Arthur's delicious art is a potent, concentrated thing. [Oct 2004, p.96]

Bird escorts well-worn standards down unexpected alleyways. [Jul 2024, p.89]

This is haunting, atmospheric and intelligent introduction. [Jan 2012, p.99]

Gorgeous, enveloping music. [Dec 2020, p.80]

CLPPNG is the work of hip hop auteurs delivering the shock of the new. [Jul 2014, p.88]

Intriguing melodies, immersive arrangements and a haunting choral climax. [Nov 2016, p.96]

Cold yet compulsive. [Jun 2005, p.106]

The album burns brightly, like a widescreen musical travelogue. [Feb 2026, p.87]

There's a palpable connection to their country's dread history that allows Wolf People to transcend their music's fantasy elements, whiles still being properly fantastic. [Jan 2017, p.96]

This album feels like a reliable harbour. [Jun 2026, p.87]

A vast swirling dystopia of euphoric white noise. [Mar 2017, p.97]

[The EPs] bring together the best of both sides of Belle And Sebastian: the innocence and experience, if you will. [Feb 2018, p.92]

If life's what you make it, here Anderson makes it sound very beautiful indeed. [Dec 2023, p.92]

A profoundly sad and affecting collage of memory and longing, ghostly torch songs half-buried in the claustrophobic electronic clatter of the modern world. [May 2019, p.95]

Fantastic mix of rare jazz and soul, cut with contemporary electronic meditations from Sarah Davachi, Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith and more. [Jun 2019, p.102]

An alleviating statement from an artist whose curiosity and striving fir development have remained a driving force. [Apr 2024, p.85]

It's themes may be familiar, but its fine, dazzlingly outlandish music is fresh and utterly fearless. [Nov 2009, p.88]

Overall: troubled, unflinching, but tuneful and triumphant. [May 2024, p.82]

Resistance to its charms is futile. [Sep 2016, p.93]

Young Fathers remain a frequently forbidding proposition, and all the better for it. Thrillingly, it's still impossible to predict what we might hear next in any of their tracks. [Mar 2023, p.88]

The result is a tender and engaging listen. [Aug 2014, p.93]

A creepy yet danceable debut. [Nov 2016, p.96]

R.E.M. At The BBC is not definitive history, but as a corrective to the idea that the post-Monster years were just R.E.M.'s long sweep into elder statesmanhood, it presents a fine alternative one. [Dec 2018, p.101]

Musicians writing and singing about being in the seventies is a rare thing in the Peter Pan world of rock--but The Who do it exceptionally well. [Dec 2019, p.92]

No Further Ahead Than Today's 10 chromium-smooth synth-pop essays are so meticulously, lavishly and mellifluously constructed that listening to them is like being dosed up with dopamine. [Jan 2017, p.96]

Double Exposure feels like his best yet. [Nov 2013, p.85]

A record that sounds like absolutely no one else on the planet. [May 2007, p.102]

James Hunter may have a new band from New York but they swing like his old one, and it's mostly business as usual here, with Hunter's new batch of songs sounding just like the old songs he's influenced by. [Apr 2020, p.94]

This set is sharper and fatter [than its debut].

Tricolore feels like an imaginary soundtrack. [Jan 2014, p.103]

Asgeir's voice is the first thing that grabs you. [Feb 2014, p.91]

The sounds of surrounding life collaborating with art. [Jun 2017, p.86]

A far cry from the murky jazz-metal wig-outs of yore, TMV is a triumph of melody, smooth instrumentation and soul. [Oct 2022, p.82]

The fourth volume continues the quality but widens the focus to include Delta State, Abuja and the border with Benin. [Jun 2019, p.106]

It's an ideal January release, time enough for Antony's spacious, textured odyssey to sink in before those Album Of The Year polls come round again. [Feb 2009, p.104]

Antitheses abound--organic and electronic, modern and ancient, pastoral and urban. Combined, they create something extraordinary. [May 2016, p.91]

While there are shades of Berninger’s day band in the propulsive Nowhere Special, for the most part it’s a more laid-back affair in the stylistic vein of R.E.M.’s Automatic For The People, or a country-tinged The Blue Nile. [Jul 2025, p.86]

What Dylan gives us in these recordings is something of a sentimental memoir.

