It's a blazing set for a 70-year-old, but Winter gains traction from his fretboard duets/duels with Eric Clapton, Billy Gibbons, Joe Bonamassa, Joe Perry, Brian Setzer et al. [Oct 2014, p.80]

Commune is less immediately striking than World Music. [Oct 2014, p.81]

Adrian Thaws is another decent entry in the latterday Trickypedia, rolling along on circular bluesfunk grooves and furtive whisper-croak boy-girl vocals. [Oct 2014, p.79]

It lacks the debut's punchiness, and a compelling thread to bind those disparate elements. [Oct 2014, p.67]

Derivative, perhaps, but reconfigured in a way which is both expert and highly seductive. [Sep 2014, p.69]

It's '80s pop, but not as you know it. [Sep 2014, p.69]

Schnauss' trademark keyboard washes are a significant feature, at times helping stimulate euphoria beneath often gauzy melancholia, elsewhere adding a soothing Pink Floyd-ish balm. [Sep 2014, p.73]

The template remains classic American pop-rock served with a glaze of summer-fried weirdness, redolent of The Shins, Flaming Lips and Neil Young, but now there's real heart beneath the often twee facade. [Oct 2014, p.67]

Taylor's no alchemist--not yet at least--though Lateness Of Dancers suggests he can write songs that transcend the everyday by hymning its subtleties. [Oct 2014, p.78]

In the absence of original recordings, it's hard to know what to judge these against. [Oct 2014, p.80]

The signature combination of upbeat music and somewhat gruesome lyrical themes works so well for Shovels & Rope that a few leaks spring when they commit themselves to a dive to the depths. [Oct 2014, p.75]

A little over-joyous for most, but a fair achievement regardless. [Oct 2014, p.73]

A finely crafted record, whose artfulness is mediated by informality. [Oct 2014, p.69]

Ryan Adams is very much Ryan Adams being Ryan Adams. [Oct 2014, p.68]

The fragility in her performances is delivered with just the right amount of internal integrity. [Oct 2014, p.79]

Business as usual then--though any choice moments are somewhat let down by Roy Thomas Baker's sterile production and some badly dated keyboard sounds. [Oct 2014, p.80]

Deja Bu, but a thrill worth experiencing again. [Oct 2014, p.77]

Although the The Courteeners are newly mature, they're oddly not yet their own men. [Oct 2014, p.69]

Ganglion Reef configures plenty of their benefactor's favourite modes of garage rock into moderately fresh, often terrific new shapes. [Oct 2014, p.80]

The addition of bassist Bi;ll Herzog lends Earth a gnarliness absent in recent folk-inflected outings. [Oct 2014, p.71]

Beyond the clever production and judicious musical blend is a sensibility and a voice and songs that find Plant still on his quest, still grappling with the intricacies of love, still seduced by distant, misty mountains. His Uniqueness has never been more apparent. [Oct 2014, p.61]

It's for fans only, but that's where Crush Songs' power lies. [Oct 2014, p.76]

Guitarist Hugh Harris can still finesse a scintillating riff, but derivative would-be hipster anthems with hip-hop bolt-on "Around Town" and "It Was London" suggest a band aware that their time has come, and gone. [Oct 2014, p.74]

They sound refreshed again here, even if their classy, Music From Big Pink-inspired roots-rock has changed little from the default settings established by their brilliant debut August And Everything After 20 years ago. [Oct 2014, p.69]

The tense chemistry has been, to some degree, recaptured. [Oct 2014, p.68]

Banks is an earnest singer with an ear for complex anthems--she's at her best when letting big emotions rip. [Oct 2014, p.67]

On their fifth album, it's back go icy, slightly Gothic basics. [Oct 2014, p.73]

Surprises are few on the pair's excellent fourth album Par Avion. [Sep 2014, p.81]