More by accident than design, it works sometimes. [Aug 2010, p.79]

Steve plays all the instruments, aside from drums, and records on studio equipment of comparably venerable vintage to Steve himself. This fundamentalist approach inevitably places a huge burden on the singing and songwriting.

It's a neat homage to '60s girl groups and C86 bands they inspired, spooked-out bubblegum delivered in singer Dee Dee's naive but infectious sing-song. [Jun 2010, p.98]

It's far from hip, but unfairly dimissed. [Jun 2010, p.91]

Outbursts takes them full circle, back to their salad days as a melodic, acoustic folk-pop duo on simple, ringing, uplifting songs such as "Sea Change," "never Stops" and "Will Power," while the Radiohead-influenced "Radio Silence" hint at a grander ambition. [Apr 2010, p.106]

There are flashes of grouchy greatness from all three--but only flashes. [Jul 2010, p.115]

The Living Sisters have put their respective groups aside to concoct a delicious LP straddling the genres. [May 2010, p.97]

The attempt to stir his inner shitkicking garagepunk isn't always successful but a handful of tracks here are creepily sensual. [May 2010, p.85]

This fine collection is actually more enjoyable than the Shjips' second album proper. [Apr 2010, p.109]

Cacophonous, chaitic, and a lot of fun. [Apr 2010, p.83]

Once again, Daschanel demonstrates a deep understanding and irony-free love of innocent, old-school pop craft in her writing, but too many of the chorus hooks pass by without sticking, and aome of the stacked-up vocal arrangements sag under their own weight. [May 2010, p.102]

From a band as previously as stylishly provocative and adventurous as Goldfrapp, these knowing cliches and lush pastiches suggest a band playing it distinctly safe. [Apr 2010, p.88]

Although Autechre;a futristic manifesto has remnianed largely static for tow decades, the xylophone massacre of "O=0" and trippy space-carnival collage "d-sho qub" provide welcome glimmers of pleasure and humour during an otherwise rigorously intellectual labraroery experiment. [Apr 2010, p.81]

Though featuring young musicians, this album is antique rathe r than groundbreaking in feel, pleasing evoking a sweet, after hours blues cellar fug, all slide and sax. [May 2010, p.83]

Rarely has the deep past sounded so stirring, or so modern. [Oct 2009, p.94]

Putnam's songs still walk a fine line between brittle psychedelia and morosely tuneful pop. But there's a wrinkle in their textures, courtesy of a new rhythm section of bassist Be Hussey and drummer Stevie Treichel. [Jun 2010, p.97]

Intriguing, enigmatic and one of a kind. [May 2010, p.90]

This is a brief--a mere eight tracks, just under 40 minutes--but incredibly intense wall of sound. [Apr 2010, p.92]

Slowly, these immensely crafted songs bed in, emerging as some of the best and most accessible that Oldham has ever written. [May 2010, p.84]

"Say Valley Maker" and "Rock Bottom Riser" are hypnotic highpoints, but best of all is "Diamond Dancer," an incongruous slice of hillbilly funk on which he channels his inner Gil-Scott Heron. [Jun 2010, p.83]

The Big To-Do, it's pleasing to report, rocks as hard and loud as anything they've previously done. [Apr 2010, p.78]

The Replacements-inspired tattered intensity of the band's first two LPs is still present, but working with multiple producers has brought enough variety to keep the surprises coming. [Apr 2010, p.109]

The combo of an unadventurous set-list and cutting between several different shows makes Under Great White Northern Lights an oddly detached experience. [Jun 2010, p.111]

It's a smart collection of songs full of inner turbulance, delivered in an emotional voice that at times recall Guy Garvey. [MAr 2010, p.90]

Their albums have got better and better since 2005, with saxophonists Pete Wareham and Mark Lockheart entering into ever more engaging dialogues while the rhythm sections flail around inventively. Here Leafcutter John, who usually makes odd noises with a sampler, switches to guitar addng a clunky alt-rock feel to tracks. [Mar 2010, p.93]