This parade of audacious flops is a powerful introduction to this great band's pleasures, should you need one. [Jul 2017, p.104]

Unstoppably ace. [May 2012, p.88]

Another of those Mac DeMarco LPS wherein a deliberately spare palette pays dividends. [oct 2025, p.90]

This parting gift from Philadelphia-based guitarist Jack Rose stands as a superlative statement of his love for pre-war American music. [Apr 2010, p.95]

Throughout, Dalt's sensuous vocals, which flip between Spanish and English, are buttressed by inventive use of Alex Lazaro's percussion in rhythms from Dalt's home continent. [Sep 2025, p.87]

Intergalactic longing underpins Banh Me, its closing synth solo reaching blindly, hopefully into the endlessness of Space, while Out In The Black finds his Captain Curt using his isolation amid the stars doe some powerful internal reckoning. [Oct 2025, p.84]

This exhaustive reissue includes his [Bob Stinson] final contributions, though the real gold comes in their studio sessions with Jim Dickinson. [Nov 2020, p.95]

It transcends gender and genre. [Apr 2003, p.98]

Unfashionable and intensely melodic. [June 2002, p.110]

How much of ...Jazz Age was completed before Bailey's death is unclear, but his final at is one of his greatest. [Jan 2026, p.84]

Poised somewhere between rootless anger and quiet revolution. [Dec 2020, p.87]

She's right back on track with this terrific debut for Capitol. [Jun 2005, p.110]

Every generation needs an Art Brut. [Jun 2005, p.100]

Every bit as chaotically charming as its predecessor. [Nov 2005, p.108]

Wainwright nevertheless manages to make the songs her own. [Jan 2017, p.96]

Like most of ET's work, it's worth the wait. [Nov 2013, p.90]

What makes the album itself addictive is Isbell's fusing of gothic Memphis blues and Nashville tenderness. [Nov 2013, p.90]

Beautifully black. [Jul 2022, p.88]

Marries Gerald Clayton's vivid, painterly piano with Immanuel Wilkins' malleable alto sax and vibraphonist Joel Ross's heady melodicism, its internal poetry enhanced by Kendrick Scott's sophisticated drums and Matt Brewer's intricate bass. [Jan 2025, p.85]

Future Islands still sound thrillingly marginal, people standing on an emotional faultline, waiting to be swallowed up. [May 2017, p.94]

The Mudcrutch reunion is a refreshing tweak to the comfy old Petty band chemistry. [July 2008, p.108]

Comparatively standard tunes such as To And Fro prevent Strong Feelings from being an unconditional classic, but that's tantamount to dismissing Toronto's CN Tower as a bit pointy. [Feb 2014, p.91]

This record is looser and more organic, and a different sonic palette for Hynde. [Jul 2009, p.106]

Morby has delivered largely run-of-the-mill roots rock, but Singing Saw is more measured. [Jun 2016, p.91]

One of the most compelling [albums of his 15-year career]. [Apr 2012, p.95]

Gardner's sincerity, dexterity and lightness of touch raises this above a simple genre exercise. [May 2013, p.87]

This is a completist's delight in drab artwork. [Sep 2017, p.100]

Yes, they're flavour of the month, but they're the real deal too. [Nov 2025, p.88]

Travis remain curiously unrevered, but 10 Songs is fine work nonetheless. [Nov 2020, p.86]

Dusky, angsty synth-pop. [Apr 2004, p.103]

Sepalcure finds its feet firmly in Chicago - past and present - blending early house melodies with the insistent, skittish, deep bass rhythms of the footwork genre in an emotional electronic mash. [Jan 2012, p.99]

