However dry or highbrow it may sound on paper, Johannsson's melodious symphony of strings, electronics and choral elements is totally accessible and, for most of its 60-plus minutes, achingly lovely. [Jan 2008, p.101]

What's more surprising is just how good it all is, the tunes great, the mood fun, the album infectious. [Mar 2009, p.92]

For all his experimentalism, Adamson never once loses sight of the song. [Dec 2008, p.94]

Visceral thrills for those who like thier punk served piping hot. [Jan 2008, p.104]

In truth, though, there's not too much here to alarm the undergraduate population.

This ill-fitting rebirth, fronted by the defiantly ungay, unIndian and uneccentric Paul Rodgers, can be seen as an attempt to ditch the Mercury-inspired absurdity and bolster Queen’s hard 'rawkin’credentials.

This is regal, majestic pop music played with a roundheaded bluntness. Off with their heads indeed.

All round, a party atmosphere prevails--and undoubtedly a good time is had by all.

This is the first Cure album in a long time that’s more than just another Cure album.

Really, though, the whole--say, the bracing rock of 'Take Back The City'--is more than the sum of these parts, and underlines this album as a success in its field.

Much of this album sounds like its been stitched together from 4AD's finest moments. [Dec 2008, p.88]

The hipster-redneck rhetoric could grate, but O'Death are too good to be dismised as a novelty act. [Dec 2008, p.105]

Ultimately, Cardinology serves as another minor indictment of Adams’ famously lackadaisical internal editor. Neveretheless, it is still, almost infuriatingly, a stretch better than most people at their best.

The dreary emotional content and the sub-MBV soundscapes set out to gaze enigmatically at their shoes. Sadly, they don't get past the navel. [dec 2008, p.115]

Eventually Brad Hargett's depressive baritone voice will get you down, but not before it has demanded your attention. [Apr 2009, p.87]

It features tracks recorded with rock outfits like The Flying Hearts which recall Jonathan Richman and Lou Reed; minimal, folksy miniatures that sound a ltttle like John Martyn or James Taylor; and a string of delicious, whimsical synth-pop songs that are as good as anything in the early-'80s canon. [Dec 2008, p.115]

The result is a confusing confection that plays out like "Anti-Capitalism: The Musical." [Jan 2009, p.96]

Odds and sods, then, but not without appeal. [Jan 2008, p.101]

Skeletal Lamping follows the latter path, fleshing out the polymorphous persona of Georgie Fruit via brilliantly executed attention-deficit funk. [Dec 2008, p.105]

The Sea And The Cake's refusal to budge from their original MO for the last 14 years seems like an admirable show of restraint. [Nov 2008, p.119]

The eclectism is exhilarating. [Nov 2008, p.96]

There are epic power ballads, which just manage to avoid faling into Keane/Coldplay territory; there are terriffic, drone-laden stomp-rockers....The use of saxophone, however, is ill-advised, and Lightburn's voice can get a little ponderous. [Dec 2008, p.88]

'Little Ones' is insanely jaunty, like somthing out of "Sesame Street" and one of the most enjoyable songs of the year. The rest of Receivers is equally buoyant. [Dec 20008, p.108]

His debut for Thurston Moore's label is another walk in the forest of heavy psych rock and avant folk, that blurs the boundaries between the timeless and traditional and the tres moderne. [Nov 2008, p.100]

While it frequently feels like a particularly inspired "Mighty Boosh" number, the absurd ambition, chutzpah and execution of it all is perfectly awesome. [Nov 2008, p.89]

Grainger's first solo outing swaps the lascivious intensity of his former outfit for a rakish new wave ramalam somewhere between Cheap Trick and The Strokes' "First Impression of Earth." [Apr 2009, p.86]

If Black Ice has a weakness, it’s that it betrays an anxiety. As if AC/DC really might be uncharacteristically worried that their grasp on the planet is in danger of slipping. As if they’ve tried to discreetly update their sound, while hoping that their rebarbative old fans won’t notice what they’ve done. Invincibility suits AC/DC. Self-doubt, even a microscopic hint of it, does not.

For newcomers, Is It The Sea? offers a neat summation of Oldham’s quiet industry, while it may just mark the turning point from his darker years.