Yo La Tengo's 12th album finds them operating well within their comfort zone but it's no less delightful for the absence of envelopes being pushed. [Oct 2009, p.123]

Ignoring the misstep--'O Mensageiro'--this is a pleasure. [Oct 2009, p.106]

Everything Goes Wrong is almost sickeningly good: songs are tight, short and fun, none outstay their welcome, all leave something behind in your brain as they rush to completion on a wave of multi-layered vocals, euphoric guitars and wall-of-chrome production. [Oct 2009, p.119]

Fusing dub, psychedelic funk, prog, art rock and roots reggae with their native mbaqanga and township blues, they've fashioned a fresh (Afro) funky debut, politicized not sollely by colour, but also by their genre-bending vision. [Dec 2009, p. 87]

Still short on humanity, true, but possessed with an alien sort of beauty. [Oct 2009, p.98]

Puny production and fey, knowing, songwriting provide little to hook the attention. [Nov 2009, p.88]

As ever, the combination of sincerity and sentimentality is overpowering. [Oct 2009, p.89]

The results are gorgeous. [Oct 2009, p.112]

TMBG's nagging pop tunes are useful mnemonics, albeit irritating ones. But there is no reason why anybody over the age of eight should listen to this. [Jun 2010, p.100]

Something dignified and yearning arises from the mass of programmed details. [Sep 2009, p.88]

The pulse never rises above a heartbeat, but as the nine songs clock in at 34 minutes, the absence of tempo changes is barely noticed. [Oct 2009, p.112]

For the most part this is classic fuzzy heavy rock, bordering on self-parody but all done in good spirit. [Nov 2009, p.96]

Good fun. [July 2009, p.84]

For the Black Crowes, this is an inspired move, maximising their virtues (virtuosity, passion, guilelessness) and minimising their principal flaw (the fact that it all starts to feel a bit silly if you stop to think about it).

His blurry lullabies, full of crimson moons and devils' wings, carry a Biblical sense of foreboding and disquiet, somewhere between J Tillman and a more whiskery Neal Casal. [Dec 2009, p. 106]

"George Jones Talkin' Cell Phone Blues" "The Great Car Dealer War", and covers of Tom Petty's "Rebels" and Dylan's "Like A Rolling Stone" are among highlights of an album that many of the DBTs' peers would cheerfully claim as a career peak. [Jan 2010, p. 106]

It's a sincere but over-comfortable trawl-lovers of the man's rockin' fire will be disappointed. [Dec 2009, p. 92]

A rich, rowdy and mostly rewarding listen.

It's the skeletal accompaniment that lends the sound real brawn--primitive and intuitive, yet sophisticated at the same time. [Jun 2009, p.113]

Arctic Monkeys were never comfortable as the ‘voice of a generation’. Humbug subtly shrugs off that unwanted mantle, and in the same deft movement, promises a much more interesting future.

Fiendishly clever, but not easy to love. [Oct 2009, p.104]

Light is a dog's breakfast of weedy vocals, preachy platitudes and banal melodies that makes Sting sound like The Last Poets. [Jul 2010, p.112]

Jet's third album has the Guns N' Roses references to the fore, but is worryingly lacking in pizzazz. [Aug 2009, p.94]

Caillat has a sweet, clear voice and the songs are crisply tasteful ("Fallin' For You" is all hook) but rarely go beyond formula. [Nov 2009, p. 83]

It's grisly. [Sep 2009, p.90]

If the initial effect is underwhelming, after several plays you find the tunes have buried themselves in your head and layers of intriguing subtlety are revealed. [Aug 2009, p.98]

My Dusty Road is facinating as an archive set. [Oct 2009, p.120]

Her career path - Staten Island barista to MySpace to Old Navy commercial-is less conventional than her songs, which build from folkie beginnings to big, optimistic pop choruses. [Dec 2009, p. 103]

Nestled between krautrock clatter and art-school drones are tracks that feel like stadium-sized anthems, particularly the Coldplay-meets-MGMT chugger "He Falls To Me" and the Afro-pop singalong "Underage". [Dec 2009, p. 97]

This time he's crafted a more parent-friendly brand of earnest pop that isn't quite as irritating, but is sadly no more engaging. [Aug 2009, p.101]

Even in cliched moments the airy swooning music lends her breathy confessionals a vulnerable, charming intimacy. [Jul 2009, p.99]

