Vocalist Mark Stewart’s unending salt-and-vigour vocals on songs like City Of Eyes and Zipperface combine brilliantly with a space-dub electro palette, and the results are thrilling.

This album reflects its maker--a restless spirit that now and then stumbles on something special.

She still knows how to hone a catchy melody. [Summer 2014, p.88]

At points it's jazzy, then psychedelic, then with the sort of undulating groove that makes you wonder what it might have sounded like if Booker T jammed with the Average White Band. [Mar 2024, p.81]

Songs Of Innocence is stricken with lethargy, with a level of aspiration that extends as far as Coldplay and never explores further. [Nov 2014, p.93]

This River is all gravy, and the perfect opportunity to make your acquaintance with an artist at the top of his game. [Summer 2013, p.95]

Despite, or because of, its aptly era-appropriate brevity, English Heart is immaculate, and a lot better than it needs to be. Warm and beautiful.

As it is, there’s a certain Wagnerian tweeness about the record, its changes predictable, it’s progressions too easily resolved, his tunings over-familiar. The whole thing feels like drinking several pints of spring water.

His debut solo album edges away from Korn's clattering, downtuned noise. What is unexpected is just how far from the mothership he's travelled--and how good the result is. [Jun 2018, p.88]

Snapshot consists largely of new material written to ape the 50s and 60s standards they've been covering live since puberty. And that's it's downfall. [Nov 2013, p.95]

A few lesser tracks overplay the voyeuristic horror-movie violence, but otherwise Body Count are sounding much more like hardcore elder statesmen than a shock-rock side project.

The plastic punk with the cartoon sneer has made his grown-up masterpiece. [Nov 2014, p.90]

Produced by Youth, it’s a routeone volley of loud guitar riffs and peripatetic punk energy, railing at the establishment. It’s our world, they roar, and it’s on fire, so let’s not go gently.

There's little subtlety displayed in their mission, and not much in the way of memorable tunes either. [Sep 2018, p.90]

The real surprise is how graceful this lockdown-inspired album is. [Oct 2021, p.74]

The result, albeit low-key, is a charming, warm-hearted collection. [Oct 2025, p.79]

Showcases an undeniably more varied sonic palette, even if that just means there are more classic bands that its 12 songs remind you of. [May 2021, p.84]

Intriguing stuff, but Stereophonics are incapable of shredding the trad rock rule book for an entire album. So the rest of Graffiti is pitched firmly in their beige rock comfort zone. [Apr 2013, p.93]

This is a welcome blast from an uncompromising band. [Nov 2013, p.93]

Here the irresistible tag masks some solid riff-heavy whoopee. [Dec 2014, p.107]

While nothing on this album will replace anything from Doolittle or Surfer Rosa in your affections, bangers such as Classic Masher and Um Chagga Lagga detonate with a palpable sense of fun that leaves you in no doubt who the authors are and that it’s a better album than Trompe La Monde.

While the diet hip-hop of Something Different screams, unfortunately, of early noughties jock pop--they've returned with a fun, pacey slab of entirely unthreatening rebellion. [Summer 2013, p.93]

Tracks like Drive, Novocaine and Black cloud sound like the soundtrack to a 1980s brat-pack comedy, nut the sheer vim and vigour with which they're delivered still make it a rock 'n' roll rush. [Jan 2014, p.116]

They've filtered their inheritance through their jam-band generation, and the sound is heavier, muddier at times. [Sep 2020, p.88]

It’s the ever-present hint of neurosis in Rivers Cuomo’s voice and vaguely bi-polar lyrics (thankfully not produced using the cut-up technique he employed for last year’s self-titled release) that give this band their perennial edge of strangeness, and reaffirm Weezer’s unique place in American rock fans’ affections.

Such Hot Blood sounds like a major label buff-up of their glowering, folk-flecked dusk-rock, the raw pomp of earlier albums given a national (anthem) gleam. [Nov 2013, p.89]

Electric Eye elevate to captivate, they have the power to seduce a soul ascendent. With a post-Roses spin on a 60s soundtrack vibe here, a celestial sitar there, the succulent fruits of this particular tree are as seductive as Eve’s apples.

A muddled attempt to signal contemporary relevance. [Oct 2019, p.88]