More rock music should be this reduced and addictive--but they'll have to think long and hard about self-parody some time soon. [Sep 2011, p.105]

The first half's schmaltzy flight-themed concept and the cliche-stewn acoustic second half mean that take-off, to labour an already laboured concept, proves indefinitely delayed. [Sep 2011, p.105]

Beefy but unremarkable debut album. [Sep 2011, p.105]

The lyrics are occasionally hackneyed, but overall 4 is a very strong record indeed. [Sep 2011, p.79]

Basically Big Talk is how The Killers might sound if, rather than combining Bruce Springsteen and the Pet Shop Boys, they settle for blending Kings of Leon with ELO. [Sep 2011, p.79]

Their 1993 debut, remastered by Bob Weston with b-sides and rarities, treads similar--of less self-consciously clever--ground to Crooked rain-era Pavement, with dissonant, spiky guitars piercing surprisingly melodic college radio favorites. [Sep 2011, p.79]

It's lush, detailed, frequently over-rich, but Fabricius' bright, perky voice and some generically kooky lyrics can't really carry the weight of the whole production. [Aug 2011, p.94]

If corralling the chaos is their new MO, they made a smart move. [Aug 2011, p.81]

Gaye's music was on the move, but it never moved quite like What's Going On: still seraphic, still turbulent. [Aug 2011, p.95]

The slow stuff exposes Dex's limited vocals, and his deliberately artless approach feels threadbare--but at least he doesn't take himself that seriously. [Aug 2011, p.97]

It sounds more like sketchbook of snippets rather than fully formed tracks. Even so, it still tickles the pleasure zones with its goodtime swing and verve. [Aug 2011, p98]

When co-leader Marshall LaCount takes vocals the band teeter on the brink of woe-is-me self-parody, but overall this is like a statelier Mazzy Star, dark in all the right places. [May 2011, p.82]

A 25-track bonus disc of rarities makes this a feast for Barlow heads. [May 2011, p.94]

Tobin's virtuoso collaging of alien sounds is bracingly vivid in small doses, but a little chilly and disorienting over the long haul. [Jun 2011, p.96]

Not bad for four young men barely out of their teens playing rowdy, undiluted hardcore. That has a lot to do with the excellence of their debut album. [Jun 2011, p.85]

Lyrically, the fare wavers from the unspectacularly anecdotal to the spinelessly soppy. [Jul 2011, p.121]

Friday shamelessly rekindles the Eno/Lannois unforgettable shimmer, croons against the dying of the light and somehow emerges defiantly alive. [Jun 2011, p.85]

With guests including trumpeter Terry Edwards and The Clientele's Alasdair MacLean, theses pure, poetic songs advance their euphoric yet melancholy quest for improbable romance. [Jun 2011, p.79]

Nikolaj Manuel Vonslid's choirboy vibrato lends a ghostly quality to these 10 pretty synth tunes, all of which fuse north European wistfulness and vaguely Oriental motifs in soothing manner. [Jul 2011, p.103]

While his unique but resolutely unchanging styles of slap bass shards and cut-up vocal syllables works well in a balanced DJ set, it wears quickly over 22 tracks. [Jul 2011, p.94]

Nothing on Take The High Road isn't impeccable, but equally little is surprising. [Jul 2011, p.79]

The 19 tracks revisited here constitute a mixed bag, ranging from imaginative reinventions to faithful recreations. [Aug 2011, p.100]

This time they've come armed with an acoustic guitar to counterpoint their love of reverb--something that works well with their generally playful attitude. [Aug 2011, p.100]

The pleasant surprise on their 15th album is how proficient they've become, without surrendering their innocence along the way. [Aug 2011, p.98]

Exec producer JR Hutson's scratch beats and jazzy interpolations give a spark to velvet soul confessionals where he aching but pliant, octave-scaling vocal colours across the emotional spectrum. [Aug 2011, p.98]

There's an earworm-like lure in every track. [Aug 2011, p.98]

This album essentially serves as a showcase for rising Brit soul singers Sampha and Jessie Ware, who add just the right quantities of sugar and grit. [Aug 2011, p.98]

The 23-year-old deals in the kind of one-take, reverb-drenched, sugary psych-pop that mostly sounds effortless and might occasionally be genius. [Aug 2011, p.98]