Beneath the catchy hooks, a collection of bleak songs about nihilism and failure are revealed. [Sep 2009, p.92]

There have been worse ideas, it's true. All round, though, it feels like a man with a gun in his back, being forced to be upbeat. [Sep 2009, p.79]

This time around they've learnt to loosen up slightly, enlisting the help of Amber Webber from Black Mountain and adding a pleasingly West Coast sensibility to what was previously a rather monochromatic Americana mix. [Sep 2009, p.81]

Best is "Sylvia", where Bon Iver's intimacy, Arcade Fire's ambition, Sigur Ros' other-worldly reach and Flaming Lips' psych experimentalism collide. [Dec 2009, p. 98]

Henry lacks Wait's distinctive voice and lyrical personae, but his way with deftly arranged melodies is often superb. [Sep 2009, p.84]

Respect is due--such is their musical vigor, PJ make it sound like it all really matters. [Sep 2009, p.90]

This follow-up is a lackluster affair. [Sep 2009, p.95]

The music is accordingly spectral, with sparse piano teasing its way into break-out crescendos of strings, French horns and a children's choir. [Dec 2009, p. 87]

While Lanegan could sing the Richard Stilgoe songbook and still enthral, there remains a hint of contrivance about Soulsavers' self-consciously cinematic, grungey trip hop. [Sep 2009, p.95]

Ultimately, though, it's another Squarepusher album you don't really need. [Oct 2009, p.112]

It’s a ravishing production, and with a companion disc promised next year, feels like a fresh start for a brilliant career.

Back To Yasgur’s Farm has a documentary feel that’s one of its most successful aspects.

There's a sense that it trawls the finest moments of his 15-year carreer. [Jul 2009, p.93]

On her opening 21st-century work she's still raging. [Jul 2009, p.97]

Lean Forward occasionally falters toward generic Southern rock, but contains its share of gems. [Nov 2009, p.81]

The results are impressive: the requisite 1960s garage cover sits happily alongside the band's traditional urgency, and their newfound classicism. [Nov 2009, p.99]

Yorkston may have set aside his “personal muse” for a moment, but Folk Songs is still part of his rich re-imagining of our heritage.

Most of the album comes across as a weedy, irritating student pastiche of the DFA sound rather than something that deserves a place in its esteemed catalogue. [Sep 2009, p.105]

Skyscraper is largely drab, despite Banks experimenting with beats, samples and chamber pop orchestration. [Sep 2009, p.90]

Overall though--a quality 'One More American Song' shares with the whole collection--this is a song with an understated, but crucial, element of hope. [Aug 2009, p.100]

The new line up and improved prodution give songs more space, but haven't hindered the jaunty, lo-fi, eclectic iindie that made "Moonbeams" such a treat. [Sep 2009, p.101]

Constancy is provided by the band's sleek economy and the piercing, implacable vocals of Sian Alice Ahern herself. [Sep 2009, p.92]

The rest of the album struggles to maintain that high standard [of the second track, 'I Know'], but 'Take It Home' is a magnificent dirge. [Sep 2009, p.86]

Nonsensical, inventive and captivating. [Sep 2009, p.89]

It all adds up to an immaculately composed, if soft-centred, avant-pop proposition, and suggest Frank might just turn out to be the British Justin Timberlake. [Aug 2009, p.92]

The narcotic haze of early singles is missed, but their knack with a loping pop hook is still ever-present and thier euphoric harmonies find new perches in "Back Where We Started" and "Twit Twoo." [Aug 2009, p.109]

A palatial record. [Mar 2009, p.89]

What's in here finds the band inventive, unfailingly tuneful, and, rather belying the title, mellowing magnificently with age. [Aug 2009, p.87]

The result is earworms aplenty, but any angst feels airbrushed, the effect is rather like rlaxing to a mobile phone commercial. [Apr 2010, p.95]

As guitarist Russell Marsden steps aside to let bassist Emma Richardson sing, it's less White Stripes, more Brody Dale, but momentum is maintained. [Oct 2009, p.91]

This second is a well-crafted collection that finds McClure pondering his place in a rotten world. [Aug 2009, p.102]

It takes a while to move beyond prettily pleasant, but the band's pining melancholy kicks in on 'What There Is' and 'Real Meaning.' [Sep 2009, p.79]

