Too many tracks wrap mildly neurotic musings in self-consciously quirky, deadeningly tasteful, grown-up indie-pop crooning. [Aug 2017, p.25]

[Moses Archuleta's] hazy, lo-fi house jams as Moon Diagrams shoot for dreamy but are mostly just soporific. When he occasionally stirs from his torpor to write a actual song, the results are much more fulfilling. [Aug 2017, p.32]

The result is sparkling, if substance-free, historical re-enactment. [Aug 2017, p.30]

The standout tracks reject slick studio polish. [Aug 2017, p.38]

The band remains essentially the same. ... Back then it was exhilarating. Now it's also a little exhausting. [Aug 2017, p.26]

Although there are no gaffes here, neither is there much to mark it out from their first. [Jul 2017, p.36]

It's all very pleasant, but somewhat weightless. [Jul 2017, p.26]

A light summer picnic, not a full meal. [Jul 2017, p.36]

Arguably, they are a little one-paced and some looseness would not have gone amiss--but the candid, striking honest lyrics about sex and love bear the strain. [Jul 2017, p.26]

Guest spots from vocalists Andrea Galaxy and Jessy Lanza make explicit the R&B influence, but the most emotive, intimate moments come when Abdel-Hamid makes her synths sing to themselves. [Jul 2017, p.32]

Alt-J enter Kid A territory. The baroque synth pop of "In Cold Blood" and the kinky rockabilly of "Hit Me Like That Snare" are their only concessions to the arena. [Jul 2017, p.25]

Their treacly heaviness still courses through pop cuts. [Jul 2017, p.23]

Unfortunately, this conservative album wastes his eight-member backing band, who have much more range and power than these songs would indicate. [Jul 2017, p.26]

There's a less scrappy approach on this album, a glossier production with more realised and experimental offerings. [Jun 2017, p.28]

A more layered dreampop with faux-epic tendencies. [Apr 2017, p.30]

While sticking well within their comfort zone, electro-pop veterans Vince Clarke and Andy Bell sound a little more restrained and reflective than usual on their 17th studio album. [Jun 2017, p.28]

Nathan Williams and his brat-punks have reverted to the DIY route--surely the natural seedbed for their scattergun sonic brainstorms. [Jun 2017, p.38]

Bathed in a languorous mood of intimate romance, it's served without schmaltz and only occasionally flirts with the soporific. [Jun 2017, p.33]

Although at times it can sound a little too carefully planned, there are some wonderful moments. [Jun 2017, p.23]

While it all sometimes gets a little too soporific, the overall effect is undeniably seductive. [Jun 2017, p.34]

It's bracingly experimental throughout, if a little difficult to fully love. [Jun 2017, p.30]

What once seemed an aesthetic springboard for the band to make truly great music now seems rather like retreading old ground. [Jun 2017, p.33]

Too often, Belong manages the almost interesting feat of sounding both overcooked and half-baked. [May 2017, p.39]

An album characterised by comically overwrought anthems and production-line lyrics. [May 2017, p.26]

Without notable emotional heft, however, the identikit cool and sub-Lana Del Rey poses prove wearisome, the cloying artifice insubstantial. [May 2017, p.39]

They've mastered the basics, but still have miles to go. [May 2017, p.26]

Patchily exhilarating, but the blasts lack freshness. [Apr 2017, p.25]

Touching new folk-rock compositions sit alongside spirited arrangements of trad songs and sturdy instrumentals. [May 2017, p.26]

Its high-beam intensity and near relentless drive triumphing over the niggling familiarity of some songs. [May 2017, p.30]

His avuncular, keep-it-moving approach prevents things from getting too deep. [Apr 2017, p.39]

A stodgy production job from Patrick Carney of The Black Keys means his songs tend to blur into one. [Apr 2017, p.26]

Swans' Michael Gira and Douglas J. McCarthy of Nitzer Ebb sound very much at home. ... Elsewhere, more experimental link-ups slow the tempo, but create some intriguing collisions. [Apr 2017, p.23]

An occasionally frustrating listen, but never a dull one. [Apr 2017, p.28]

A set of atmospheric trance-like improvs that touches only tangentially on conventional song structures. [Mar 2017, p.32]

The overall effect feels arch and a little insubstantial, James Bagshaw's airy vocals adding tot he sense of impermanence. They're best at their most direct. [Apr 2017, p.39]

It's business as usual for The Godfathers. [Mar 2017, p.30]

It would have been much more satisfying had she and Cannon stuck with the style of the songs that bookend the album. [Apr 2017, p.32]

