Reissued by Matador mere months after its boutique debut, Love Comes Close is shaping up to be the indie-noise synth-pop crossover hit of the year. [Nov 2009, p. 83]

As ever with Canadian German duo King Khan & BBQ Show, this offers little in the way of subtlety and a lot in the way of entertainment. [Dec 2009, p. 100]

30 years on from "Chuck E.", it's a stunning testament to the vitality of her vagabond muse.

Intricately layering a wide array of sounds, from piano to field recordings, over seven dreamlike pieces, the duo's third album is at times pacific (in every sense), at others deeply unsettling, especially when they run tapes backwards over the end of the 11-minute "Daydreaming So Early". [Dec 2009, p. 108]

Audacious cybernetic pirouettes such as "Poison Lips" and "Flashmob" bear the hallmarks of a musician enjoying a purple patch, who is able to caress from his machines a spectrum of emotion that leaves the listener purring with pleasure. [Oct 2009, p.119]

To get the measure of Jagger's contribution you have to turn to the five new songs on disc two, which are also the meat of the DVD offering.

The MC's focus on Escape 2 Mars is mainly ecological, the music packing ample punch to underline his message. [Feb 2010, p.86]

Night Music, the debut solo LP from Zombie-Zombie's Etienne Jaumet offers proof that there's more to analogue synth than kitsch retro-futurist appeal. [Jan 2010, p. 124]

"Once I Was Pretty" and "The Disappearance Of My Youth" only confirm they know their territory and stick to it. [Feb 2010, p.93]

Brian Gibson and Brian Chippendale somehow manage to make a bass guitar and half a drum kit sound like a particularly loud avalanche, and then sneak in some tunes along the way. [Dec 2009, p. 103]

What Will We Be stands as a fittingly ambiguous, partly frustrating and altogether fascinating response to that question. Call it artful artlessness, or vice versa.

Sometimes it's grating - "The Ocean" could be a Belinda Carlisle album track - but the supremely catchy likes of first single "Hell" deserves daytime radio ubiquity. [Jan 2010, p. 131]

In 39 tracks over two CDs, the punk-fuelled folk-rock group that had ruled the ’80s along with U2 magically reappears.

Pelican don't look like metal kids - however, their ruminative riffology and ability to raise apocalyptic visions mark them out as practitioners of a new, reflective metallurgy alongside the likes of Sun0)))'s Stephen O' Malley. [Jan 2010, p. 123]

Hubble bubble! From weird sources and high ideals comes a spooky, sensual piece of pop sorcery. And it's bewitching. [Dec 2009, p. 91]

What thesy have done is make the odd generational shift, acknowledging Boston, Steppenwolf, Alice In Chains and The White Stripes in their search for the ultimate cosmic-blues groove, which on 'In The Morning,' they find. [Nov 2009, p.113]

When they do get it right, as when highlighting the acerbic lyrics of "That's The Way I've Always Heard It Should Be" or cleverly flexing the groove of "Coming Around Again," you can see why it semed a good idea. [Apr 2010, p.98]

There's barely a duff track here, from the talking gothic blues of "The Pill" and the slinky Monks-esque strut of "Isolation". Top marks, though, go the pulpit croon of "(Sometimes You Got To Be) Gentle". [Dec 2009, p. 97]

It's more accessible than that lute album, but -barring the sole Sting composition, the lovely "The Hounds Of Winter" - it will baffle all but the hardiest Police fan. [Jan 2010, p. 126]

It’s a rare pleasure to hear a band so at ease with themselves, playing with no obvious aim or agenda beyond having a good time and hoping you do, too. The best thing about Fits is imagining how incredible these songs will be when played live.

Too often a limited voice and over-egged arrangements strain to little effect. [Aug 2009, p.94]

The Pet Shop Boys and Ladytron have elbowed their urbane ways into his affections, but Maps makes the move sound more like a case of personal growth than populist payoff. [Oct 2009, p.104]

Andrew Weatherall has been employed to help build Tarot Sport a beaty backbone and the results are brutally mesmerizing. [Nov 2009, p. 88]

And though his long-running solo project has hitherto been a private sketchbook of laptop doodles, for this latest release Atlas Sound engages with the widerworld to great effect: the best two tracks are collaborations: the ambient bubblegum of "Walkabout" with Animal Collective's Panda Bear and the ectoplasmic Krautrock of "Quick Canal" with Laetitia from Stereolab. [Nov 2009, p. 81]

It's craftily composed, and on individual tracks like "24-25," sparely beautiful but cumulatively lacking some of the spice of their side-projecvct affairs. [Nov 2009, p.90]

It's occasionally very beautiful, but this is so far removed from values of immediacy and accessibility that Stevens' core audience are likely to be left non-plussed. [Dec 2009, p. 113]

The second helping of this sitcom following Flight of the Conchords; Kiwi synth-poppers in New York, was almost as funny as the first, though most critics agreed the songs were weaker.

The result is a record that contains the cryptic hooks of Pavement's later work, with a pleasingly breezy '70s AOR feel. [Nov 2009, p.104]