They rather more resemble the wilfully over-wrought pastiches of Flight Of The Conchords, but without the jokes. [Sep 2009, p.82]

Aside from sime sly gender-bending and lovable kitsch, there just isn't much interpretive room to roam. [Aug 2009, p.105]

Molina here opts for a more expansive spproach with reedy harmonies, horns, soulful guitars and gospel piano. [Aug 2009, p.100]

These nine abstract sound paintings strip away the guitars, drums and vocals of Sigur Ros to liberate the avant-classical spirit within. [Aug 2009, p.87]

If you want epic, check out the eight-minute sprawl of 'Mary Is Mary.' For a bit more raw noise terror, try the speed-rush of 'Tattoo.' [Nov 2009, p.117]

Man Overboard doesn’t quite scale the heights of its predecessor, even containing a stumble or two ('Girl From The Office,' with Hunter playing the cad, falls flat), but it still offers plenty.

It ain't always pretty. [Oct 2009, p.104]

The conceit, owing as much to Thomas Pynchon as it does to the Grateful Dead, and songs like 'Jehovah Will Never Come' remain delightful. [Nov 2009, p.104]

The Dead Weather is another slightly unsatisfying fling alongside The Raconteurs. [Jul 2009, p.84]

An LP that once raved shamelessly now shuffles, twitchily. [Oct 2009, p.95]

They deliver a debut of confidence and conviction. [Oct 2009, p.112]

Welcome To... is impressive rather than truly loveable. [Aug 2009, p.102]

Embrace plies its trade with a neat mix of musical proficiency and stylistic flexibility. [Jun 2009, p.93]

The song themselves are thoughtful, ambling between folk, country and mid-paced roots-rock. [Aug 2009, p.100]

It shares Bon Iver's "For Emma, Forever Ago's" exquisite sense of existing in its own hermetically sealed world. [Aug 2009, p.87]

The RAA's narratives are as expansive as the prarie where singer-songwriter and guitarist Nils Edenloff grew up, but they're also full of resonnant, intimate detail. [Aug 2010, p.94]

The passion evident throughout help disguise the feeling we've been here before. [Jul 2009, p.109]

Rated O delivers more often than falters. [Aug 2009, p.98]

Regularly a memorable lyric leaps out--but too often the pared-down aesthetic is an excuse to coast. [Aug 2009, p.96]

While they are unlikely to blow any heads off, track like 'Graffiti Eyes' show that they haven't lost the knack of writing diverting pop songs. [Sep 2009, p.96]

The songs are often gently ironic '70s orchestral pop with overtones of striped caps and Edwardian moustaches. [Aug 2009, p.90]

Their supple, smouldering songs take you back to an innocent, pre-Britpop indie era while retaining the thrust of contempories like Bloc Party. [Aug 2009, p.87]

This debut release on their own label is an uncompromising instrumental beast, rammed with weapons-grade jazz-metal riffing and ultra-heavy No Wave sax skronking. [Aug 2009, p.85]

Wilco (the album) picks up more or less where 2007’s mellow and soulful "Sky Blue Sky" left off, but subtly expands that record’s parameters.

The musical palette, however, is wider this time round, emphasising the breadth of Helm’s interests rather than the stuff on which he was weaned--numbers by Muddy Waters and Nina Simone rub shoulders with works by Randy Newman and the Grateful Dead.

Elsewhere, sluggish excursions in ambient pop and a commitment to melancholia that borders on the opppressive suggests that all those years grasping at the advertising dollar have left a taint of bland that won't scrub off. [Aug 2009, p.96]

American Saturday Night has its fair share of hokum but proves that Paisley has a tough baritone voice and is a mean, bluesy guitarist. [Aug 2010, p.92]

When he's not making party music, he stretches out and delivers deep fluid grooves. It's the naggingly simplistic melodies and dumb call-and-response choruses of tracks like 'U Want Some?' that spoil the fun. [Aug 2009, p.92]

Everything sounds deliciously grubby and unpolished.

At best, Varshons is a joy forever. Even at worst, it’s a forgiveable, even likeable, labour of love.

The solos are majestic and Barlow even contributes a couple of thumpers. Nobody does this better.

As ever with The Mars Volta, there are enough flashes of brilliance to make up for the wearying material elsewhere. [Sep 2009, p.86]

Throughout, there's an ungainly combination of the leaden and the jaunty. [Aug 2009, p.102]