Laced with grime squelches, riot-inducing raps and dark dub, it tackles gun crime, political deceit and terrorism--but also features enough tunes to sugar the pill. [Mar 2009, p.87]

In the ugliest way possible Invaders Must Die shows that the Prodigy have still got it.

M Ward and Garth Hudson, members of Giant Sand, Los Lobos and Calexico are all present and correct on Middle Cyclone lending their distinctive instrumental hands--but this ultimately Case’s tour de force, and hers alone.

It's U2's least immediate album--but there's something about it that suggests it may be one of their most enduring.

Though Lucky One is his first collection of orginal material in seven years, it's still rooted firmly in Malo's familiar enthusiasms. [Apr 2009, p.91]

It's the range of styles that impress most, from slow cowboy ballads and Western swing to full-throated honky-tonk, Tin Pan Alley and exquisite break-up songs. [May 2009, p.90]

The album's ersatz old school mode inevitably pales when judged against the revolutionary Flash asides. [Mar 2009, p86]

Despite a few rote movements, becomes an early contender for 2009 Top 10 lists. [Mar 2009, p.92]

From present to future at Warp factor. [Mar 2009, p.86]

This follow-up tries too hard to prolong the high. [Apr 2009, p.80]

The surprise of C'est Com...Com...Complique is not that Faust continue, four decades after their inception, but that they do so with such inventiveness and sense of play. [May 2009, p.85]

The clumsy pot-banging campfire folk of his backing band doesn't help make it all any more listenable. Great lyrics, though. [Mar 2009, p.92]

Boden is a true original who has crafted an engaging album that's no easy listen, but worth sticking with. [May 2009, p.79]

For the most part, For Now is characterised by a lack of personality and charm. [Apr 2009, p.80]

This album is uneven, undisciplined and overlong, but much the same could be said or Lloyd's sporadically brilliant career. [Apr 2009, p.95]

He pulls it off in style. [Apr 2009, p.91]

This great LP is best seen as their Desert Island Discs, a statement of things the band can't do without. [May 2009, p.79]

This is vintage front-porch Cale. [May 2009, p.79]

The many highlights on this big name covers album include Lily Allen--sounding like Kate Nash impersonating Lily Allen--locating the wobbly charm in Joe Strummer's 'Straight To Hell,' Elbow's adding a shabby grandeur to U2's 'Running To Stand Still,' and Rufus Wainwright bringing his heavenly voice to Brian Wilson's 'Wonderful.'

The efforts are inconsistent, though, and his affinity with the fun and doom of '50s R'n'R is mostly lost to the demands of commercial bombast. [Jun 2009, p.88]

Here We Go Magic's faintly tropical, fuzzy, circular grooves are beguiling, if a little slight. [Aug 2009, p.92]

For all the perversity, tracks like 'Stumble Out Of Bed' would ignite any dancefloor. [Apr 2009, p.80]

It may be no great leap forward, but on this showing Nelson can still produce graceful electronica with a rare poise and reserve. [Mar 2009, p.95]

The beauty of those opening moments suggests that Condon's future really does lie in soundtracks, where you can imagine him collaborating with and finding inspiration in the baroque visual inventions of an Anderson or a Gondry, and where his restless musical wandererings might yet chance upon the truly undiscovered countries of the imagination.

The album's leitmotif is a lush, dreamy string sections, which bring a gorgeous poignancy not only to the metaphysical songs, but also his radical reworkings of a pair of '50s rockers. [Mar 2009, p.81]

Records as bright and occasionally beautiful as Years Of Refusal make us forgive Morrissey (the artist) even his most juvenile foibles.

A familiar sound predominates: an impressive fanfare for a royal procession that never quite arrives. [Apr 2009, p.78]

This is best thought of as ‘country soul’. Isbell’s words, in style and content, are old-school tears-in-the-beer laments, deftly lightened by exquisite deadpan payoffs.