The big screen really suits him. [Jul 2019, p.94]

The result is a thrilling excursion, possessing an otherworldly ambience and substance you'll spend months decoding, every spin yielding something new. [Aug 2017, p.88]

The results are as rich and organic as electronica gets. [Jun 2011, p.97]

And the Anonymous Nobody is another stroke of inventive brilliance from ever-humble, non-showboating masters of the long-playing arts. [Sep 2016, p.92]

Earle has let the spook out of the closet, so he can bare his spiritual chest (as it were) with a Lennonesque honesty and a vocal delivery that increasingly resembles Tom Petty's sub-Dylan sneer.

With childhood friend Sean Coleman aboard to coax Brian Wilson-ness from the 1980s'-penned And You Run, and tunes as charming as Breezy Sweet Smile, let's be grateful that Eels Time! rolls on. [Jul 2024, p.89]

Unearthly. [Jul 2024, p.91]

Jazz and trip-hop shade this darkness. [Oct 2015, p.96]

The long, swirling guitar patterns remain, as the bandleader enjoys letting a groove stretch right out before demonstrating his blues-rock credentials. [Sept. 2011, p. 104]

Splitting the difference between the digital and the hand-cranked, Geologist has opened up his own haunting little universe. [Mar 2026, p.81]

There is no great leap into the unknown here, but rather a fusion of the band's previous two records. [16 Jul 2005, p.50]

There's surely never beena Sonic Youth album so unself-conscious. [Jul 2006, p.98]

There are perhaps too many guests, but this unassuming talisman clearly prefers sharing his space. [Nov 2013, p.84]

Here's some blood and guts from Toronto in the prime-time 1970s. And it doesn't just sit there. [Jul 2022, p.101]

A slinky, soulful, witty, mid-paced affair. [Oct 2023, p.81]

Ear Drum confirms Kweli's position as an icon. [Oct 2007, p.106]

Temples aren't stuck in the past, they've glimpsed the future. [Apr 2017, p.94]

16 lightly fried examples of his gift for surrealist pop/classic rock synthesis. [Jan 2014, p.104]

A return to fundamentals closest in kin to Lamar’s 2012 debut, proving that, questionable sleeve design aside, he’s in imperious form.

If Elvis Costello's an all-timer it's because he knows what high seriousness is about. [Nov. 2010, p. 103]

An album for anybody who likes rock music to sound angry about something. [Mar 2013, p.89]

Four albums in 18 months might induce a malaise within lesser bands, but King Gizzard's current purple patch peaks here. [Jun 2016, p.96]

Musical Pop Art has seldom been as good. [Apr 2015, p.88]

Wilco (The Album) is as consummate as anything its author has yet delivered. [Aug 2009, p.97]

Throughout, she oozes charisma, sophistication and soul. [Jul 2018, p.92]

Though the sound remains dreamy, it's expansive; the melodic songs have a feeling of joy. [Oct 2009, p.101]

"Surprised" might not be the answer, but these big, generous songs still land an emotional punch. [Sep 2025, p.79]

There's much that's familiar about Demolished Thoughts, but Beck's arrangements draw fresh new pleasures from those elements. [Jun 2011, p.96]

Marling's second album is one of staggering maturity. An old-school folk album of the best sort. [Apr 2010, p.92]

Tragedy and regret, all captured in beautifully glowering analogue. [Oct 2017, p.93]

Auguste Arthur's third, and best, set of lonesome-pine Americana. [Jun 2012, p.100]

The Detroit duo spin sordid tales and lovelorn drama with just the right amount of restrained percussion, blooze picking and screaming confessionals. [Sep 2001, p.93]

With his bijou gift for melody, over 75 minutes Hart delivers abundantly. [Aug 2013, p.86]

Almost flawless record. ... It alights on an entirely new air of depth and fascination, in keeping with its author's age and experience. [Oct 2018, p.85]

This is memorable music for exceptional times. [Nov 2020, p.89]

