It's stylistically impressive, but Worden only connects emotionally when she goes for simplicity. [Nov 2011, p.93]

After a moment of comparative restraint he returns with a double album so spectacularly grandiose you have to wear 3D specs to hear it properly. [Nov 2011, p.91]

That [the innocence of an idyllic childhood] was suddenly shattered when Lynne's father shot her mother and then himself, referenced with unsettling dispassion in "Heaven's Only Days Down The Road," renders the album's surrounding tender moments all the more heart-wrenching. [Nov 2011, p.91]

Too much of this lacks the urgent life of previous outings. [Nov 2011, p.89]

The cumulative effect of all this mid-tempo moodiness is that High Flying Birds feels awfully plodding. [Nov 2011, p.88]

There's no shortage of decent tunes. [Nov 2011, p.83]

A return to the coffee shops beckons. [Nov 2011, p.83]

Bad As Me is the sound of a supremely confident artist convening a raucous celebration of his own myth, and is multifariously marvellous. [Nov 2011, p.78]

It's far from perfect, but still one hell of a trip. [Oct 2011, p.89]

While these are thrillingly alive with Scott's undaunted belief in rock's majestic possibilities, he reminds himself to have fun as well. [Oct 2011, p.105]

The results are--as ever--compellingly inventive and seductively imagistic. [Oct 2011, p.100]

An epic study of sand and celluloid. [Oct 2011, p.98]

His strong, unfussy voice is endlessly empathetic and his guitar playing lithe and expressive. [Oct 2011, p.98]

They've really only got one trick. But it's a treat, all the same. [Oct 2011, p.98]

The wonder of it all lies not so much on the amount of ground she covers but the way she inhabits her material so convincingly. [Oct 2011, p.94]

There's little evidence [of reinvention] on a collection of soul-pop ballad s that sound like Jay Kay singing the James Blunt songbook. [Oct 2011, p.93]

This is folk music given the widescreen treatment and a crisp, modern sheen. [Oct 2011, p.91]

Although RTR are more than copyists, they cleave to a proven hybrid of speed metal, grungecore and emo. [Oct 2011, p.86]

Another triumph for the post-classical scene. [Oct 2011, p.81]

You may not be whistling these songs or dancing to them, but Biophilia's unsettling visions are compelling art. Oct 2011, p.92]

[It is] an eclectic patchwork of cinematic techno-rock and beat-heavy vocal tunes featuring stray members of the Chili Peppers, Warpaint and more. [Oct 2011, p.81]

Anderson's songs still find him leading a herd of misunderstood waifs but offer little to tempt the uninitiated. [Oct 2011, p.81]

Alas, too much of this heavily glossed and processed album lacks wit or passion. [Oct 2011, p.86]

Work is less dramatically monochrome than HTRK's debut, the Coil-like angst replaced with a more subtle existential uncertainty. [Oct 2011, p.89]

In their own way and in their own time, it's progress. [Oct 2011, p.95]

It's immaculately produced and performed, full of gorgeous vocal harmonies, extravagantly wafting flutes and often arresting melodies. But for some listeners it might be wither lacking in rawness or uncomfortably in thrall to the past. [Oct 2011, p.100]

When Nevermind rocks, it does so extremely. [Oct 2011, p.101]

It works best when her vocal is minimally adorned. [Oct 2011, p.105]