The 23-year-old Valley girl's sonically lurid and brash, (supposedly) autobiographical debut may boast production heavyweights like Benny Blancoi, but her witless, cranked-to-11 stridency recalls Kelly Clarkson and Avril Lavigne rather than Pink or Britney. [May 2010, p.94]

All round, it's a remarkable electronic musicanship. [Apr 2010, p.124]

The effortlessly adroit songwriting on this, his second album shows why [in-the-know Kiwis have long talked up the talents of James Milne]. [Jan 2010, p.118]

They're back to tacky autopilot, forcing Sean C and LV to save face with two rousing contributions. [Apr 2010, p.84]

There's nothing here to rival "Drop It Like It's Hot", much less "gin N Juice", but the results are mostly harmless, even if that was never quite the point. [Jan 2010, p. 126]

What's absolutely consistent is Young's almost alchemical ability to mesmerise with the sparest of tools - his reedy quaver and sturdy but unflashy accompaniment providing the only embellishments to his elliptical lyrics and aching melodies. [Jan 2010, p. 120]

Waiting For You echoes something of The Bug's brooding, echo-drenched pressure, but where London Zoo felt dense, the likes of "Meltdown" have a beautifully spectral, washed-out quality, Robinson's sweet, soulful vocals weaving through the night in search of salvation. [Jan 2010, p. 118]

What Day Is It Tonight?--culled from 15 years of recording since 1993--captures their tight ferocity in full force. [Feb 2010, p.104]

Accept the general aura of legwarmers and it's fun. [Nov 2009, p.90]

The Black Keys must take credit for negotiating the minefield of the rap/rock crossover without any serious casualties, but maybe an R&B/rock crossover would have reaped even greater rewards. [Jan 2010, p. 113]

Glitter And Doom Live is an admirable document of yet another stage in his continually engrossing career.

It's more than a mix, pulling out lost takes and reassembling constituent parts--a snatch of Afrka Bambaataa here, a flurry of Liquid Liquid percussion there--with phantasmagorical results. [Feb 2010, p.82]

This release overcompensates handsomely, delivering 48 sharp, gorgeous-sounding missives that document ensemble brilliance and Petty’s chiming, hook-happy American-everykid songwriting.

Stone's impeccable vocal ensures that her past glories thrive on this new frontier. [Mar 2010, p.96]

A gift for deadpan couplets alone can't quite elevate him to [Rufas Wainwright or Pet Shop Boys'] league, [but] this album offer signs that, if he want to, Robbie might escape the neurosis of celebrity and mature into a genuinely witty songwriter. [Dec 2009, p.121]

Fragrant ballads "When The Night" and "Marie Cheri" add a softer dimension to a bold collection on which Annie rarely puts a foot wrong. [Nov 2009, p. 81]

The emotional imprint of The Fall moves beyond the pining, wistful tones that are her trademark in favour of Sex And The City scenarios bursting with heartbreak, regret and emotional devastation.

Created under vows of artistic chastity (one room, no overdubs), yet played with the rambling freedom of an afternoon jam, Recordings...feels like a necessary reaction to Portishead, but seems unlikely as yet to usurp his day job. [Dec 2009, p. 85]

In their careers, this band might prove to be a sideshow. But right now, it's one with the possibility of being as gripping as the main event. [Jan 2010, p. 104]

The lackadaisical nostalgia for childhood beach holidays is certainly evocative--as indeed, is the way Real Estate recall New Jersey Antecedents The Feelies and Yo La Tengo, plus any number of old Flying Nun bands. [Feb 2010, p.96]

It is pure nostalgia, and some of these songs are familiar to the point of tedium, but even a Beatles sceptic would find it hard to suppress a shudder of recognition on hearing these tunes sung by the man who wrote them.

Anyone who ever felt that David Rawlings hid his light under Gillian Welch's bushel-never getting the full credit he merited as her partner and accomplice--will greet his first solo album with a lusty cheer. [Dec 2009, p. 101]

The four-and-a-half minutes of tuning that takes up the first track of this six-disc boxset signals that Live In New York a scrupulously compiled audio verite document - and there's plenty more tuning to come. [Dec 2009, p. 88]

The vocals are muddied, but there are diamond-bright tunes here. [Oct 2009, p.95]

"Runaway" and "Head Into Tomorrow" sound like the songs that Joy Division might have written if they'd hung out with Ewan MacColl. Good, but slightly disorienting. [Nov 2009, p. 81]

Buffed to a hyper-compressed, anodyne sheen by John McLaughlin, The Fountain is so craven in its bid for airplay it even includes an insipid number called "Drivetime". [Nov 2009, p.84]

