p.97]

An album that is as eccentric as it is atmospheric. [Feb 2012, p.90]

It's the intoxicating instrumentals, "Boudica" and "In Motion Slow," that remind you of her capricious talent. [Feb 2012, p.91]

Some tracks suffer, not from a lack of inherent quality but from the fact that you've already heard any number of perfectly decent, faithful reading of them. [Feb 2012, p.88]

Enjoyable stuff. [Feb 2012, p.81]

There's a punch that saves them [from] drifting into coffee-table politesse. [Feb 2011, p.98]

Gonjasufi's nervous energy makes MU.ZZ.LE strangely soothing. [Feb 2012, p.86]

Klara and Johanna Soderberg have crafted a remarkably mature work. [Feb 2012, p.84]

For the most part, tired melodies and banal lyrics make for a disappointing collection. [Feb 2012, p.83]

You could call it happy hardcore, even if there's nothing particularly upbeat about its content. [Feb 2012, p.83]

Tragedy and Geometry is exquisite and detailed to an almost obsessive-compulsive degree. [Jan 2012, p.89]

The first disc of 4CD retrospective of their early mid-90s work is an embarrassment of riches. [Feb 2012, p.84]

The best tracks ooze a kind of drowsy melancholy. [Feb 2012, p.86]

With everything slathered liberally in reverb, Ester is wrong in all the right ways. [Feb 2012, p.90]

Be Strong is warm and easy comfort food for recessionary midlife ravers. [Feb 2012, p.90]

The sound's core remains Matthew Caws' candyfloss voice, but Doug Gillard's guitar adds mettle. [Feb 2012, p.94]

Strange Weekend drifts and delights. [Feb 2012, p.97]

You're left wondering how much more impressive Wilson's stroking pipes might sound with less gauche material. [Feb 2012, p.92]

The content is often too light and derivative to suggest they really are saviors in waiting. [Feb 2012, p.89]

This captures The Cure at their crowd-pleasing best, an ageless band reveling in their past. [Feb 2012, p.83]

There is, as usual, a lot of brass on cake's sixth album, a flourish that seem idiosyncratic 20 years ago but now leaves them sounding a little stale. [Feb 2012, p.83]

An album that pores over the passing and the past with such defiant, deadpan nobility. [Feb 2012, p.78]

This is a more low-key collection. [Feb 2012, p.94]

Unsophisticated but utterly infectious. [Feb 2012, p.102]

A splendid showcase of their cavalier eclecticism, [Feb 2012, p.105]

It's well-crafted, but clunky. [Feb 2012, p.105]

Quality is spotty, though. [Feb 2012, p.106]

Let's Go eat A factory is not a brilliant album and of itself, but it does cast guided By Voices in a slightly different light. [Feb 2012, p.95]

The Little Willies keep things gorgeously spartan, with barely an unnecessary note placed anywhere. [Feb 2012, p.93]

Even at its best, Given To The Wild sounds like British Sea power without the esoteric charm, which is hardly the heartiest of recommendations. [Feb 2012, p.91]

It's hard to conceive of a more thrillingly romantic record than this. [Feb 2012, p.85]

Clear Heart Full Eyes is a low-key triumph, containing some of the most emotionally satisfying work Finn has yet produced. [Feb 2012, p.82]

The album sags in the middle, descending into slick electro-rock territory worryingly reminiscent to Garbage, but the good songs are terrific. [Feb 2012, p.81]

This Is Christmas [is] neither turkey nor cracker but a sweetly silly trifle. [Jan 2012, p.86]

Pleasant, but hardly original. [Dec 2011, p.90]

Altogether, a fascinating portrait of a man making sense of both himself and his times. [Dec 2011, p.94]

As ever with such pumped up reissues, the original album is still where the value does or doesn't lie. Most of Quadrophenia has stood the test of the decades better than might be expected. [Dec 2011, p.97]

It's bookended by two tracks that pastiche liquid funk and jungle with such faithfulness they might seem pointless to anyone but nostalgic former ravers, but in between there's much to love. [Jan 2012, p.104]

