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.