Dave Huismans brings an aesthetic informed by the metallic echo of Berlin and machine melodies of Detroit to the music's syncopated UK rave logic. [Jan 2010, p. 103]

This two-disc compilation charting the journey suggests it was simply a matter of waiting for Travis to falter, tweaking the Coldplay template and amping up the earnest Celtic bluster. [Dec 2009, p. 113]

If you find it impressive how AC/DC have spun three chords into a 30-year career, then you'll enjoy what they can do with a boxset: Backtracks comes with three CDs, two DVDs, all packaged inside a recession-friendly amplifier. [Jan 2010, p. 103]

For their third album, Githead - that's Wire's Colin Newman, Robin 'Scanner' Rimbaud, and Malka Spigel and Max Franken of Israeli post-punkers Minimal Compact - have partly abandoned the sly hooks of 2007's well-named Art Pop In favour of a leaner and more ambient approach. [Jan 2010, p. 112]

Radian, the Vienna based trio of martin Brandlmayr (drums), Stefan Nemeth (guitars, synthesizers)and John Norman (bass), are a cerebral, digital post-rock outfit whose wibbliness too often leads them into a state of rhythmic paralysis. [Jan 2010, p. 123]

This affinity with Muse is impossible to escape on pounding epics like "That Golden Rule" and "Mountains," but the slight personal "God & Satan" and intriguingly angular "Born On A Horse" offer respite from the bombast, while Queens Of The Stone Age's Josh Homme brings a welcome touch of class to "Bubbles." [Feb 2010, p.79]

All good fun, but inevitably, without Taylor's Longing vocals, it feels a bit like playing a piano with the black keys removed. [Jan 2010, p. 112]

On this mostly splendid debut, meanwhile, Hawk actually fuses two of his previous recording identities bridging the shiny electronic of his Weird Tapes alter ego with the hazy lo-fi psychedelia of its "feminine" mirror image, Memory Cassette. [Jan 2010, p. 116]

Ultimately, Phrazes For The Young testifies that the qualities that made Julian Casablancas so noteworthy in 2001 remain in place, just a little more difficult to predict.

Weezer's likeabe, insubstantial powerpop has often been infused with somewhat tetchy intimations of latent intellectual heft. On Raditude, this manifests in guest appearances by Amrita Sen and Nishat Khan on the dreadful "Love Is The Answer." Elsewhere, though, Weeaee seem to have ceased to care. [Feb 2010, p.107]

Molina's downhome style and tender vocals coalesce with Johnson's frugger voice on minor marvels like "Almost Let You In" and "Twenty Cycles To The Ground", while the tidal hum and strum of "Now, Divide" is moodily unusual. [Dec 2009, p. 103]

While a large proportion of these Swords are decidedly blunt blades, a few could have easily found a place on a greatest hits.

This is a fierce live performance by a band who didn’t always manage to hold things together onstage. It catches Nirvana at maximum intensity, aware of, but not disabled by, the contradictions that tormented Cobain and would eventually tear him asunder.

One small quibble, though: while it’s great to have documentation of the band’s early live sound (and in many ways the versions of the songs from Bleach are superior thanks to the sprightly energy), you don’t really get a sense of the sheer ferocity and electricity Nirvana generated in a tiny, cramped college bar.

Reissued by Matador mere months after its boutique debut, Love Comes Close is shaping up to be the indie-noise synth-pop crossover hit of the year. [Nov 2009, p. 83]

As ever with Canadian German duo King Khan & BBQ Show, this offers little in the way of subtlety and a lot in the way of entertainment. [Dec 2009, p. 100]

30 years on from "Chuck E.", it's a stunning testament to the vitality of her vagabond muse.

Intricately layering a wide array of sounds, from piano to field recordings, over seven dreamlike pieces, the duo's third album is at times pacific (in every sense), at others deeply unsettling, especially when they run tapes backwards over the end of the 11-minute "Daydreaming So Early". [Dec 2009, p. 108]

Audacious cybernetic pirouettes such as "Poison Lips" and "Flashmob" bear the hallmarks of a musician enjoying a purple patch, who is able to caress from his machines a spectrum of emotion that leaves the listener purring with pleasure. [Oct 2009, p.119]

To get the measure of Jagger's contribution you have to turn to the five new songs on disc two, which are also the meat of the DVD offering.

