Yet vocal gymnastics cannot compensate for an unmemorable set of tunes. [May 2011, p.91]

"Try To Sleep" and the Kool Keith quoting "Witches" are songs that join classics in their cannon. [May 2011, p.91]

What follows is the most overblown album in recent memory, every song instantly hitting the "big Music" button without giving the listener a chance to become acquainted. [May 2011, p.87]

It lacks many truly original hooks, but this is a nice updating of Count Five-style psych menace to file with fellow lo-fi '60s revivalists like King Khan and Dum Dum Girls. [May 2011, p.82]

The result is a record that demands to live not in some mythologised '80s, but in the here and now. [May 2011, p.81]

Nine Types Of Light suggest they're settling in nicely. [May 2011, p.78]

Their literate, grandly melancholic '80s-influenced rock rarely transcends familiar reference points, but Lou Hill is a passionate, distinctive vocalist. [Apr 2011, p.103]

Not radically reinventive, then, but Vessels deserve to keep their foothold on the post-rock face. [Apr 2011, p.100]

These are glistening sonic fancies picked out in neon and Day-Glo. [May 2011, p.79]

Five years on, New Orleans' Turk Dietrich and Michael Jones return with nine rather more conventionally structured songs than the nebulous, shapeshifting drones of their debut, Orange Language. [May 2011, p.79]

Despite the epic pretensions of the 16-miniute finale, "Tao Of The Dead Part Two,", sadly, this sort of tribute to rock's historical hinterlands yields fewer surprises each time. [May 2011, p.77]

As ever, Simon's work is a strange mix of easy and uneasy listening--it's balm, but it leaves an itch. [May 2011, p.74]

It fuses disparate cultures with such joyous irreverence that, for 40 inspirational minutes, entire notions of national borders and racial divides cease to exist. [Apr 2011, p.77]

Their true talent lies in creating songs replete with dreamy, late summer melancholy, shrouded in dusky reverb and topped off with Justin Young's oddly emotive quaver.[Apr 2011, p.84]

Baltimore multi-instrumental duo Jenn Wasner and Andy Stack have raised their game with this third LP. [Apr 2011, p.103]

The tunes can be slight, and sometimes their spirit of appropriation leaves them rather red-handed. [Apr 2011, p.91]

These are good songs, but they're so boldly signposted, you can see them miles away. [May 2011, p.85]

Despite their monotone and their monoxide fuming, it's hard not to warm to Monotonix, especially when they catch fire. [Apr 2011, p.86]

Nice work all round. [Apr 2011, p.86]

Her quirky homespun arrangements have been toughened and broadened, adding a knowingly retro girl-group stomp and echo-drenched Spector-ish grandeur to windswept heartbreak anthems. [Apr 2011, p.85]

Keren-Ann Zeidal has been covered by Jane Birkin and Francoise Hardy, but here progresses from chansons to create a spectacularly produced pop-art. [Apr 2011, p.85]

Too late for success, maybe, but identity crisis (narrowly) avoided. [Apr 2011, p.84]

You're unlikely to be disappointed. [Apr 2011, p.84]

His primary source is a pipe organ in an Icelandic church, which he processes, filters, deconsecrates, muddles and distorts, and therefore liberates in the course of this album, enabling its latent potential to escape from its wooden room and form a burgeoning cloudscape. [Apr 2011, p.83]

Their debut is an urgent affair full of scratchy, slyly melodic and occasionally anthemic post-punk rock. [Apr 2011, p.83]

Once the shock subsides, it's quite charming. [Apr 2011, p.89]

The real heart of this record seems to lie in moments of stillness and rest, where strung-out slackerdom attains an almost sacred quality. [Apr 2011, p.88]

The musicianship is slick enough, but if you thought their salt-of-the-earth fiddly folkie pose was a bit iffy, this is a whole new level of phoney. [Apr 2011, p.89]

Their no-frills shtick excites in small doses. [Apr 2011, p.89]

Sure, at times, they sound like Gene, but on tracks like "Do You Really Wanna Know" they are nigh-on perfect: Jangly and breathless, with traces of The Smiths but a softer edge. [Apr 2011, p.89]

The result is an album that bursts with life and invention. [Apr 2011, p.89]

Others paying respects are Steve Earle, Kid Rock and Lucinda Williams, though the inclusion of Lee Ann Womack and Faith Hill dilutes the overall impact. [Apr 2011, p.90]

It is guitarist Drew St Ivany who controls the ebb and flow, his use of scintillating, strobe-like textures and groaning chasms of feedback recalling Skullflower, or Comets On fire at their most intense. [Apr 2011, p.91]