There are wildcard influences--"Fire Lies Down" references English folk, "Warm Blood" moves into prog--that suggests Seabear could movie in many different directions. [Apr 2010, p.98]

There's so much tunefully wild enjoyment on offer it's hard to pick highlights. [Jul 2010, p.110]

Surely the last flogging of a heavily Photoshopped horse. [Apr 2010, p.100]

Those who enjoyed "Noise Won't Stop" smoochier moments will relish Liquid Love. [Mar 2010, p.95]

There's excitement her in 'ATX' and the title track, but when the bluster's died down, disappointingly little is left. [Oct 2009, p.89]

It displays a sonic ambition, an openmindedness and a melodic gift that puts so much modern pop to shame. [April 2010, p.85]

Sisterworld is an impressive record which lurches menacingly between euphoria and tranquility. [Mar 2010, p.89]

"high Road" is melodic enough, for sure, and Mercer is a clear-voiced singer, but the album's interest palls when Mouse's answer to life, the universe and everything proves to be "pedestrian breakbeat." [Apr 2010, p.83]

The words are often stark and painful, the singing is almost religious, and the tunes tend towards exultant. When they remember to be lovely, as on "Yes I Would," the chemistry is intoxicating. [Mar 2010, p.84]

On Tomorrow, In A Year, The Knife have reinforced everything that makes them such a brilliant, endearing group. [Apr 2010, p.93]

Scattershot, but so frighteningly intense and packed with ideas that you can't help but be impressed. [Apr 2010, p.100]

jj No. 3 is an irresistibly light-headed trip through lush, electronic pop. [Jun 2010, p.91]

Enjoyable stuff. But you have to wonder how this really aids our understanding of what Hendrix was up to, other than by reminding us that whenever he rehearsed, he recorded the session. [Apr 2010, p.108]

It's unlikely comfort is their aim, but that's the effect oif this over-familiar blend of woozy disaffection and slow-burning sensuality. [Apr 2010, p.83]

The Brutalist Bricks isn't quite the match of 2004's career highlight Shake The Streets. But "Gimmee The Wire" mixes punky, Mission Of Burma dynamics with a garrulous, troubadour storytelling, while "Bottles In Cork" unfolds as a bar-hopping travelogue as colorful as anything Craig Finn has put his pen to. [Jun 2010, p.92]

The music more than matches The Besnard Lakes' cinematic ambition. [Apr 2010, p.81]

All in all, San Patricio is something of an oddity. [Apr 2010, p.94]

This new 23-track compilation, cherry-picking the back catalogue from 1989's "Box Elder" through to 1999's "Terror Twilight," might help resolve the band's final enigma. [Apr 2010, p.102]

It's a facinating listen, one that feels like it could collapse at any time, but just about hangs together. [Apr 2010, p.90]

It's manically busy, demanding you strain to find the tune beneath layers of mellotrons, flutes and timpani. [Jul 2010, p.115]

The way the elements hang together effortlessly on "Cataract" is worthy of Bat for Lashes, or even Bjork. [Apr 2010, p.109]

As usual, Lewis' rocking material doesn't compare to his softer fare, but the likes of "pirates Declare War" and "Klutter" plot a fun that's infectious. [May 2010, p.85]

Little Boots emerges with a debut album that is disappointingly similar to the sound of 2001 or 2005. [Jul 2009, p.91]

There's a swaggering big-band reading of "Just One Of Those Things" and a clever soul-jazz recasting of Rhianna's "Don't Stop The Music", but otherwise Cullum has morphed into a kind of Britpop Randy Newman, which suits him well on the excellent "I'm All Over It". [Dec 2009, p. 87]

Difficult to pin down, Hidden is even harder to forget. [Feb 2010, p.104]

On the likes of "Said And Done" Frahm conjures up a mood of melancholic introspection that makes this accomplished, genuinely pretty set a serious (if rather less extravagant) rival to Gonzales and Andrew WK's recent piano excursions. [Feb 2010, p.84]

But perhaps the most effective retread is Talking Heads' "Listening Wind": Gabriel removes the funk, parks the dance, and leaves the words to do the work.