The MC's focus on Escape 2 Mars is mainly ecological, the music packing ample punch to underline his message. [Feb 2010, p.86]

Night Music, the debut solo LP from Zombie-Zombie's Etienne Jaumet offers proof that there's more to analogue synth than kitsch retro-futurist appeal. [Jan 2010, p. 124]

"Once I Was Pretty" and "The Disappearance Of My Youth" only confirm they know their territory and stick to it. [Feb 2010, p.93]

Brian Gibson and Brian Chippendale somehow manage to make a bass guitar and half a drum kit sound like a particularly loud avalanche, and then sneak in some tunes along the way. [Dec 2009, p. 103]

What Will We Be stands as a fittingly ambiguous, partly frustrating and altogether fascinating response to that question. Call it artful artlessness, or vice versa.

Sometimes it's grating - "The Ocean" could be a Belinda Carlisle album track - but the supremely catchy likes of first single "Hell" deserves daytime radio ubiquity. [Jan 2010, p. 131]

In 39 tracks over two CDs, the punk-fuelled folk-rock group that had ruled the ’80s along with U2 magically reappears.

Pelican don't look like metal kids - however, their ruminative riffology and ability to raise apocalyptic visions mark them out as practitioners of a new, reflective metallurgy alongside the likes of Sun0)))'s Stephen O' Malley. [Jan 2010, p. 123]

Hubble bubble! From weird sources and high ideals comes a spooky, sensual piece of pop sorcery. And it's bewitching. [Dec 2009, p. 91]

What thesy have done is make the odd generational shift, acknowledging Boston, Steppenwolf, Alice In Chains and The White Stripes in their search for the ultimate cosmic-blues groove, which on 'In The Morning,' they find. [Nov 2009, p.113]

When they do get it right, as when highlighting the acerbic lyrics of "That's The Way I've Always Heard It Should Be" or cleverly flexing the groove of "Coming Around Again," you can see why it semed a good idea. [Apr 2010, p.98]

There's barely a duff track here, from the talking gothic blues of "The Pill" and the slinky Monks-esque strut of "Isolation". Top marks, though, go the pulpit croon of "(Sometimes You Got To Be) Gentle". [Dec 2009, p. 97]

It's more accessible than that lute album, but -barring the sole Sting composition, the lovely "The Hounds Of Winter" - it will baffle all but the hardiest Police fan. [Jan 2010, p. 126]

It’s a rare pleasure to hear a band so at ease with themselves, playing with no obvious aim or agenda beyond having a good time and hoping you do, too. The best thing about Fits is imagining how incredible these songs will be when played live.

Too often a limited voice and over-egged arrangements strain to little effect. [Aug 2009, p.94]

The Pet Shop Boys and Ladytron have elbowed their urbane ways into his affections, but Maps makes the move sound more like a case of personal growth than populist payoff. [Oct 2009, p.104]

Andrew Weatherall has been employed to help build Tarot Sport a beaty backbone and the results are brutally mesmerizing. [Nov 2009, p. 88]

And though his long-running solo project has hitherto been a private sketchbook of laptop doodles, for this latest release Atlas Sound engages with the widerworld to great effect: the best two tracks are collaborations: the ambient bubblegum of "Walkabout" with Animal Collective's Panda Bear and the ectoplasmic Krautrock of "Quick Canal" with Laetitia from Stereolab. [Nov 2009, p. 81]

It's craftily composed, and on individual tracks like "24-25," sparely beautiful but cumulatively lacking some of the spice of their side-projecvct affairs. [Nov 2009, p.90]

It's occasionally very beautiful, but this is so far removed from values of immediacy and accessibility that Stevens' core audience are likely to be left non-plussed. [Dec 2009, p. 113]

The second helping of this sitcom following Flight of the Conchords; Kiwi synth-poppers in New York, was almost as funny as the first, though most critics agreed the songs were weaker.

The result is a record that contains the cryptic hooks of Pavement's later work, with a pleasingly breezy '70s AOR feel. [Nov 2009, p.104]

Although nothing matches the sexy Prince-funk pastiche 'Test' that Yukimi Nagano and co delivered on their self-titled 2007 debut, there is more depth and variety on their secpnd album. [Oct 2009, p.101]

Despite the 28-year gap since they first disbanded, this lineup resumes as if it were only yesterday, in a joyously abrasive, renegade reggae style with lyrics that don't mess about. [Dec 2009, p. 113]

New Clouds is at once both denser and groovier. [Nov 2009, p.113]

His attempts to capture some of that city's pre-Katrina musical spark are satisfying, in parts - as well as recruiting former Meters bassist George Porter Jr to help out, tracks like "idiots In The Rain" capture the clatter of Bourbons St. However, Ounsworth's nasal vocals might still be an acquired taste for some. [Jan 2010, p. 116]

