In Gareth Liddiard, the quartet have a singer-songwriter and guitarist of dark intensity, and his vivid narratives draw on the landscape and character of his homeland in a delicately melancholic way. [May 2009, p.85]

Although less exhausting than their debut, "Terrific Sounds," this remains an attention-demanding record. [Apr 2009, p.101]

To Be Still is a quantum leap from its predecessor, and one which establishes Alela Diane as a significant figure in contemporary Americana.

This one is more bluesy and soulful, a kind of semi-protest record that takes stock of post-Bush USA. [Mar 2009, p.88]

This is the polite, less freaky end of modern American indie folk: earnest, well-intentioned, Obama-fundraising, National Public Radio-supporting... and cumulatively a little dull.

Ferree's insistence of shoving everything right up front in the mix, all the time, becomes wearing, but you can't fault his enthusiasm. [Jan 2010, p. 110]

Mountains' skillful manipulation of texture and space creates a sound that stealthily envelopes you like an Appalachian fog. [mar 2009, p.92]

Belatedly, it turns out to be great: seven prescise, insurrectionist ramalams that somehow fit somewhere between the MC5's high Time and Dead Boys' 'Sonic Reducer.' [Mar 2009, p.82]

If once she was sweetly sardonic, now she sounds utterly bored, and collaborator Greg Kurtsin hardly helps with an anodyne synthpop production that makes excruciating excursions into rawhide country, pallid polka and Bontempi showtunes.

It is an album in the original sense of the word, offering a coherent display of Auerbach’s influences.

American show "Saturday Night Live" has a tradition of creating comedy heroes we don't quite get in the UK. Alongside Adam Sandler and Will Ferrell we can add The Lonely Island--essentially Flight Of The Conchords with more sperm jokes. [May 2009, p.91]

Emmy's startling pure voice is a vehicle for some smart, candid and subversive lyrics. [Mar 2009, p.87]

Here they continue their mission with bashes at Wilco, Pink Floyd, and a straight-but-great take on Yes' 'Long Distance Runaround.' [Dec 2008, p.81]

Not only a radio-friendly unit-shifter, but also a bona fide guilty pleasure. [Mar 2009, p.85]

It’s earthy and it’s eloquent--no doubt Willie will approve.

His own production work has been inconsistent. [Feb 2009, p.78]

All round, an unsettling development. [Jun 2009, p.109]

Kweller keeps his melodies clean and his arrangements simple, frequently teaming pedal steel or dobro with his acoustic guitar. [Mar 2009, p.91]

Sea Sew is a subtle and intricately woven set of songs that seeps further into you with every listening. [Sep 2009, p.84]

There's some good stuff here. [Mar 2009, p.92]

Intriguingly odd in small does, Wannerstrom's cheerless, unschooled voice and rudimentary guitar chordings can get mighty oppressive over the course of 50 minutes. [Feb 2009, p.82]

Their sound is an accident born of naivety, but their unabashed love for '80s indie is unmistakeable. [Feb 2009, p.89]

A Fool For Everyone proves Bones can write a song or two. [Apr 2009, p.80]

Treasury Library Canada feels less whimsical and more polished, although Hamilton still sticks closely to his signature mix of rich acoustic chamber-pop arrangemnts and quietly barbed lyrics. [Mar 2009, p.107]

A late flowering triumph. [Jul 2010, p.117]

The thick broth of Kyle Falconer's Scots vowels remain the signature sound--but don't let it distract you from some genuinely adventurous and witty indie guitar rock. [Mar 2009, p.107]

For all their adroitness, most of the songs on Tonight sound too similar to each other (and to existing Franz Ferdinand songs).

An existentialist’s song cycle, Vacilando's grim, lonely songs reinforce each other with an impeccable internal logic, fashioning its own little world-weary universe, wherein less is more, simple guitar strums signal seismic shifts in mood, shadows bump into one another.