Makaya McCraven's alchemical abilities and subliminal technical savvy offer both a sensitive update of the Blue Note label's depth-charged catalogue and a welcome pathfinder for the uninitiated. [Jan 2022, p.83]

Abyss is a darkly compelling tour de force. [Sep 2015, p.94]

Throughout, Splinter's sound is powerful and dense, with The Offspring weaving and surging within it like the experts they've become. [Dec 2003, p.109]

This is a protest album and a damn good one. [Nov 2016, p.93]

Ever unpredictable and inspired, >>>> is anything but run-of-the-mill. [Aug 2024, p.81]

Her songs sound simultaneously safe and familiar, yet strange and unknowable. [Feb 2022, p.89]

Relationships with uncomfortable endings, uneasy attractions, and deep personal loss pepper Fullbrook's songs, but her Tiny Ruins bandmates consistently lift her into the light, creating warmth and depth rather than leaving the listener in endless gloom. [Jun 2023, p.86]

Equally comparable to Sleaford Mods' savage lo-fi and Leonard Cohen's fatalist poetry, Prince Of Tears is an outright triumph. [Nov 2017, p.94]

Gately's soft vocal melodies audible through the layers of madness, leading you to points of strange beauty and lyrical wonder. [Jan 2017, p.97]

An immersive audio tour that acts as a kind of Baltic analogue to ambient jazz pin-up boy Jon Hassell's more equatorial excursions. [May 2022, p.92]

A masterful song cycle of raw confessionals, ghostly R&B and gritty stompers, all channelled via intense vocals that razor and soothe. [Nov 2013, p.94]

Every one of its 15 tracks brings something new to the table. [Nov 2013, p.90]

She's taken a great leap forward at the very moment one was required. [Jul 2022, p.89]

The songs are wonderfully non-toxic, obsessed in only the best possible way, a refreshing take on country love and lust. [Sep 2023, p.82]

Georgas's blend of vintage new wave with quirky ethereality includes touching haikus and lullabies, but it's the pissed-off frankness that wins out. .... Gorgeously cathartic. [Oct 2023, p.81]

Over time and repeated plays, Showtunes weaves its magic, maintaining its mysterious atmosphere throughout, along with a welcome sense of stillness amid life's ongoing dramas. [Jun 2021, p.81]

There are great albums that are nose-to-tail singles, but 22 Dreams is not one of them. Settle in for the duration, however, and expect a genuine trip. [June 2008, p.104]

Wolf has established his own distinctive and mighty voice. [Jul 2021, p.89]

It's on the Mellencamp/Carter duets Indigo Sunset and the tough, self-questioning What Kind Of Man Am I that it all shifts up a gear. [Jun 2017, p.93]

Her uncompromising politics never come at the expense of the music. [Oct 2022, p.87]

One of the States' great indie rock institutions, finding renewal largely in the familiar. [Oct 2022, p.86]

It's Bondy's most disturbing record, but equally his most memorable. [Jun 2019, p.88]

Musically it is more diverse [than Gone Away Backward] and his literary influences are to the fore. [Jun 2016, p.91]

Their performance here has an audible sizzle. [Apr 2012, p.95]

White's rage and fear drives the album's songs across any number of stylistic lanes. ... Which is good news for us, because their timeless fury is just what we need more of right now. [Dec 2020, p.82]

Fielding love songs, existential ruminations and anthems of solidarity and resistance, The Auditorium Vol. 1 finds rap’s self-proclaimed James Baldwin sermonising in the key of life on its every glory and struggle, offering hope amid the darkness and remaining a voice of mature wisdom in a rudderless world. It’s one of his very best. [Sep 2024, p.90]

WMPPRR is one of the most powerful psychedelic releases to have come out this year. [Nov 2016, p.86]

A fitting culmination of the run that began with Old Ideas in 2012. [Jan 2020, p.88]

An urgent if mostly meditative-sounding call-to-arms, that he brings poetic shape and power to his politics. [Jan 2017, p.98]