He's a minimalist/multi-instrumentalist who manages to find warmth in what could otherwise be sparse and unforgiving--note the breathtaking pauses between chords in "arise Arise" or the unremitting lilt of "All Day Monday And Tuesday." [Nov 2009, p.117]

Greg Weeks and band reference artists as diverse as Michael Rother ("Caroline"), Cowboy Junkies, and "No Quarter" - era Zeppelin, but the classicism of their compositions keeps all this firmly in the service of the song. [Dec 2009, p. 92]

So while it can get a bit too diffuse and self consciously complex, when the quartet breaks into something gorgeous (like the joyous tagliatelle of guitars that wriggles and wrinkles through "Uda Hah") you'll suspend your cynicism. [Jan 2010, p. 124]

The air of melancholy on display throughout is as enticing as Beirut's. Impressive. [Nov 2009, p.94]

Embryonic is certainly as exciting as anything produced by the psych rock underground this year. [Nov 2009, p.78]

Removed from the comfort of his own musical constructions, they often sound like a collection of rasps, croaks and burrs optimistically corralled in to what just might be words; Latin has never sounded more like a dead language than when Dylan sings in it on "O Come All Ye-Faithful". [Dec 2009, p. 87]

Even a nice take-off of moody Pharrell-style R&B, "Gangsters Want To Cuddle Me", and a rap by Adam Green can't save Dark Touches from being fairly irritating. [Nov 2009, p. 88]

Here it brillianrly showcases the interplay between Iyer's melodic clattering, Stephan Crump's slithery bass and Marque Gilmore's fizy drum explosuions. [Oct 2009, p.98]

It seems weird--if delightful-that the folk polka of "To A hammer" and the Eels-like electronic of "(Put The Fun Back In The Funeral)" could come from one career, never mind one album: a creative blessing, if a commercial curse. [Dec 2009, p.103]

The scuzzy arrangements ate trickier and less cute, while the lyrics fester with hard experience. [Feb 2010, p.104]

Brace yourselves, naysayers, for a tour de force.

The finished result occupies land between Young Marble Giants' "Colossal Youth" and Tricky's "Maxinquaye": not the equal of either of those landmark albums, maybe, but certainly cut from the same cloth. [Sep 2009, p.89]

Ambitious, orchestral and accompanied by a 45-minute film, it candidly documents singer Charlie Fink’s recovery from a badly broken heart.

A provocative and inventive second album. [Sep 2009, p.96]

Love 2 is a cinematic affair--but not in a good way. [Oct 2009, p.89]

Each of the 12 tracks on The Life Of The World To Come is named after the [Bible] verse that informs it. The settings are gloriously apposite. [Nov 2009, p.96]

This is a soundscape bordered by The Flaming Lips and the Pixies, and mapped with verve. [Mar 2010, p.81]

Deft guitar lines from Charlie Burgess never quite paper over the cracks in numbers that would have been consigned to b-sides in the band's heyday. [Jun 2009, p.101]

Seductively decaddent, but a feeling that The Raveonettes are living on borrowed time persists. [Nov 2009, p.99]

But though folky numbers like "I'm Thinking" are obviously heartfelt, there's sadly little on Goodnight Unknown that matches the glory of Barlow's best work. [Nov 2009, p.81]

Twelve are here, and while Rosanne doesn't reinvent songs in the manner of, say, Cat Power, she does restate them briskly, with husband John Levanthal's production pushing her beautiful bell-like voice to the fore. [Dec 2009, p. 87]

What's remarkable though, is the seamless way in which they carried on from where they left off after their two-decade hiatus: although this sounds modern, it still has enough of their early urgency, once more balancing the anthemic ("SSL83", "One Day We Will Live There") with a thrilling sense of a band about to career off-course at any moment. [Jan 2010, p. 121]

Like Felt Before them, The Clientele have completed a commercially neglected yet conceptually immaculate decade, mapping, across four albums and a couple of compilations, a twilit suburb of English pop, as though a young TS Eliot had fronted The Zombies. [Jan 2010, p. 105]

While they could use a second tune, this has bags of vitality and personality. [Sep 2009, p.84]

Unexpectedly, it's all pretty exciting. negotiate the scree, and the songs demand repeating. [Dec 2009, p.121]

Their seventh album is the soundtrack to a full-length film made by singer Tim Rutili but comfortably works on its own, sounding genuinely unlike anyone else - every song contains a surprise, however minor. [Nov 2009, p. 83]