Never before has there been a band that has brought all those elements [Crazy Horse, Television, Quicksilver Messenger Service and The Dream Syndicate] together in a manner so crafted and explosive as these kids do with their fevered compound of ragged rock and summertime roll.

The Black Session is a fitting testament to the current state of one of the English underground's most unshakable acts.

This is an elegant product of hard work and musicianship that shouldn't be dismissed because it is not entirely new material.

For you kids out there planning to attend space camp, I can't think of better counselors than Elders and Valentine to take you far out where few have journeyed before.

Yet even at its most opaque, Sun Full and Drowning connects subliminally, with its deep reassurances of folk-rock melody, its shimmering, vibrating intersections of interstellar guitar, its grand sonic spaces.

This is an essential CD for both the serious and casual fan.

This is a feel good album about terrible times.

The entire affair is more open, relaxed and loose than he's ever been on record, qualities that appear easily and readily during his live shows.

Rarely do mistakes of one’s youth sound so beautiful.

Temples aren’t reinventing anything here so much as adding a distinctly British twist to well-trodden ground.

While there is nothing particular off about this quiet, solid collection--consisting of little more than Hitchcock’s voice over quite acoustic guitars and the occasional piano and cello--it’s still a pretty muted, low-energy affair that is not immediately memorable.

Sonically, the band tends to be all over the map on this one.

While this faithful tribute doesn’t lessen the sadness, it does remind us that genius is timeless and that the memories of those triumphs will linger long enough to inspire us forever. The fact that these performances serve to remind us of that fact is reason enough to rejoice.

There are worse ways to pass 45 minutes than to listen to music so amiable as this, but Neil Finn has done--and one hopes will again do--much better.

The Ghost in the Daylight (Warp) is a quieter, more overtly folky album than 2007's Western Lands. There is no obvious focal point - nothing like gorgeous, pick-clawed "Trust" from the previous album - only a series of acoustic songs that flare gently from rueful nostalgia to sudden melancholy.

The trademark ingredients that turned Hollywood Town Hall and Tomorrow the Green Grass into seminal classics are retained via Olson's yearning vocals, the sun splashed harmonies and their adept meld of Americana, vintage West Coast rock, strings and psychedelia.

Sure this House on the Hill could be more soundly constructed, but one suspects that ricketiness is part of the appeal.

It's as if the Brian Jonestown Massacre hired J Mascis to write its material, solid songcraft disguised as stoned slack.

Doldrums have given voice to the psychology of the outsider, fashioning a work of art whose queasy, warped nature is just too hard to shake.

Solid songwriting chops show a clear ambition on the band's part to be more than just another garage rock act, though the tunes are stronger in the second half of the record than the first.

With Reckon, Collett offers an unblemished view of all its troubles and travails. To his credit, this tireless troubadour puts it all in perspective.

For all of Fritz’s humorous lyrical twists, his strongest moments here often are when he doesn’t hide his feelings behind funny lines.

Overall, the tinny, sterile production (there is nothing lush about the sounds on In Limbo, nor is there supposed to be) and the fresh take on psychedelic and indie rock sounds pretty fine.

The music is consistently impressive. A calmer, mellower than its predecessor, affair, Diluvia is an enchanting album worth several listens.

Wallop[s] you upside the head with an acid-induced mash-up of rollicking glam, gunky metal and ghetto-fabulous art rock.

As so few acoustic instruments joined each song, placing them all together lends a flattened feel to the LP. That is not to say the songs are not worthy of several listens, Oran Mor Session displays Twilight Sad’s great lyricism and Graham’s impassioned voice.

Walking the same cabaret folk rock path traveled on his previous record Sketches From the Book of the Dead, Harvey sounds comfortable and confident in the skin of his artistic vision.

If concept albums aren't your thing, so be it. But if a rare musical vision is, you'd be foolish to pass up Night of Hunters.