The tunes seem to have lost a little of their punch, producer Ken Coomer setting Milia's pale voice against folk-pop arrangements that often feel strangely bloodless. [Mar 2017, p.30]

Plodding covers of "The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face" and "Only Love Can Break Your Heart" are gratuitously dull and, somewhat revealingly, the most rewarding tracks are probably Runga's two original compositions, seemingly appended as an after-thought. [Feb 2017, p.27]

Lovely for a few songs, the narcoleptic, yet semi-cinematic visions risk homogeneity by the album's end. [Mar 2017, p.35]

Sick Scenes is certainly a messy affair, stylistically, and overrun with densely packed lyrics, though it's not entirely without charm. [Mar 2017, p.32]

Delve further into Human, though, and you find sterile R&B and schlocky, overwrought lyrics. [Mar 2017, p.37]

On disc the effect can be bludgeoning--although you can hear that onstage it must make for a wild night out. [Mar 2017, p.26]

If only Thomas' smart-ass, sing-song drawl was as appealing as his songs. [Feb 2017, p.38]

It's less dynamic, but the prog-folk flavours remain intact, with penny whistles and acoustic guitars central to its two sentimental, sometimes meandering halves. [Feb 2017, p.33]

While its faintly folkish, alt.pop songs fail to reveal any feral side to the bassist of Bombay Bicycle Club, they prove his compositional chops while radiating a pleasantly frosted glow. [Mar 2017, p.40]

Such a stylistic spread can leave it slightly centreless, but a strong emphasis on groove runs throughout. [Mar 2017, p.25]

Migration, road-tested in SJ sets, finds Green cruising into that emotional landscapes occupied by the likes of Jon Hopkins and Mark Pritchard. [Feb 2017, p.23]

The best and the worst thing about these, as with the rest of the album, is that it's impossible to think of a better descriptive adjective than "Cohenesque." [Oct 2016, p.40]

Retro-kosmische pastiche is now firmly established as a lazy good-taste signifier, but it does not excuse mundane plodders such as "Turncoat" or "Motorbath." Thankfully, Soft Error move beyond retro-hipster orthodoxy on their best tracks. [Feb 2017, p.38]

Powerful and intriguing stuff, but the emotional spark never quite catches. [Feb 2017, p.21]

Oczy Mlody continues the Lips' longstanding mission to explore the joy and sadness of simple human consciousness, so that even when the album loses its footing--which it does, often--it never loses its way. [Feb 2017, p.34]

The gambit [space-age sheen and quantised grooves] works on the trippy title track and the confrontational "If You Want It," but elsewhere it robs the band's hyper-rhythmic attack of its viscerally human feel. [Jan 2017, p.28]

"1832" is a departure, with emotional unease preserved in glowing folky amber, but it's an inspired curveball on a largely routine course. [Jan 2017, p.32]

Harvey maybe a bit too in love with a crunchy delay/distortion footswitch combo, but the likes of "Space Monkeys," he and his younger guys make a creditable, spacey blues. [Jan 2017, p.27]

Patience is required to navigate his smirking in-jokes. [Jan 2017, p.28]

The LP struggles a little in variation of pace and tone, and the auspicious spark fizzles out somewhat but the end. [Jan 2017, p.24]

A measured set. [Jan 2017, p.23]

"Close To You" confirms how much she sounds like Karen Carpenter but, amid the over-familiar songs, most interesting are the relative obscurities. [Dec 2016, p.35]

Though the title track and "The Magic In You" recall his early triumphs, it's all a bit 'shoe-business' as usual. [Dec 2016, p.37]

While the deliberate shapelessness can sometimes appear strangely listless, the rhythmic intensity of "Abstract/Actress" takes things to another level, with the pair working the sound into a primal fury of feedback and clamour. [Dec 2016, p.25]

The arrangements are meticulously layered rather than stripped down, dynamic drum tattoos, dramatic basslines and an epic amount of reverb ensuring the sounds is as panoramic as the "unplugged" tag can accommodate. [Dec 2016, p.37]

[A] largely tentative set. [Dec 2016, p.38]

Exhilarating or jarring, depending on taste. [Dec 2016, p.26]

A decade on the formula hasn't change much. [Nov 2016, p.37]

All the usual Madness fixtures are present--the jaunty ska-meets-Motown rhythms, the tricksy chromatic chord changes, the well-crafted narratives. What much of the album lacks is any kind of heart. [Dec 2016, p.32]

Two Vines mostly sticks with the tried-and-true. [Dec 2016, p.26]

