While he's got enough pure country in him to for convincing Merle Haggard-style balladry, he's best on rabble-rousers like the rightly pissed populism of "Stomp And Holler" and the de facto title song, a doomed soldier's outrageous, funny surreal travelogue grafted onto a grungy mutation of Dylan's "Subterranean Homesick Blues." [Mar 2011, p.85]

Exactly a year since the release of his dreamy debut Causers Of This, South Carolina's Chaz Bundick is back with a very different and impressively cultured second album. [Mar 2011, p.105]

The fifth and final Streets albums suffers as a result of his self-imposed exile from the hubbub he once chronicled with such verve. [Mar 2011, p.101]

His is a paradoxical, somewhat clean version of grime, pushing every commercial button to boost his product. [Mar 2011, p.101]

Hardcore contains some of their most affecting tunes since the early singles, instrumental parts coiling around each other in graceful, liquid polyphony. [Mar 2011, p.97]

If I'm New Here was a triumph for Russell and Scott-Heron, We're New Here reveals a maverick production talent in Jamie Smith that his band's records have only hinted at. [Mar 2011, p.95]

Their take on electric jazz can seem airless: the sax leads are worthy but venture nowhere near the outer limits chartered by Ayler and Coltrane. [Mar 2011, p.93]

City of Refuge finds her back in Appalachian mode though, the songs shaded with fiddle, banjo and dulcimer and borne aloft by Washburn's airy voice. [Mar 2011, p.92]

Ejimiwe's lyrics are often vague, but the music has echoes of Tricky, Roots Manuva, and the minimal end of dubstep. [Mar 2011, p.91]

Abstract, but curiously engaging. [Mar 2011, p.83]

Allo Darlin' aren't the latest in post-Kate Nash mockney complaint pop, but instead makers of music that's unapologetically twee. [July 2010, p.101]

Let England Shake is the sound of someone as maddened as they are enthralled, aglow with anger and passion.

It's a faintly sparkling, wistful listen, where from her vocal monotone, you wonder if she's mocking those sexually stereotypical longings. Perhaps that's optimistic, but either way, it's satisfying that she's taken a different tack. [Mar 2011, p.98]

Like fellow minimalists The xx, Blake takes from dubstep an awareness of space and silence; he appreciates the power of a perfectly weighted pause. [Mar 2011, p.98]

Hotel Shampoo is a fragrant little side-project but it's a bit too sudsy to be the main event. [Mar 2010, p.96]

The results are dark, dangerous and utterly compelling. [Mar 2011, p.94]

Angels is spacier than previous outings, nowhere more so than the semi-improvised 20-minute title track. [Mar 2011, p.88]

It's a rich, invigorating and mischievous affair and, for older fans, possibly their best since 2004's The Dirty South. [Mar 2011, p.87]

Problematically for a singer-songwriter, Oberst drops personal feelings, wry asides and hip references equally lightly--ultimately, you're disinclined to believe anything he says at all. [Mar 2011, p.85]

The problem here is Beans himself, whose verbosity too often resembles a limerick writer who tries to cram, as many syllables into the last line as he possibly can. [Mar 2011, p.83]

Phil Manley's first solo album presents as a homage to the spirit and sound of mid-'70s German Electronic rock. [Feb 2011, p.90]

The Atmosphere is intimidating and nervy--a far cry from cosy campfire kumbayas. [Feb 2011, p.94]

This is a finely paced album, mirroring the rhythm of the calendar and getting choppier as it moves toward the midway point. [Feb 2011, p.99]

Under the bluster, though, frontman Ritzy Bryan adds a consistent emotional intensity best heard on "Cradle," reminiscent ofg Lush at their most bruised and bruising. [Mar 2011, p.93]

The crashing waves of "O-OnOne" immediately align the new-look Seefeel with the aggressive ambiance of Oneohtrix Point Never and Emeralds, while "Airless," Peacock's serene vocals are assailed by coarse filter sweeps and the squeals of busted circuitry. [Mar 2011, p.99]

Tracks like "Georgia" and "Holing Out" tear by with sandpaper efficiency and no little impact. Yet they have more than one idea. [Mar 2011, p.107]

It's a fearless rejection of current pop trends, fashioning a benchmark of intensity and originality that the rest of this year's albums will struggle to match. [Fed 2010, p.94]

They stand out because they combine some very familiar elements with more style and grace than their peers. [Feb 2011, p.94]