Six Organs may be a stylistic cul de sac for Chasny but, on this evidence, who needs a way out? [Apr 2011, p.92]

If TDD's Cure obsession at times gets the better of them, their buoyancy and drive will still fill floors. [Apr 2011, p.95]

The View's handicap is the sheer lumpen ordinariness of their songwriting. [Apr 2011, p.100]

In short, it's a quietly beautiful record: anthemic but not bombastic, introspective yet universal, simply drawn but beautifully coloured in. [Apr 2011, p.82]

Producer Hal Wilner again helms this follow-up but the chemistry proves more fitful. [Apr 2011, p.80]

The band's one weakness lies in the voice of Orkney folk obsessive Erland Cooper, a thin, plain instrument that fails to engage. But the unpredictable, symphonic arrangements of "Emmeline" and the title track make exciting connections between ancient and modern with a dark nonchalance, [Apr 2011, p.80]

Eleventh Dream Day may be getting on, but there are no signs of them growing stale. [Apr 2011, p.80]

Perhaps they should have been more democratic in the past, because this is a terrific record that plays to The Strokes; Strengths and also adds fresh colour to their palette. [Apr 2011, p.79]

His seventh sees few stylistic changes. [Apr 2011, p.78]

The poacher has turned into a sophisticated gamekeeper, plotting a course on this fine debut between pulsing cosmic electronics and trippy, after-hours pop. [Apr 2011, p.78]

A joyfully inspired album from a band who give pomp a good name. [Apr 2011, p.78]

At 14 tracks, what begins as a demonstration of impressive ambition ends up dragging. [Apr 2011, p.78]

Smith's squeaky, adenoidal vocal, long a barrier to Danielson's popular acceptance, has softened somewhat, while the band are in fine form. [Apr 2011, p.78]

It's Cervenka's superb vocals that make this a carer highlight. [Apr 2011, p.77]

While not quite a handbrake turn, No witch shows a band moving out of the woods into wider spaces. [Apr 2011, p.77]

They've sorted through a kitbag of 80 songs and made good on the potential. [Apr 2011, p.77]

Collapse Into Now can only sound like an afterthought, but it nevertheless one which bristles and fizzes with invigorating qualities of wit and fury. [Apr 2011, p.76]

The sense of naive wonder evident recalls the bewitching power of Sigur Ros. [Apr 2011, p.75]

Her brush with the big boys only appears to have strengthen her resolve on a collection of fierce country rockers. [Apr 2011, p.75]

A dizzying positivity is the constant in this adventure in fractal sonics. [Apr 2011, p.75]

Several tunes put the talents of Bradford-based Hladowski siblings Chris and Stephanie to stunning effect on vocals and amplified bouzouki respectively. [Apr 2011, p.75]

Josh Pearson has gone there so we don't have to--we should be grateful he's returned to tell the tale. [Apr 2011, p.72]

The Leeds-based electro-rock five-piece set their sights shamelessly high on this grandiose second LP, a novelistic collection of characters journeying through a lavish panorama of cinematic sounds. [Mar 2011, p.101]

The Luyas concentrate on sounding endearing rather than epic. [Mar 2011, p.94]

More often than not, Ben appears to be channeling his hero JJ Cale, although the spirited title track doffs a beret in the direction of Richard Thompson. [Mar 2011, p.97]

This is a bleakly beautiful record which unfolds slowly. [Apr 2011, p.87]

There's no grief-striken balladry, though: Michel Poiccard namely sticks to the helium noise vandalism template set by 2008 debut Worldwide, with the addition of some surprisingly winsome pop excursions in a similar vein to The Drums. [Mar 2011, p.86]

All suggest that this band is in the process of remaking itself for a vital midlife. [Mar 2010, p.85]

Fun, but unless you're seven, not essential. [Mar 2011, p.93]

Ringo Deathstarr here reveal their maxi-cranked, MBV/Jesus and Mary Chain adoration in full. [March 2011, p. 99]

Living With Yourself showcases McGuire's playing with minimal adornment. [Nov 2010, p.94]

This, assembled by Menahan Street Band guitarist Tom Brenneck, painstakingly recreates the tropes of classic '60s Southern soul--impassioned vocals, shimmering guitars and fruity horns. [Mar 2010, p.85]

Johns eliminates the melodramatic slow builds and punches up the groove quotient, much as he did for Ryan Adams on the similarly melancholy Heartbreaker. [Mar 2011, p.85]

It finds her singing in an appealing vibrato somewhere between Dolly Parton and Stevie Nicks. Her Aesthetic, though, is a million miles from the lacquered gloss of either as she delivers her lyrics of desperate melancholia over a raw, all-hope-is-gone sound which conjures the emotional brutality of Tonight's The Night. [Feb 2011, p.99]

