As I don't get to anywhere near as many gigs as I'd like to and listen to music mainly at home, reviews are pretty important to me. I tend to get a sense after reading a magazine for a few issues which reviewers I trust and which are a bit flaky. I get a sense reading Mudcat that some performers really don't like having their stuff critiqued, but as a punter it really does help me narrow things down a bit: I don't have the money, time or inclination to listen to every CD that is released. Having said that, on-line reviews tend to be more useful than magazine reviews these days, because you can listen to what's being talked about there and then. Even in the age of Myspace, Youtube and so on, a good review can still point me in the right direction.

It's thanks to a review that I've made my latest (decidedly non-folky) purchase,"The Upside-Down World Of John Pantry". This