There's a certain modish charm to the opener, "Lucifer's Dreams," while "Finest Hour" show an aptitude for gentle balladry. Elsewhere, though, sub-Smiths smartarsery abounds. [Dec 2016, p.26]

There's still a noisy edge to the group and some moments do shine, such as the LCD Soundsystem-like "Welcome To Hell" or the sneering "I'm Sick," but largely the album feels a little lost and confused. [Dec 2016, p.26]

Not quite essential, but a neat genre exercise. [Dec 2016, p.30]

The absence of imagination here is a tad dispiriting. [Dec 2016, p.30]

This electronic pop set mostly convinces. [Nov 2016, p.31]

The demos for Be Here Now don't reveal much in the way of nuance or additional texture. You have to dig deep to find genuine curios. [Nov 2016, p.51]

Far the best things here are the relatively restrained title track and the acoustic ballad "Die Trying." Elsewhere, it's the stodgy gruel of yore. [Oct 2016, p.37]

It has its moments. [Nov 2016, p.39]

Marten now has an appealingly gentle voice and an intuitive feel for melody. [Nov 2016, p.32]

The bland, fist-punching positivity of "Hole In My Soul" and "Parachute" are pitched somewhere between Cold Play and The Killers, but occasionally the reinvention works. [Nov 2016, p.31]

No-one would argue this is the equal of his '70s production heyday, but he remains indefatigable in his energies. [Nov 2016, p.35]

It's the usual earnestly proficient, blandly yearning fare, every song a Hallmark valentine set to a John Lewis Christmas advertisement. [Nov 2016, p.35]

Argentinian rockers Los Enanitos Verdes turn "Travelin' Band" into a turbocharged burst of bilingual tropical rockabilly, and Spanish singing star Bunbury adds a thrilling salsa dance workout to "Corre Por La Jungla." [Nov 2016, p.40]

Brian Jonestown do this stuff so much better. [Nov 2016, p.40]

They sound reinvigorated, if somewhat aimless. [Nov 2016, p.40]

Carson Cox's over-emotive delivery and a bombastic arrangement tip the album's power-ballad finale, "I Will Not Sleep Here," into Night Ranger Territory. Thankfully, the trio is more careful about its point of reference elsewhere. [Oct 2016, p.35]

The absence of Kim Deal--who left in 2013--continues to be felt: her natural warmth and goofy charm would add welcome nuance here. [Oct 2016, p.37]

The Staten Island quartet blend the fixtures and fittings of noisy US slacker rock--Sonic Youth drones, Pavement squalls--but add a bubblegum pop sensibility. Their vocalist Joseph D'Agostino, however, remains something of an acquired taste. [Oct 2016, p.26]

The album sounds like one good idea stretched out to a meandering and repetitive 40 minutes. [Oct 2016, p.32]

Kin still sounds like the work of a clued-up hipster who doesn't particularly like the grimly effective pop songs that she's able to write. [Oct 2016, p.40]

D.A.R.K's serviceable but derivative electronica frames an unremarkable marshalling of collective talents. [Sep 2016, p.73]

The trouble with studiousness is its tendency to inhibit invention, and such is the case here on their third long-player. [Oct 2016, p.23]

There are some great passages of live-wire electronica, but more often it's strangely lacking any aura or elemental spark. [Oct 2016, p.39]

A fairly straightforward indie offering, covering mid-tempo jangle with layers of guitars, and lyrics about growing up and suburban escape. [Oct 2016, p.25]

While this second effort has its engaging moments, Leftwich has stuck dispiritingly close to his early template of delicate folk with hushed vocals and lyrics about bruised hearts and rain. [Sep 2016, p.75]

Some of it is a little too cosy and overly earnest, White tending to excel on the more spirited likes of the swampy "What's So" and "I've Been Over This Before." [Sep 2016, p.81]

Sometimes it makes sense. A lot of the time, it doesn't. [Sep 2016, p.74]

Not exactly groundbreaking, but not reverentially retro either, and full of fizz and vigour. [Sep 2016, p.74]

There's still a tendency to over-emote with superfluous melisma. But when she's at her starkest and most haunting, accompanied by little more than Beste's piano on "Faded" and "Leave You In Yesterday," she hits the spot unerringly. [Sep 2016, p.76]

We're All Somebody delivers high-sheen Billboard country fare, more Keith Urban than back-porch picking. [Sep 2016, p.81]

A succinct pastiche of junglist, breakbeat and chill-out fare. [Sep 2016, p.75]