They've been an oddly schizophrenic beast, vacillating between sparse dronescapes and percussive rock jams conducted with primitive intensity. Peer Amid sits in the latter camp, although it constitutes both a sharpening offocus and a step up in ambition. [Feb 2011, p.99]

Something Dirty captures guitarist Jean Herve Peron and drummer Werner"Zappi" Diermaier plus Bad Seeds James Johnston and the artist Geraldine Swayne-- continually to shape-shift around the margins of rock. [Feb 2011, p.84]

This 2Cd singles set shows them to be capable of more mainstream, dreamy pop. [Feb 2011, p.96]

Blessed is a powerful, vivid, highly emotive record. [Mar 2011, p.92]

It does still summon some of the spirit and occasionally the joyfulness that should attend a first record. [Mar 2011, p.90]

These are brilliant songs; but they simply reminds us of too many others who got there first. [Mar 2011, p.100]

Marked by lovely, unobtrusive backing by various Lambchop alumni, the overriding impression is of Wagner and Tidwell serving the songs rather than playing out lingering Conway & Loretta Fetish. [Nov 2010, p.92]

The fall and Dead Kennedys are the key influences here. [Dec 2010, p.109]

They strain for transcendent, neo-religious euphoria; sometimes they get there. [Feb 2011, p.99]

It's a subtly affecting record, hushed, austere, grasping for simple peace of mind with gorgeously rendered standards. [Feb 2011, p.93]

Uneven it may be, The Palace Guards s just as often sublime. [Feb 2011, p.90]

With Ring, Mesirow concocts a fractured pop that accentuates the layers of electronic composition, though her voice is the guiding instrument. [Dec 2010, p.104]

The pervading mood of ennui and desolation begs for some light relief, but the title track speaks volumes for her poise. [Dec 2010, p.104]

The sound is rather dry, and James Murphy's vocals have sounded stronger, but the different nuances audible in "Us V Them" and "Drunk Girls" make this if not a bang, certainly very far from a whimper. [Jan 2011, p.93]

If Geldof had been able to restrain his instinct toward baffling over-production, he might have come up with something that fulfilled the promise of its title. [Mar 2011, p.91]

They've wrangled a tougher, just weird-enough synthesis, with "Trails" borrowing Yeah Yeah Yeahs' brio and "Perfectly Crystal" likely to impress fans of both Pet Shop Boys and Flaming Lips. [Mar 2011, p.83]

After tinkering with their lineup for this fourth album, Baltimore's Arbouretum have emerged heavier, moodier and better than ever. [Mar 2011, p.83]

With Lanegan, Nick McCabe and Ani DeFranco along for the ride, Dulli's roiling, captivatingly haunted songs detonate with incandescent splendor. [Mar 2011, p.

Lurching from inspired to confounding, it's ragged, erratic, but never boring. [Mar 2011, p.94]

His long awaited debut sees him adding endless waves of muzzy kosmische, softly burred guitar loops, Fripp-like trippiness and heavy psych/space-rock grooves to his arsenal. [Mar 2011, p.83]

The sounds on Smart Flesh may be muted, but there is power and daring in its pursuit of stillness. File under: a quiet Storm. [Mar 2011, p.84]

While no less intense, Ashore--a collection of 13 songs each connected to the sea--is both warm and alluring. [Feb 2011, p.99]

It feels like a step up in terms of songwriting. [Feb 2011, p.96]

An artfully dishevelled, emphatically Gallic racket. [Feb 2011, p.95]

It's a heavy trip, with the exotic/erotic minimal techno of Ricardo Villalobos overlaid to intoxicating effect with the eerie hauntological manoeuvers of The Focus group. [Feb 2011, p.82]

There is beauty aplenty in these 10 songs, but anyone yearning for the delicious ache of old will find it only fleetingly. [Feb 2011, p.92]

Sahel Folk pushes no boundaries, but it's a charming, lo-fi set from northern Mali, delivered by a man who has been a quiet force for some years. [Feb 2011, p.103]

The Broken Wave, her debut album, is refreshing folk-pop bursting with beautiful melodies and a production carefully designed to emphasise her memorably pristine vocals. [Feb 2011, p.95]

It's a stylish dark, literate affair. [Feb 2011, p.94]

This is a hugely varied set: the title track starts with a barrage of Missy Elliott-style clapping, "New Myth" sounds like a mournful colliery band anthem, while the gorgeous "Daphene" sounds like a folk-rock Fleetwood Mac. [Feb 2011, p.89]

Blue Songs journeys as great LPS should do. [Feb 2011, p.89]