Tracks like 'Knickerbocker' or 'Pussyfooting' are complemented by David Best's whispering voice intoning gibberish lyrics and rhythmic vocal tics over maddeningly catchy riffs. [Oct 2008, p.90]

The Stand Ins stands out on its own merits, a trove of dazzlingly wittty songcraft. [Nov 2008, p.112]

A collection of nursery rhymes aimed at toddlers, it should prove nauseating to anyone over the age of three. [Nov 2008, p.92]

All elements are delivered with an easy, effortless roll--you suspect The Donkeys may turn out to be lions. [Oct 2008, p.83]

It's all very well intended, but seldom rises above the superficial. [Dec 2008, p.108]

There's plenty to fall for here, but the anguished, bongo-driven 'Love All Of' is especially irresitable. [Feb 2009, p.93]

A delicious pathos has sustained Jurado through seven albums. It's still intact but it's just possible to detect a lightning of his mood around rthe edges. [Nov 2008, p.105]

This album subtly expands her metrical, folksy songcraft to the point where songs like 'Heard It All Before' and 'Fireheads' are just one spoonfed breakbeat from being charttoppers. [Oct 2008, p.113]

The approach is scattershot, but the pace of his productivity means that you're never far from a great song. [Nov 2008, p.124]

The glossy production on this Montreal-based singer songwriter's second album makes it easy to overlook, but beneath the pedal-steel sheen of songs like 'Other Side' lies a real talent. [Sep 2008, p.88]

Joseph Mount and co have tried to narrow their focus, with 'My Heart Rate Rapid' and 'A Thing For Me' the most obvious benificaries of a new streamlined approach. elsewhere, however, an off-putting manic surrealism remains, which somehow feels like an act of self-sabotage. [Oct 2008, p.p.101]

It's the personal element that underpins this record's appeal. [Oct 2008, p.92]

There are very few other albums this year with as much force, verve, and sheer musical imagination as That Lucky Old Sun. [Sep 2008, p.84]

A mish-mash of tracks from or intended for film soundtracks, is mearly more of the same with added strings. [Sep 2008, p.109]

Joe Henry coaxes out his pithy, hard-bitten wisdom with unfussy production. [Oct 2008, p.98]

Now, at 52, Gelb’s music seems to have found a renewed vigour, a sharper focus. ProVISIONS not only has some lean 'n' lovely boy-girl ballads, wild mood swings and a frequent groove, but also a sense of intent.

Ploughing through the second disc's "Electronic Battle Weapons" techno jams is a stifling experience, punctuated by rushes of euphoria.

Smith sounds urgent, fresh and revitalised. [Sep 2008, p.100]

A hazy, boozy affair that threatens to collapse at any time but is buoyed by good-times psychedelic pub-rock chuugers. [Oct 2008, p.105]

Ten years on, that Britpop hangover won't shift. [Oct 2008, p.81]

Forth certainly makes it seem like they’ve never been away, the stench of those woeful Ashcroft solo albums extinguished.

Their ragged eclecticism is a winning one, taking detours into Ry Cooder slide-country, beat-up folk and starry desert ballads. [Sep 2008, p.98]

Brewis constructs songs with architectural scale and precision--in its own prim, nostalgic, English way, it’s pretty dazzling stuff.

Occasional, more straightforwardly anthemic moments approach the mawkishness of Nickelback, but Slipknot remain showmen at heart. [Oct 2008, p.108]

It's gratifying to hear this veteran crew sounding so scrappy. [Oct 2008, p.113]

A grandiose power metal pomposity that marshals such gusts of keyboard and flowery, Yngwie Malmsteen guitar duelling it basically feels like a climax strung out over 60 minutes; epic in short bursts, slightly tiring in the long haul. [Nov 2008, p.92]

Loose, raw, a bit funky, it illustrates the band's knack for creating new-but-classic-sounding songs and getting them down on disc with a sizzling live feel. [Aopr 2009, p.87]

Lemmy's chief inspiration is war, and this leads to some lyrically sticky moments. Generally, though, high spirits prevail. [Nov 2008, p.109]

The result is a rich, easy-rolling album that finds King's fingers still nimble and his megaphone voice barely creaking. [Dec 2008, p.100]

Fed is beautifully excessive, ornamented with dazzling soul/pop arrangements. [Sep 2008, p.114]

"We return to find a pile of broken kitten bits" they trill on 'GOOJFC,' which may be as succinct an image of their fractured whimsydelia as you'll get. [Sep 2008, p.85]

Youth Novels attampts to repeat the trick [the single 'Little Bit'] 13 more times, with varying degrees of sucess. [July 2008, p.103]

Their combination of new wave rhythms, with such conspicuous use if strings is impressive, but it falls a little short of grandeur. [Oct 2008, p.105]

With a new album of the less pop material from these same sessions due later this year, let's hope for some new mutations.

