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]

A work in progress maybe, but the churchy disquiet of "The River" show them to be songwriters of true craft. [Jan 2010, p. 122]

The long-running project of Pall Jenkins and Tobias Nathaniel, also of venerable indie-rockers Three Mile Pilot, BHP peddle a slo-mo country gloom, songs of heartbreak and religious dread conducted at a desultory limp. [Dec 2009, p. 85]

Warm Heart Of Africa works best when Radioclit subtly build on the rhythms of Mwamwaya's native kwassa kwassa. [Oct 2009, p.119]

Disarmingly playful, deceptively gripping, its songs at first seem wayward, erratic, but soon enough reveal their own internal title song. [Nov 2009, p. 83]

Here, courtesy of producer Jason Falkner, his curious rock 'n' roll songs are given a crisp, clean production, a belssing which sometimes threatens to expose the - how you say? - idiosyncrasies of Johnston's singing. [Jan 2010, p. 115]

It's actually more satisfying as a piece, a folksy ambience lapping up against muted psychedelia and reverb'd pop. [Nov 2009, p.102]

Her best album for many years illustrates her uniqueness. [Jun 2010, p.97]

The results of his previous work have sometimes felt opportunistic and Go Hard is no different. [Nov 2009, p.90]

The Liberty Of Norton Folgate--a title which makes sense in context but is otherwise unlikely to be jamming up the ringtone sites--is Madness in both their pomp and their prime.

This is adequate debut, but La Roux will need to move beyond brittle pastiche if they hope to reinvent such overfamiliar ingredients. [Jul 2009, p.91]

Now regrouped by leader Jerry Cantrell, the bands' sound is still full of menace, melody and doom, chock full of Cantrell's trademark heavy riffs. [Dec 2009, p. 85]

These are gently rugged country-folk songs made all the more authentic by a chewy voice that, with age, now seems to have deepened its resolve.

Album four sees tracks pushing more into more arcane territory, but otherwise we see Zero 7 putting a subtle electronic spin on Elton John, Syreeta, Pentangle and Nick Drake. [Oct 2009, p.123]

Nonetheless, this is impressive, mainstream stuff. One hope their bluecollar heart will win out over their white collar power pop head. [May 2010, p.83]

The religious theme intimated by the title ensures that there is more going on with each track than mere mindless dirge. [Nov 2009, p.99]

Her husky drawl of a voice remains as precious and fragile as a chandelier, and it well suits these insidiously melodic, intimate songs. [Oct 2009, p.110]

This sequel similarly mixes hard country and mountain music, memorably on Harlan Howard's "Busted" and a plaintive "Half Over You." [Feb 2010, p.93]

Not tunes for kids: simply some of Karen O's sweetest songs yet. [Nov 2009, p.100]

Big Dada, Beans, Sayyid, Earl Blaize and High Priest riffle through more fresh ideas in the opening six tracks than contempoary hip hop will in as many months. [Oct 2009, p.91]

Fronted by Jonas Stein formerly of adolescent punks Be Your Own Pet--the missing link between the Monkees and Dead Kennedys--are every bit as spirited as his old band. [Dec 2009, p.117]

There is an unassuming brilliance to much that they do and, as ever, We Used To Think The Freeway Sounded Like A River is a-bristle with finely-tooled detai.

The all-together family vibe permeates this unabashedly life-embracing album. [Sep 2009, p.83]

An uneven listening experience, to put it mildly. [Feb 2010, p.90]

It doesn't require a lyric translator to hear the exquisite sense of regret that permeates a song like "Ha Dvash," but the sheer exuberance of the music keeps spirits soaring. [Feb 2010, p.88]

Ian Brown follows an idiosyncratic path in keeping with My Way’s title--mixing up the kind of heavily synthesised rhythms learned from Jamaican dancehall with a curious cover of Zager And Evans’ dystopian folk oddity 'In The Year 2525,' some insidious grooves and, on closer 'So High,' a somewhat wayward stab at soul.