Though their frothy, soulless hits have rarely displayed originality or purpose, Groove Armada's sixth is a revelation. [Mar 2010, p.86]

Lovely, life-affirming stuff. [Apr 2010, p.97]

Ryan Sambol, with his nasal drawl and ready harmonica, is perhaps rather too into Dylan for comfort, but the title track is dispatched with skronky brio, and "The Unsent Letter" is a heartfelt piano ballad all cracked with emotion. [Apr 2010, p.100]

The stroke of genius was to persuade dreamer-for-hire Kelley Polar, Richard Davis and Paul Conboy to sing on this sparkling LP, resulting in a masterclass in soft synthetic soul. [Apr 2010, p.83]

The Open Road finds him rediscovering his form. This is Hiatt cutting loose, heading out on his own metaphor-filled highway of song. [Apr 2010, p.96]

The seariung guitars, walloping drums and emphatic double-tracked vocals have determined power and character. [Mar 2010, p.81]

Maybe the cycles of nostalgia may yet surprise us, but the group's puppyish enthusiasm can't redeem one of the less charming periods in pop history. [Apr 2010, p.81]

Come Down With Me seems slightly out of step in 2010, harking back to a time at the turn of the millennium where Tortoise and Tarwater were still the names to drop, but you can nonetheless appreciate its glistening geometry. [Mar 2010, p.84]

In danger of becoming a Loose Tubes for the ATp generation, this once fleetfooted group have blundered into a vat of fudge. [Feb 2010, p.89]

By the time the 11-minute whalesong finale "Cease To Know" creeps to its overdue conclusion, the prevailing mood of impeccably tasteful introspection is choking. [May 2010, p.88]

Some tracks sail a little too far into MOR but Meiburg takes care to balance these out with more robust moments. [Mar 2010, p.95]

Ronson fatigue will probably prove his undoing, but this is a very good album. [May 2009, p.87]

The resultant mash-up of Noughties Brooklyn cool and Flaming Lips grand folly can exhilarare, but there is also a worrying tendency for Magic Chairs to strain for significance like Coldplay. [Mar 2010, p.84]

Their latest was recorded in Berlin and Iceland, with whichever musicians were around at the time, lending Newcombe's whacked-out psychedelia cum space/drone rock a stoned-jam feel that doesn't always work to the songs' advanatge. [Apr 2010, p.83]

While never denying the quavering fragility of his voice, these arrangements, sympathetic, spartan, largely acoustic, frame what remains so it's only the strength--Cash's abiding defining characteristic--that you hear. [Apr 2010, p.89]

Happily, the music Stewart's art rock collective make on their seventh studio LP tells a more playful and diverse story, incorporating vivid punktronica, delicate ambient moodscapes and icy chamber-pop. [Mar 2010, p.107]

To devotees, however, it sounds very much like a second masterpiece: a different kind of epic to "Ys," and one with enough hooks and charms to ensnare at least a few Newsom agnostics. [Apr 2010, p.82]

Now bolstered by Joanna Bolme of The Jicks on bass, American Gong feels like a calculated attempt to juice up thier smart, literate rock. [Apr 2010, p.97]

If Matt Pike's current group High On Fire are a little less singular than Om, in thrall to the dark trash of Slayer and Celtic Frost, five albums have semn them chisel out their own grizzled, imposing image. [May 2010, p.90]

Plenty of musicians have subsequently tried to channel that weirdness. Rose, though, always seemed to explore ancient territory with vigour and good humour on his records - and Luck In The Valley, his last, is one of the best.

Fears that Sitek's heavy hand will smother Miranda's songs, though, are largely dispelled. [Mar 2010, p.88]

Fine fully fledged songs share space with fragmentary 'interludes,' creepy half-songs, found sounds and noodlings. It could be irritatingly incomplete , but there's much to recommend it. [Mar 2010, p.107]

It's pleasantly winsome, sweetly aranged, but Anna Persson lacks the lugubrious voal presence of Traceyanne Campbell, and you long for sme of the sauce r spirit that inspires a group to name themselves in honour of a Serge Gainsbourg song. [Apr 2010, p.97]

Despite the laudable ambitions of the arrangements, Fray's mundane eye-witness vignettes become wearying. [Mar 2010, p.82]

Their accomplished bluegrass, folk and country hybrid expresses the heartache familiar to fans of Will Oldham and Damien Rice. [Nov 2009, p.94]

So, no startling change of pace, direction or feel, then. Instead, what Tindersticks sound like on this subtly strong album is a band with restored self-belief, again loving doing what they do better than anyone else.