His 16th full-length recording is by some distance, Springsteen's weirdest, and most constantly startling to date. [Mar 2009, p.76]

Heady and infused with whimsy, their second full-length flows effortlessly from dreamy girl-group pop to electro-bossa nova. [Feb 2009, p.76]

Gutter Tactics lets a little light in, though, the glimmering, shoegazey 'We Lost Sight' being the surest glimpse yet of redemption within the gloom. [Mar 2009, p.82]

This is a bold howl for attention from the backwoods of folktronica. [Apr 2009, p.89]

This reunion feels like they've never been away. [Nov 2008, p.102]

Its wilful eccentricity distracts from the Native Tongues style that's their strongest card. [Mar 2009, p.107]

Unusually for him, his 10th album sounds like a collection of Chili Peppers demos. [Feb 2009, p.82]

If the elastic funk of 'You And Everyone Else' comes as a welcome surprise, put it down to the contribution of underrated backing band South. [Feb 2009, p.85]

Lambs Anger zig-zags from the sublime to the silly. [Feb 2009, p.89]

Old Money is rather more sharply honed--indeed, only the lack of vocals distinguishes this from a Mars Volta record. [Feb 2009, p.93]

The results can be ponderous, though Franklin's melodic smarts save things. [Jul 2009, p.93]

It sees them adapt while retaining their street credibility. [Nov 2008, p.117]

It feels like one of the landmark American albums of the century so far. [Jan 2008, p.86]

The Crying Light shows Antony boldly, indefatigably following his own eccentric star.

The songs here reveal their author's love of The Beattles, Fleetwood Mac, Paul Simon, Elton John et al, and confirm Newman's growing status as college rock's most tasteful magpie. [Apr 2009, p.91]

There’s a sense throughout that Bird’s head is engaged in a battle with his heart, as if aware that there’s a pop masterpiece squatting on the far horizons of his intuition.

The pair sometimes get slow and mellow, but the dominant tone is better expressed by the brattish beat explosion of 'Daylight,' the madly bleeping 'Don't Slow Down' or the clatteringly chaotic 'Cutdown.' [Sep 2009, p.86]

A solo album that sounds like a series of song sketches. [Feb 2009, p.89]

This is one of the heavier and more accessible entries in their labyrinthine discography. [Jan 2009, p.102]

His debut as a solo artist is no grand break from past form, while confirming that age shall not wither him. [Feb 2009, p.101]

RTZ helpfully collects together a bunch of Chasny's rare early jams, proving that his eldritch guitar studies--at once intense, devotional and not a little creepy--have remained consistent for a decade now. [Mar 2009, p.103]

Deliberately daft, but also bold and adventurous, Late Of The Pier are a hyperactive British answer to MGMT. [Sep 2008, p.90]

Mike Mattison's gritty lead vocals are fully functional, but it's Trucks' consistently mesmerising guitar and dobro that draw the ear. [Feb 2009, p.99]

Fine writing, then, and there’s musical variety, too.

If you’re simply after retro thrills, though, these boozy anthems will provide you with one very happy hour.

Exultant opener 'Country Love' and Cajun rumbler 'Shreveport,' like most of Haymaker!, just sparkle. [Feb 2009, p.82]

Some tracks feel throwaway, but goodtime vibes prevail. [Apr 2009, p.80]

Tough and determinedly sexed-up, here you'll find talk of beefs, booty and bitches, rather than brotherhood. Producers Neptunes and OutKast's Mr DJ oversee this exercise in alluringly moderne hip hop. [Oct 2008, p.83]

Anyone still reeling from Chan Marshall's sultry and imperious covers collection, "Jukebox," will find further thrills on this six track mini-album.

This slice of weird-rock from a more contented American decade is playful and preposterous in equal measure. [Feb 2009, p.89]

Every track here is interchangeable, not only with each other, but with anything from his back catalogue. [Feb 2009, p.76]

Glasvegas still strike the heart-strings, even without noisy guitars. [Jan 2008, p.94]

It's mostly beautiful, and very civilised. [Oct 2008, p.81]

It's every bit as good as their debut. [Nov 2008, p.109]

Depending on which Paul McCartney you like the most, you may or may not like what he’s done. But the best thing about Electric Arguments is that it sounds like the work of someone who doesn’t give a stuff what people are going to think. About time, too.

The lo-fi production makes everything sound like an unfinished demo, the songs are largely forgettable and the AutoTune’d vocals become a little tedious.