Johnny Whitney's helium-pumped, Brian Molko-meets-Freddie Mercury squeal is very much an acquired taste--perhaps for some it will prove insufficuently offset by his bandmates' post-punk adventurism. [Sep 2008, p.92]

Guitars still sound like they were recorded in an igloo, while the singer's Dylan obsession only really pays off on woozy waltz 'Red Moon,' assisted by Matt Barrick's skeletal drum accompaniment. [Nov 2008, p.128]

[They've delivered] a spawling 70-minute opus devoid of drive or inspiration. [Oct 2008, p.83]

The Stills remain a little too anonymous. [Dec 2008, p.116]

The listenable authority of Campbell’s voice, especially on Foo Fighters' 'Days Like These,' confers the poise you suspect Richard Ashcroft was looking for while solo, but never found.

It's frequently infuriating and sometimes amateurish, but nevertheless adds up to the most succinct introduction yet to the wonderul warped world of the Friedbergers. [Oct 2008, p.86]

This cosmic suite evokes a steamy union between Vangelis and Santana, and is Lindstrom's strongest work by far. [Oct 2008, p.96]

Wainwright’s vocals imbue the material with a mixture of world-weariness, compassion and delight, qualities that didn’t loom large in the emotional lexicon of his younger self.

A Beautifu;l record. [Feb 2009, p.88]

It contains some amusing satires, some witty observations about the degeneration of rap and some why-oh-why philosophising. Some beats are a little dated. [Dec 2008, p.94]

If you've already worn out your copy of "Stay Positive," this is surely your next stop. [Jan 2008, p.94]

Her creamy voice canters over deft fingerpicked guitars and celtic violin throughout the rest of the album, and although the heights of the aforementioned song are barely hinted at elsewhere, Marling’s promise--she’s just 17 years old--is as clear as spring water.

While he doesn't quite kick like he used to, Weaver's lugubrious voice and ear for the creepiness inherent in old-time folk make for an engrossing listen. [Sep 2008, p.98]

For all their faults, The Levellers will happily go where other feat to tread. [Sep 2008, p.92]

It’s proof that, when he escapes from awkward, self-conscious navel-gazing, Oberst can be a songwriter of some note.

Newman is at his most affecting when he plays it mercilessly straight: his flickers of sincerity all the more beguiling for only appearing rarely.

A blend of delicate, hypnotic electr-folk and pulsating prog--a tantalizing treat. [Sep 2008, p.99]

TATE's debut touches on Stooges garage rock, sultry blues, Strokesian pop, all swaddled in opulent Americana. [Mar 2009, p.87]

Vandervelde's second album only really hits its stride in the six-minute centerpiece 'Someone Like You.' [Oct 2008, p.114]

Toth's chimeric qualities are still evident. [Oct 2008, p.113]

Alice delivers his best album in decades. [Oct 2008, p.83]

Oh! Mighty Engine is typically whimsical, low key and surprisingly touching (when you can make out what he is singing). [Oct 2008, p.90]

The chilly disco-noir aesthetic of early 1980s synth-pop provides the musical hinterland, all monophonic squelch and analogue modernism. [Aug 2008, p.85]

Occasionally they break from formula, but the tired beats and repetitive rhymes ensure Double Bubble would have even a Full Moon Party shaking their heads. [Sep 2008, p.104]

This long-awaited follow-ups sees them improvising live as a quintet, with a few overdubs. [Sep 2008, p.100]

Subtract [a couple of stinkers] and you have something of a minor masterpiece--and easily Weller’s finest solo album to date.

Life Processes sounds like mice playing Hundred Reasons covers. [May 2008, p.95]

There's some interesting things going on here.... Sadly, Bernard Butler's production often feels thin and tinny, which isn't just sad, but avoidable, too. [Aug 2008, p.92]

Two years of constant touring, countless festivals, a loss of a member (bassplayer Ira) and the addition of Gwen Stefani's producer, and something's gone awry.

Dr. Dog have stepped up to the plate for the fifth album and hits a homer. [Sep 2008, p.88]

Canning's default setting is a distorted, drone-laden, melodic indie rock that recalls My Bloody Valentine or Sonic Youth, but he also goes off on some interesting tangents. [Oct 2008, p.81]

It’s too blunt, messy and reverent to be up there with their best, but you hope that it also serves a secondary function: to clear the decks for one last magnificent tilt at rock deification on album number ten.