He couches this misery in beautiful arrangements, writing on the piano, orchestrating with strings, and pitching his ambition somewhere between Serge Gainsbourg and Todd Rundgren. [Feb 2010, p.90]

Musically it's toytown folk, like Jonathan Richman with out the complicated buts, but Green's narrative lyrics grow increasingly weird and witty, recalling early '70s Lou Reed. [Feb 2010, p.86]

While Efrim Menuck will never be a technically great singer, his fiery, hopeful delivery here marks a career best. [Mar 2010, p.96]

The Brewis brothers may be at odds with the modern world, but in this stunningly realised double album, they've created the ultimate sanctuary.

Insular, claustrophobic, projecting a brittle vulnerability, Peace & Love requires some listner patience. [Mar 2010, p.86]

They're not quite as cerebral as Vampire Weekend, but Camera Talk and Cards & Quarters are studded with synapse-snapping shifts in tempo and tone, making this record the place to be as the year ends. [Dec 2009, p.119]

Arch novelty rather than post-modern profundity, then, but it's a damn sight smarter than the Barron Knights ever were. [Feb 2010, p.84]

Odd Blood comes a cropper at times, but mostly this is an involving album of vivid weirdo pop. [Mar 2010, p.107]

It isn't a coincidence that this, Hot Chip's most focused album, is also their finest--more ruthless editing in future will doubtless yield even more spectacular results.

Not all of it works...But, as a radical overhaul of a career, it's a brave, brilliant and highly personal statement. [Mar 2010, p.83]

Listening to the array of styles, from the Jim O'Rourke-like folk of "Psyche", laced with Martina Topley-Bird's cosmic incantation, to "Splitting The Atom"'s opiated rocksteady or Hope Sandoval's dusky ballad, "Paradise Circus", it's conceivable Del Naja and Marshall needed every minute of those years to concoct such alluring material.

Sade Adu and co return with more snoozy, expensively produced, quiet-storm soul. [Mar 2010, p.95]

Having grabbed attention for their collaboration with Jenny Lewis on "Rabbit Fur Coat," then their own "Fire Songs," this takes a bold shift in direction. [Mar 2010, p.104]

Budget keyboard presets and filtered, treble-heavy production give the likes of "Lissoms" and :low Shoulder" an endearingly woozy, lo-fi feel. [Mar 2010, p.98]

Too much of it is lost in homogeneous country balladry more often associated with Trish Yearwood and all the other Nashville guff. A pity, because Moorer's voice is an expressive thing. [Mar 2010, p.94]

The use of reverberant instruments such as marima, bells and steel drums--as well as, on "Stick To My Side," the ethreal vocals of Noah 'Panda Beear" Lennox--give a real depth to his ambitious productions, and yet despite the elemental yearning, they retain a clubby toughness. Breth-taking stuff. [Mar 2010, p.90]

Galactic's Ya-Ka-May is a pungent musical fusion, adding hip-hop to mardi-gras funk, with help from a cast of local luminaries. [Apr 2010, p.86]

There's a dash of Yeah Yeah Yeahs about the opening scenes of this Brirtsh Columbia band's vivacious third album, which should have them gracing bigger indie dance-floors. [Jun 2010, p.109]

If Regan's Mercury Prize-nominated debut in 2006 attracted comparisons with Nick Drake, this belated follow-up ditches the finger-picking folksiness for full-on rock, and sees Regan mutate into a latterday Mike Soctt. {Feb 2010, p.96]

Drawing on every rhythmic tradition they can find and master, they corral impressive guests like Edan, Mr. Lif and Quantic to confound all expectations of contemporary funk LP. [Mar 2010, p.107]