Caught between Genesis and Crowded House, Guillemots end up careening between Melancholy, bombast and bad verse. [May 2011, p.87]

It would be silly to expect surprises from the Fairports at this late point, and their first album in four years proves as well tended and predictable as a Cotswold village. [May 2011, p.85]

Unfortunately it ends up as the kind of glossily produced "perfect pop" you can spin a dozen times without ever remembering a single tune. [May 2011, p.77]

Cat's Eyes has nice moment's has nice moments, but it makes you realize how much we'll miss Broadcast, who explored similar terrain with more aplomb. [May 2011, p.86]

This largely instrumental album is lush and joyful, roaming and sweeping across the ivories, one to which you can create a dramatic narrative of your own. [May 2011, p.79]

Folk-rock masterpiece of quietly influential Northern miserabilism. [May 2011, p.80]

A Thousand Mazes almost transcends its influences. Almost. [May 2011, p.91]

If Metronomy appeared glib in the past, here you'll find musical and emotional depth. [May 2011, p.91]

Mazes proves that San Franciscan guitarist Ripley Johnson has not musically strayed too far from home. [May 2001, p.93]

Their third full-length radiates the stale resignation of a band whose moment has passed. [May 20111, p.93]

It continues where his 2006 solo debut, "My Secret Is My Silence" began, mining the seams of British folk with out descending into chunky-jumpered sentimentality. [May 2011, p.103]

Besides the odd burst of surf guitar and filigree finger-picking, the basic musical parameters remain unchanged. [May 2011, p.85]

All very impressive, if hallow at its core. [May 2011, p.88]

She has fashioned a still eccentric but bracingly focused collection of songs that blend her acrobatic and soulful Afro-jazz vocals with a collage music that defies any attempts at categorization. [May 2011, p.96]

It moves somewhat uneasily through Celtic folk and rural string music. [May 2011, p.92]

Wit's end is so sparse and downbeat that it occasionally verges on the drab. [May 2011, p.91]

Beneath its appealing veneer this remains a work wracked with personal anguish and doubt, and any positive engagement with life is welcome in it--even if, from necessity, it has to come from someone else. [May 2011, p.84]

A mostly successful fusion of sonic and sartorial elegance. [May 2011, p.82]

Strictly for the committed. [May 2011, p.80]

It has a peculiar charm. [May 2011, p.77]

An album that bounces airly between teen pop sublime and the aging rebel ridiculous. [Apr 2011, p.95]

Sadly beyond these two standouts ["Perfect Stranger" and "Katy On A Mission"], Brien's album swiftly degenerates into faceless Top Shop dance-pop filler. [Apr 2011, p.75]

Now reissued and remastered, those principals are still sound: classic riffs and also more toothsome and unswinging structures, what ch are nice, especially when they stop. [Apr 2011, p.94]

This recording demonstrates what he was capable of out of his element: a skillful entertainer working the crowd, reaching into his trick bag and pulling out just what he needs to get the job done.

Edwyn Collins is the perfect producer to lend the jaunty jangles an edge of both darkness and charm. [May 2011, p.91]

It's no disrespect to Chesnutt to observer that his songs sound better sung by Margo Timmins--the same could be said about anyone. [Mar 2011, p.86]

Julie Budet's breathy vocals may be a little too Vanessa Paradis, but producers Jean Francois Perrier and Tanguy Destable keep the grooves shiny and the beats sweet. [May 2011, p.103]

There are crafted, uplifting songs, but also haunting, ambient undercurrents hinting at everything from Art Of Noise to The xx to Fever Ray. [May 2011, p.103]