This is a "Talk Of the Town" of the mind, and he is clearly in his elemnt. [Dec 2008, p.100

Here Scott Weiland lets off steam in grand style. [Feb 2009, p.101]

It's an impeccably tatsteful tribute to their record collections, though mystifying they can find no room for anything by The Cure. [Jan 2009, p.114]

Even when the songs feel light, when the stylistic havoc and production is almost absurd, you have to admire the glorious gall. [Dec 2008]

On 'The Colour Of Three' and 'Glide,' Fennesz once again proves himself a match for the Kevin Shields of 'To Here Knows When' or "The Coral Sea." [Feb 2009, p.80]

Certainly enough to impress the judges. [Jan 2008, p.93]

The result is a twilight world where Robert Wyatt and John Coltrane rub shoulders with Why? and Vernon Elliott. Mad, but quite magical. [Dec 2008, p.81]

Soundwise, Chinese Democracy is all over the place.

Sugar Mountain is a fascinating snapshot of Neil Young at a transitory moment in his long career, for which it also provides an indelible template.

Ramshackle, out of tune, fey and frail, not yet tightened by Trevor Horn, these tracks capture the essence of this band's particular genius. [Dec 2008, p.83]

Sunday At Devil Dirt inhabits the same scorched earth, but is a more confident record. Ironically, this confidence manifests itself in an understated vocal performance from Campbell, leaving the spotlight on Lanegan’s dusty baritone.

As the lounge-like 'Will Get Fooled Again' segues into the glitch-funk of 'Orphaned,' you'd have to concede it's a fine idea. [Nov 2008, p.120]

This is different (from his last studio album) again, the rhythms of Afrobeat now cleved to an ambitious jazziness. [Dec 2008, p.100]

As with their third album, Can and Silver Apples are referenced, but there are additional moments here to please fans of both Terry Riley and Battles alike. [Dec 2008, p.94]

The music is classifed as country, but it's really clinical pop, enlivened by Swift's confessional lyrics. [Apr 2009, p.101]

Larry Klein places the vocals disconcertingly high in the mix, but it effectively emphasises Chapman's poetic sensibility. [Dec 2008, p.86]

If nothing can quite replicate the excitement of hearing these songs for the first time, the first disc of this double-CD set makes a good job of restating the importance of The Smiths as a singles band.

For some of the mercifully brief 33 minutes and 43 seconds of this album there is some merit in the messiness of this L.A. four-piece's palette of punk powerchords and sustained hoarseness. [Jan 2008, p.88]

Here childrren's voices, crazed yelping, psych-surrealism and Jesus freakouts combine to create a phantasmagoria that is fun, disturbing, inspired and childlike all at the same time. [Jan 2008, p.90]

It's a perfect match with producer Richard Hawley, who here channels his love of epic reverb pop to more interesting ends than on his solo albums. [Dex 2008, p.86]

All round, this is filled wiith pleasant rather than memorable tunes. [Oct 2008, p.113]

The Renaissance offers a compromise between the rootsy East Coast rap he helped to define and the LP you imagine the label wanted. [Jan 2008, p.111]

It's nimble stuff, but the most moving contribution comes from the late Buck Ownes. [Jan 2008, p.104]

Ambitions here, you feel, do not extend far beyond ‘a good time, all the time’-–it’s probably telling that the band name derives from a cocktail lounge on Sunset Boulevard-–but then, Moretti probably wouldn’t want it any other way.

Hayden Norman Thorpe's falsetto squawk is the controversial focal point but his lust for language is equally extraordinary.

It's good stuff, but also strangely nostalgic. [Nov 2008, p.117]

However dry or highbrow it may sound on paper, Johannsson's melodious symphony of strings, electronics and choral elements is totally accessible and, for most of its 60-plus minutes, achingly lovely. [Jan 2008, p.101]

What's more surprising is just how good it all is, the tunes great, the mood fun, the album infectious. [Mar 2009, p.92]

For all his experimentalism, Adamson never once loses sight of the song. [Dec 2008, p.94]

Visceral thrills for those who like thier punk served piping hot. [Jan 2008, p.104]

In truth, though, there's not too much here to alarm the undergraduate population.

This ill-fitting rebirth, fronted by the defiantly ungay, unIndian and uneccentric Paul Rodgers, can be seen as an attempt to ditch the Mercury-inspired absurdity and bolster Queen’s hard 'rawkin’credentials.

This is regal, majestic pop music played with a roundheaded bluntness. Off with their heads indeed.

All round, a party atmosphere prevails--and undoubtedly a good time is had by all.