Some of street rap's brightest new talents appear--Chief Keef, Young Thug, Rich Homie Quan--and wear their Gucci Mane influence proudly, each in their own distinctively warped ways and yet all brimming with exactly the joy that their progenitor has generally lost to age. [Jul 2013, p.68]

Songs like "Brainfreeze" and "The Red Wing" plod more than march, piling on so many competing keyboard layers that the melody blots itself out. Others seem oddly unfinished. Only the two closing ten minute tracks evoke the classic Fuck Buttons widescreen neon pomp. [Jul 2013, p.56]

On paper, it's a strange fit. On record, too. [Jul 2013, p.52]

Half of the songs here are as good as the highs of the first two albums.... Much of the rest is the victim of Madlib's infuriating tendency to leave things in fragments. [Jun 2013, p.54]

Some Say I So I Say Light's uniformity can become a little wearing across 11 tracks. [May 2013, p.52]

The Redeemer, despite its pinpoint sonics, doesn't take the logical next step of offering a moment of reflection or clarity. [May 2013, p.50]

PSB celebrate an idea of fusty Britishness but lack the imagination, intelligence or inclination to interrogate it or in fact add anything at all to the discourse. [May 2013, p.59]

The rest of the album makes the distance between now and (Berlin) then of "Where Are We Now?" painfully evident, a pain heightened by Visconti's failure to convert this collection of session muso workouts into anything memorable. [May 2013, p.55]

Supermigration never quite brings these directions--Air, Lindstrom, Neu!--together though; instead of fermenting their own sound, Solar Bears end up falling into the space in between them. [May 2013, p.66]

There is no shortage of bad ideas on the second installment.... But this ugliness is anchored by a series of largely curatorial successes. [May 2013, p.68]

This particular experiment has left a formerly unpredictable group sounding as though they've been replaced by a bunch of tired retromaniacs. [Apr 2013, p.61]

Rat Farm has only the occasional flash of brilliance. [Apr 2013, p.53]

Nick Talbot of Gravenhurst sings over roughly half the album, but his melodies are about as memorable as weak tea. [Mar 2013, p.64]

The album doesn't wear so well over time. [Mar 2013, p.50]

The tracks are curiously undramatic, punching elements in and out like a demonstration reel. [Mar 2013, p.54].

Its balance of electronic, acoustic and vocal elements, while initially impressive, is soon revealed to be a product of the lack of any forceful musical or textual elements at all. [Feb 2013, p.60]

His arch over-emoting robs his songs of any sense of genuine feeling. [Feb 2013, p.60]

Ashin, in giving so much of himself away, leaves little scope for the kind of mystery that might enable his musical settings to transcend their functional pop status. [Feb 2013, p.60]

Most of this material has a tense, enervating effect, despite the haziness of the sonic palette Field-Pickering favours. [Feb 2013, p.60]

It's another cautious portion of well-made, moderately experimental not-quite-rock. [Feb 2013, p.49]

Ying & Yang, ultimately, just sounds a bit matey. [Nov 2012, p.61]

Accelerator captures a confused, jokey arc of the duo's trajectory that hasn't aged well in the 14 years since its release. [Dec 2012, p.70]

Desertshore is less a report than a dramatisation, an upending of their defiantly aura-less usurping of traditional performance modes in favour of a theatricality that feels more selfconsciously like a big event than the DIY/samizdat style of old.... [The Final Report] fares a little better, though again, it's a shame XTG have framed it in the form of a report.[Dec 2012, p.69]

Alc has already produced better songs for the actual Ghostface. So it is unclear why this album--or the rapper who made it--needed to exist. [Jan 2013, p.79]

Lux is OK, while it's on. But that's all. And that's a shame. [Jan 2013, p.64]

Here, the 70s simulations, artful enough in their own way, are presented straight. The result, sadly, doesn't evoke 70s Italian Horror; it merely makes one think of already-over-familiar period and genre signifiers. [Jan 2013, p.62]

As a collection, Psychedelic Pill is spotty and, at times, sleep-inducing.

The music is immaculately performed and produced, yet lacks the divine spark of inspiration that might elevate it above the status of demonstration reel. [Dec 2012, p.65]