All totally fine, of course, but next time a little passion and personality won't go amiss. [Jan 2012, p.103]

It's a sweet-natured and seemingly uncynical exercise which, while pretty enough, brings nothing new to these well-worn ditties. [Jan 2012, p.101]

The proof is in the music; it sounds juts great. [Jan 2012, p.98]

Never did the Pumpkins build more sonically gorgeous than this...For those that haven't plumbed the depths of the Pumpkins catalog, it's a fair brace. [Jan 2012, p.97]

Bob Ludwig's remaster job adds fine detail, and a second CD collects 18 tracks, mostly diverting. [Jan 2012, p.97]

The chronological sequencing, kicking off with the delightfully sloppy "Gardening At night" from the "Chronic Town" EP, charts a course from indie college jangle to pensive AOR, and tracks fro their latter days on the IRS label sparkle with eloquence and grandeur. [Jan 2012, p.96]

Even though the Neptunes have long gone off the boil, their contributions are so much better than those of the other assembled "star" producers. [Jan 2012, p.96]

Mailman offers an insider's glimpse into his beginnings--a spirited 1970s club set and a priceless disc of stripped-down, gloss-free demos. [Jan 2012, p.96]

If the second stash contains a suspicion that the best stuff got smoked first time around, the spirit and energy of the first record are still here in abundance. [Jan 2012, p.95]

Highlights include the waltzing "About As Helpful As You Can Be Without Being Any Help At All" and a breathless canter through the Broken Social Scene stylings of "Post-War Blues." [Jan 2012, p.93]

Severant works better than you'd think, and at its best it is breathtaking. [Jan 2012, p.90]

This release compiles non-album tracks, remixes and a couple of new tunes, but it feels like a perfectly focused set of retro-modernist dance. [Jan 2012, p.90]

It's Hit-and-miss but lots of fun, with real skill and joie de vivre behind the incessant experimentation. [Jan 2012, p.90]

A supremely sassy swansong. [Jan 2012, p.90]

Producer Ludwig Goransson imbues the beats with a comparable degree of pomp, although we could have done without diversions into cheesy Swede-pop. [Jan 2012 p.88]

If the Plastic Beach-era material gets a bit bogged down in the concept, it's not without its moments. [Jan 2012, p.86]

If rock is indeed dead, then albums like thus are its extended intelligent coda, its sustained afterburn. [Jan 2012, p.82]

Gleefully adulterated here with generous slugs of dubstep, dancehall, rock, R&B, baile funk and anything else that fits the fervent party mood. [Jan 2012, p.82]

Most of it so beautiful and effortless and easy, and no matter how much you want to look for ghoulish clues, it sounds like a great new record by someone spectacularly alive. [Jan 2012, p.83]

Brun's vocals can be spine-tinglingly gorgeous and annoyingly mannered, often in the same song. [Jan 2012, p.81]

The results are impressive. [Jan 2012, p.81]

Music For Confluence lacks imagination and dynamic, with gentle fuzz and weak violin failing to conjure any sort of atmosphere. [Jan 2012, p.81]

Last Day Of Summer is as good as anything White Denim have ever done. [Jan 2011, p.80]

Dreamy, classic-sounding pop nuggets, sung by Cox with a wry, casual authority. [Jan 2011, p.79]

El Camino feels like the dawn of greatness. [Jan 2012, p.76]

The retro flavours are only one strand of an alert, impressive collaboration. [Dec 2011, p.104]

The Rifles' standard formula is cliche-ridden but effective. [Dec 2011, p.95]

The synergy between electronics and organic instrumentation, sometimes an arid and baffling blend in improv, makes this a thrilling listen. [Dec 2011, p.87]

This terrific sequel feels bigger and better. [Dec 2011, p.81]

For the most part this is worthy of a half-decent coffeehouse open mic night, nothing more. [Dec 2011, p.79]

Invoking and evoking just about all the spontaneity and scariness that you'd want from rock'n'roll, Tago Mago can offer experiences as spellbinding as the sequence that originally comprised side one ("Paperhouse", "Mushroom", "Oh Yeah"), or can be so extreme that you feel yourself under attack by maniacs.