It’s less nightclub, more drunken iPod selection, typical of late-period Tricky: brilliant, frustrating and fatally inconsistent.

This is Yo La tengo on snug autopilot. [2 Sep 2006, p.21]

What could’ve been a savvy dissection of seeking out connection during a surreal year instead see them go straight down the line.

Sex & Food comes with a handful of missteps, like the forgettable ‘Not In Love Were Just High’ and ‘This Doomsday’ in the album’s final third. But by and large, it sees UMO pushing their sound impressively, bending the rule book as crudely as they can before the spine break

As a tribute to Antonin Artaud, The Peyote Dance captures the frightening, ambitious and surreal work of an artist who was misunderstood during his life, albeit from a spectator’s perspective.

Gruff's skills as a songwriter married up with his gentle, accommodating tones can, at their best, elicit the fuzzy feeling one gets listening to a Burt Bacharach classic, but this falls short of such lofty comparisons.

While there are moments of brilliance, it’s clear there are too many chefs in the kitchen.

As dated as it undoubtedly is, it still makes for a pleasant enough ride.

Lindberg’s first solo LP moves in mysterious, often circuitous ways, emphasising mood over melody and aesthetic over dynamic. Which is a polite way of saying that it’s something of a grower, whose charms are revealed like arcane secrets only to those with patience, persistence and a lack of proximity to heavy machinery.

Yesterday Was Forever was a record paid for by fans, and made for the fans.

Some may tire of Honne’s romantic lyricism, but it’s undeniably what they do best.

Thankfully lacking the comedy ska bletherings of their last two albums, this is certainly fast and furious and, where once they seduced the charts with songwriting, now they want to bludgeon with hardcore muscle.

You can't help but feel The Subways are stuck between rock and a slightly harder place, and are just a bit confused. [9 Jul 2005, p.57]

While we were expecting an opus about how the coalition government’s really lame, he’s delivered a relentless bosh-pop thump that’s more ‘Bonkers’ than bonkers.

All of which is to say that ‘The Great Dismal’ sounds big, and far grander in scope than anything the four-piece have done before. ... There are points, however, where the record gets bogged down under its own weight, where a wave of noise subsides without doing any damage.

A handy "best of the Stereophonics--for now." [8 Apr 2006, p.39]

He splits the difference on ‘Music To Be Murdered By’, indulging his immature ego (griping at bad reviews, stirring controversy for the sake of it) even as he offers salient social criticism and admits his missteps. He’s ready to pass on hard-earned wisdom before running his mouth like he hasn’t learned his own lessons. And he offers casual fans a hook or two before embarking on another lyrical work-out.

Though it's pretty easy to be the best band in their self-created genre of 'love metal', if you can ignore the cartoon goth twaddle that comes out of Valo's mouth, you'll find an extremely well-executed pop-metal album underneath.

Less a cohesive body of work and more a collection of tracks, ‘Exodus’ feels a little unfinished at times, because of a lack of verses from X and the occasional filler record. Nonetheless, it’s a wonderful tribute record loaded with stellar individual moments, and serves as a beautiful reminder of why the world fell in love with DMX in the first place.

It’s arty, it’s farty, it’s at times strangely hypnotic and if you leave it on your record collection it will make you look really cool. If that’s your thing...

Two Door’s fourth effort is far from a wall-to-wall success, but for a band who could so easily continue to tread their affable, well-worn path around arenas and festival main stages without a sideward step (as many of their indie contemporaries have and will continue to do), the risks and experimentation here are very welcome.

The guitarist and his normally hands-on producer are facilitators, with Tzur as the star. That might upset Radiohead fans expecting a stop-gap, but shouldn’t detract from an what's a largely immersive record.

There's a good single album here in need of editing.

Whether she's actually poverty-stricken or just pretending, the 29-year-old has put together a set of songs so delicate it has all the impact of a flutter of nymph wings.

There is disappointment that a number of U2’s big-hitters don’t translate well on ‘Stories For Surrender’, but this revision hasn’t been a totally fruitless endeavour: you just have to dig a little bit deeper to find the reimagined material that’s truly worth savouring.

There’s a playfulness in the way Gojira approach ‘Fortitude’. There are bursts of melody across the album – perfect for a stadium show of their own – and the likes of ‘New Found’ and ‘Born For One Thing’ flirt with crushing industrial breakdowns. There’s even a couple of soaring guitar solos in ‘Hold On’. The whole record feels agile, despite the weight.

A gloopy cheese-feast of sprightly psychedelic pop, served with a dollop of wanton James Brown funk on the side.

Easy to admire, but hard to really love. [27 May 2006, p.31]