Staggeringly good.

Their first album without guitarist Bruce Gilbert draws on their strength as writers of nuanced pop, producing, in the mellow rumble of 'One Of Us,' 'Mekon Headman' and Perspex Icon,' a few more for the next Best Of.

Bleak but brilliant. [Nov 2008, p.109]

Most compelling are the variety of vocals--some spoken, some hollered, some sung in spinetingling harmonies. [Sep 2008, p.98]

This fourth offering crams 14 tracks into half an hour and sounds like a sketchbook of ideas rather than a fully formed expression of any kind. [Nov 2008, p.128]

So Beck is finally fun again, and you suspect the person most surprised by how well Modern Guilt turned out is the guy who made it.

None of it is in any sense inspired, and Hammond tries his hand at that Swiss-finishing-school skank once too often, but many tracks here could comfortably make it onto First Impressions of Earth.

Willie's laidback voice is on top form, and for once, Wynton's garrulous trumpet takes a back seat, leaving space for some smart interjections from Mickey Rafael's harmonica and Walter Blanding's tenor sax. [Aug 2008, p.100]

The new LP gradually casts a powerful spell. [Aug 2008, p.106]

The result is strangely enervating. [Aug 2008, p.103]

Nude with Boots follows their last album, 2006's "(A) Senile Animal," in being one of the most straightforward, epically rawk albums of the Melvins' career. [Aug 2008, p.99]

It's a stunning performance, drawing fire from Smith's stentorian performance, providing the ballast for the voyage of her Rimbaudian drunken boat. [Aug 2008, p.104]

Aside from the roistering music, what makes this ultimately so appealing is they way McCaughey and Wynn universalise their subject.

Her rapping/singing is insightful, stroppy and hilarious. [Oct 2008, p.96]

Blood, Looms, And Blooms finds the much-missed producer back on track after personal tragedy, peddling her strongest work to date. [Aug 2008, p.96]

Skeleton romps along at a joyful gait peppered with breathless harmonies and squalls of noise and subverts some familiar tools along the way. [Nov 2008, p.87]

Without recourse to crossover tricks, it's arguably more consistent than 50's last outing, although topics--guns, beef, money--may leave you wondering what rap has become. [Oct 2008, p.90]

Dig beneath the murky punk riffs (“Chinese Dogs”) and difficult time signatures (“Buzzards And Crows”) however, and you uncover a lyricist of rare promise, at his best when he’s on home turf.

This is inventive harkening, not witless revivalism. [Apr 2008, p.90]

Often stunning, but arguably also a little too knowing and shallow. [Aug 2008, p.108]

Sadly the album’s latter stages revert to type, as Jónsi Birgisson’s quavering choirboy falsetto illuminates glacially paced piano and strings. All achingly lovely in a Coldplay-meets-Clannad way, of course, but Sigur Ros play too safe when they clearly have much more to offer than misty-eyed Celtic abstraction.

With strong ensemble backing Escovedo alternates gentle, reflective lullabies with incendiary Mott-styled rockers, to marvellous effect. [Aug 2008, p.93]

Their wispy, diaphanous reworking of The Cure’s 'Just Like Heaven' suggests the Watson formula could travel far.

Their resolutely adolescent outlook is set to the usual thunderous drums, fiddly-widdly guitars and fist-pumping choruses, though none possessing the magnificent dumb charm of '89's 'Kickstart My Heart.' [Oct 2008, p.101]

This serves notice that the recent Wu-Tang renaissance may now be at an end. [Sep 2008, p.100]

Catchy as hell. [Oct 2008, p.90]

Ultimately, Workout Holiday is a party record for thinking people, and it’s a smart time to join them.

From there [after the title track and 'Out of Dreams'], though, the tunes disappear into a black hole of generic Liverpudlian guitar pop. [July 2008, p.100]

However unappetizing it may first appear, this is grimly funny food for thought.

When it's not straining for Significance, though, Viva La Vida is often rather lovely.

The Devil, You + Me is no milestone of experimentation, but The Notwist win extra points with their emotional restraint, lyrical maturity and elegantly complex arrangements. [Aug 2008, p.101]

Lyrically, there's little to cling onto, but it's not inconceivable a song like 'Soldier's Grin' could see them follow labelmates The Shins into indie ubiquity. [Sep 2008, p.115]