With the aid of some of the finest session musicians in Chicago, Hayes concocts a creamy rock'n'soul fantasy that answers the question: what if Jimmy Webb had teamed up with Thom Bell to write for Marc Bolan? [Oct 2009, p.98]

Tinkling lo-fi arrangements evoke the scarred spookiness of mid-period Sparklehorse, rendering the whole charmingly (and sometimes chillingly) child-like. [Sep 2009, p.88]

But none of it recaptures the sheer commercial inevitability of his debut. [Nov 2009, p. 96]

Basement Jaxx still manage to exceed expectations with each album. [Oct 2009, p.91]

Monsters Of Folk ends as captiatingly as it starts. [Oct 2009, p.99]

Maybe they should have bigger ambitions. [Spe 2009, p.79]

Album lurches bizarrely from the heart-rending to the goofy to the simply spaced-out, but what it lacks in polish it makes up for with buckets of charm.

This is an excellent album that manages to be both a mature summary of an artist’s career and something completely fresh and new.

It is uneasy listening. [Oct 2009, p.107]

Throughout, his mellowness of tone is the album's defining feature. Miraculously, thanks to the minutiae of the arrangements, it's a sound that never becomes one dimensional. [Oct 2009, p.96]

It's quite lovely, and manages to be simultaneously mournful and innocent-sounding. [Oct 2009, p.106]

Freed from Torquil Campbell's mannered indie melodrama, she gives full rein to her inner country girl. [Jan 2010, p. 121]

The only thing lacking is a sense of rhythmic discipline, without which these overlong - and occasionally overwrought - songs can tend towards the self-indulgent. [Jan 2010, p. 123]

There's nothing quite as forward looking here. [Oct 2009, p.102]

This fifth album is an abstract fuzz of Floydian oddness and gothic not-quite-country. [Nov 2009, p.102]

If the audio quality is a mite cleaner this time, it seems the band have made the songs a little more prickly. [Oct 2009, p.112]

A collection of cobwebbed country and chamber-pop spiked with dark wit, it peaks with "Flirted With You All My Life", a dialogue with the reaper that Chesnutt handles with impressive dignity. [Nov 2009, p. 83]

Their heart is evident; they need to find their voice. [Oct 2009, p.115]

The rather prissy album versions are given room to breathe and take on a rather more energetic cabaret feel. [Nov 2009, p.109]

Alongside collaborator Warren Ellis [Nick Cave has] mastered the subdued, unobtrusive yet sinister piano ripple and the occasional unsettling rumble, gilding them with rare, understated vocals.

Somedays is full of great, blues-tinted folk songs. [Nov 2009, p.102]

Inevitably, youthful anger has been replaced by pettier bourgeois concerns (traffic wardens, the congestion charge), but there’s a sensitivity and playfulness that’s still hugely endearing.

Clearly full of ideas and enthusiasm, FrYars suffer from a cheapness of sound, the instrumentation often too basic and one-dimensional to give songs od potential the lick of sonic paint they deserve. [Nov 2009, p.94]

The commitment that Vedder brings to all this material, from the rowdiest thrashing to the schmaltziest ballad makes this feel like a unified and ultimately convincing project. [Oct 2009, p.90]

This is also a brave, compelling record that stands shoulder to shoulder with the Manics’ best.

It's fine, quietly captivating stuff, all the same. [Jun 2009, p.86]

Their choice of guest vocalists this time around indicates good tatse, although in practice there's not much call for subtlety in these chewy, club-oriented productions. [Sep 2009, p.95]

These tuneless songs which either brim with maudlin self-pity or bounce along with enforced jollity. [Oct 2009, p.123]

It’s bonkers--hilarious, maddening, ridiculous and slightly shit--yet never dull.

These commercial frailties have come to be seen, quite rightly, as cultish strengths. But it all goes to make Keep An Eye On The Sky much more than a repository of extraordinary music; it acts as the most thorough and articulate explanation of why Big Star never became superstars.

As a stand-alone album it's ultimately more laudable than loveable. [Oct 2009, p.92]

Here, his luxurious voice, weathered and warm, sits atop intuitive improvations from the likes of Christian Fennesz and Evan Parker. [Nov 2009, p.106]

Unfortunately, every note is so restrained as to verge on the apologetic, resulting in songs capable of being forgotten even while they're playing. [Oct 2009, p.101]

The backing are stately, most elegant on the trumpet and Wurlitzer of 'Mississippi River Running Backwards.' [Oct 2009, p.108]

Dense and challenging, with an unmistakable humanist undertow, ...Snow is a riveting trip. [Nov 2009, p.90]

Their fifh album reveals no radical stylistic shift. [Mar 2010, p.89]