Elsewhere, sluggish excursions in ambient pop and a commitment to melancholia that borders on the opppressive suggests that all those years grasping at the advertising dollar have left a taint of bland that won't scrub off. [Aug 2009, p.96]

American Saturday Night has its fair share of hokum but proves that Paisley has a tough baritone voice and is a mean, bluesy guitarist. [Aug 2010, p.92]

When he's not making party music, he stretches out and delivers deep fluid grooves. It's the naggingly simplistic melodies and dumb call-and-response choruses of tracks like 'U Want Some?' that spoil the fun. [Aug 2009, p.92]

Everything sounds deliciously grubby and unpolished.

At best, Varshons is a joy forever. Even at worst, it’s a forgiveable, even likeable, labour of love.

The solos are majestic and Barlow even contributes a couple of thumpers. Nobody does this better.

As ever with The Mars Volta, there are enough flashes of brilliance to make up for the wearying material elsewhere. [Sep 2009, p.86]

Throughout, there's an ungainly combination of the leaden and the jaunty. [Aug 2009, p.102]

Murdering Oscar is all about connecting with the past, as Hood cuts loose with old and new bandmates, crafting tender paeans to his new wife and daughter, dusting down childhood memories against a backdrop of roughhouse blues, swamp-country and slow Southern soul.

Spinnerette sees the former Distillers leader at the head of a band not dissimilar to that run by her husband, Josh Homme. [Jul 2009, p.101]

Their grandiose Baron Muchhausen indie rock does tend to veer toward indulgent. [Jul 2009, p.101]

Beacons Of Ancestorship is rather unlovely beast, sagging under the weight of hoary synths, lumbering dynamics and improvisatory formlessness--not to mention high expectations. [Jul 2009, p.101]

McCauley's time might just have arrived.

The pulse of the blues still beats deep in his soul but the emphasis here is on Taylor's poetic sensibility on an emotionally charged set of songs loosely dealing with the darker side of the human heart. [Sep 2009, p.96]

A frequently startling record of no little beauty--which threatens to launch a new, esoteric generation of Williamsburg wonders.

A band that couldn't ddcide if they preferred the caustic post-grunge of The Jesus Lizard or the absurdist, singalong witticisms of Half Man Half Biscuit, so choose to do both. Happily, the band have the muscular riffs and eloquence to pull off both. [Jul 2009, p.88]

It helps that Wilkinson sings sweetly, too, distancing and layering his vocals for that dewy, lost-in-the-woods effect. [Aug 2009, p.87]

It is the clan's most successful production since 1996's "If You're Feeling Sinister." [Jul 2009, p.88]

The band are now reactivated for their seventh, and pick up pretty much where they left off, the strum and twang now augmented by strings, but with the same determinedly old-school indie happysad heart. [Jul 2009, p.81]

Morello's guitars tend to dominate, Riley's best lines get lost, and none of the songs here have the tunes to convert floating voters. [Nov 2009, p.106]

If polished solos from Steve Vai and Keith Emerson detract from the original film's clumsy verite, some lines can still elicit big chuckles. [Aug 2009, p.105]

It's an energetic and clattering punk listen, topped by Ada's louche vocals, but suffers from over-exhuberance in its production. [Jul 2009, p.101]

Still, as a whole, Bitte Orca feels nothing less than a modern equivalent to Talking Heads' Fear Of Music or Scritti's Cupid & Psyche 85 –art-rock with intellectual rigour, borderless curiosity, and no fear of the mainstream. Pop, by any other name.

Good, but the exciting notion of a genuine career left turn feels increasingly unlikely.

The band utilise new instruments--saxophone, brass and more--in a too-blantant attempt to convince us that they are more than goths. [Aug 2009, p.101]

Mos Def can still create the year's finest hip hop album. [Sep 2009, p.88]

A world away from their ladrock roots, you might say.

The album closes with a reprise of 'To Ohio'--possibly superfluous given the perfection of the earlier version, but the only marginal misjudgement on an otherwise largely faultless album.