Dan Auerbach's production is warmly intimate, LaMontangne's singing a quiet marvel. [Jul 2014, p.95]

After 30 years behind the mic, Hersh's vocals have gained extra grit and lost none of their eerie magic. [Oct 2018, p.89]

It's a brimming grab-bag of brilliance and a total joy. [Oct 2022, p.77]

There's no faking this kind of quality. [Nov 2014, p.93]

The 14 tracks add up to a brilliant work full of confidence and ideas, all laid out on a massive canvas of invention and variety.

It finds him in a reflective mood. It's a smart musical move, because Storm Damage showcases what a good lyricist he is. [Mar 2020, p.86]

Gone is any trace of the searing vitality that drove their earlier records; in its place a winsome urge to recreate all of the waftiest, wimpiest moments from pop history. [Mar 2019, p.91]

It has stood time's ravages well, both as an indicator of the band's capacity for change and as a great album in its own right. [Jan 2019, 2018, p.93]

For their fans accustomed to the clattering joyride only Mastodon provide, this will suffice for now. [Summer 2014, p.92]

Earle's narrative is compellingly singular, and the musical variety feeding his fiery and thoughtful tunes well measured. [May 2013, p.85]

There are passages of experimentation around this album’s edges, such as the post-nuclear drones of Roots Remain, and electronic effects that suggest prolonged exposure to mid-period Tangerine Dream. But Mastodon never really develop these intriguing tendencies.

When it's good, it's very good. [Jun 2015, p.91]

If you won and love other recent Bonamassa records you know what to expect and won't be disappointed. But for more casual listeners, the big-band approach may grow a bit overwrought and leave you hankering for those no-frills Rory Gallagher albums. [Oct 2014, p.90]

Scratch the surface and nothing really shines. This nod to the past feels more like regression than a return to former glories.

Dr. John sounds in tip-top form here. [Oct 2022, p.73]

Young's voice is plaintive and cracked, the guitars whip up a veritable thunderstorm, nd the mood is stormy and reflective. Another treasure. [Jun 2023, p.82]

It’s enchanting rock’n’roll that might well tempt you into selling your soul – if only for one night of sweet soft-metal abandon. [Jun 2025, p.72]

There are no dubstep breaks, string quartets or bursts of yodeling. But this is also the best Motorhead album for many years. [Nov 2013, p.92]

An atmospheric yet strutting cocktail of dark romance, louche sax lines and bluesy grit. [Apr 2019, p.89]

They’re a light-footed prospect, made still more intriguing by Erika Wennerstrom’s curiously detached vocal.

This might well be the finest example of the genre since My Bloody Valentine perforated their first eardrum. [Summer 2014, p.91]

Carlene Carter duets on five of the 13 songs, notably What Kind Of Man Am I (sung by Sheryl Crow in Ghost Brothers...) and the light-hearted Sugar Hill Mountain (from Ithaca), while elsewhere Mellencamp shines alone--particularly on Sad Clowns (where his voice and lyric hurtles into Tom Waits territory) and All Night Talk Radio.

Lucero's honest, gritty Americana feels like a welcome dose of the real stuff. [Aug 2018, p.91]

Their fifth album, their first in just shy of a decade, is perhaps their most purely enjoyable, eschewing the furrow-browed genre-jumbling of earlier work. [Apr 2022, p.80]

The songs are deceptive, displaying a rare sense of craft and erudition. [Oct 2014, p.94]

Songs such as the rolling The Devil Is In Her Eyes and the carefully layered Isabel’s Daughter are the work of a group who have absorbed much of what’s great about rock’n’roll and turned it loose in the present.

It's a fine line between hypnotic and soporific, but he's usually on the right side. [Nov 2018, p.83]

They'll never completely escape the past, but it sounds like they're finally at ease with it. [Apr 2020, p.82]