From the title track onwards, he slaps down 25 minutes of spring-heeled and rump-shakin' bumpin' Bootsy funk, which will pick up again after ballad Heaven Yes, gentler Ladies Nite, and the poppy Candy Coated Lover and Snow Bunny. [Dec 2017, p.93]

Note Eaglehurst/The Palace, an ecstatic workout that mythologises a shared house of Brit jazz tyros as an inspiringly sacred space. [Dec 2018, p.92]

These enigmatic narratives work well--the themes can be unearthed at one's leisure, immersed in music that's both poignant and delightful. [Feb 2020, p.88]

This feels like Hermansen's most charming and wide-ranging collection yet. [Jan 2018, p.96]

Dreamy, psych-folk beauty. [Jun 2026, p.91]

There's real creative confidence on display here. [Jul 2022, p.92]

With his trademark gothic drawl, Patterson Hood limns close highway calls with perspicacity, then mourns the compatriots he's lost to foibles and vices alike. Perennially underrated Mike Cooley, meanwhile, hands in some of his sharpest-ever writing. [Jul 2022, p.86]

Mirrored explodes with twisting grooves and obtuse angles. [Jun 2007, p.102]

High On Fire's fourth album sees them once again on thunderous form. [Nov 2007, p.95]

Their relentless attack is deadly serious. [Jan 2014, p.104]

The other peak performance is Longest Day Of The Year Blues, a deceptively languid doo wop ballad where the delicate tools that are Slade, Young and drummer Olly Joyce continue to punch well above their weight. [Feb 2014, p.94]

This is very much an album to shout "Hey!" at regular rhythmic intervals. [Jun 2019, p.95]

Ten is a classic of the grunge era, its super-sized anthems and introspective pieces powered by Eddie Vedder, a Jim Morrision for the plaid shirt brigade. [Apr 2009, p.116]

Little Rope carves space for the well-worn mind, offering sharp perspective on moments when everything seems blunted. [Feb 2024, p.84]

From rowdy juke-joint jams to sunblushed cornfield ballads, these songs born of tough times. The latter provides the album's stand-out moments. [Jul 2009, p.100]

Country-soul with luminous warmth. [Jun 2017, p.95]

Effortlessly inventive and still full of invective. [Apr 2012, p.88]

Lee is so commanding that guests Lucinda Williams and Willie Nelson are drawn into top-of-the-range duets and still don't take over. [Feb 2011, p.96]

Mike Ness and his men still have those rock 'n roll blues. [Feb. 2011, p. 106]

With electronic ace Ben frost's eerily beautiful final chapter is the perfect soundtrack for a dinner party to which only Ed Gein, Jack London and Catherine The Great are invited. [May 2013, p.94]

Cohen’s sound checks, as lengthy as the shows, where he’d experiment with old songs and try out new ones, were celebrated by insiders, and the three examples here are among the highlights: a remarkable Field Commander Cohen, like a four-and-a-half-minute operetta; a cover of George Jones’ Choices (gorgeous fiddle); and a new Cohen original, up-tempo blues Got A Little Secret.

Baenziger takes nothing for granted when it comes to arrangements. where the song demands it, electronic textures are favoured--instincts which bear rich fruit on Willis and Skinnybone. [Apr 2011, p.95]

It recollects emotion with a raging tranquillity, artistic objectivity overruling self-pity. [Jul 2003, p.110]

They sound great on it. [Aug 2003, p.90]

An auspicious new singer-songwriter, not afraid to broaden her Horizons. [Dec 2021, p.90]

Hate is a record of immense ambition and sophistication, a bold vision, a beautifully calibrated meditation on the messy business of life. [Nov 2002, p.98]

A debut that will fry your ears and break your heart. [Jan 2012, 100]

He sings with committed restraint and plays outspoken guitar. [Feb 2005, p.95]

No duffers here, never a dull moment, satisfaction guaranteed. [Jul 2005, p.100]

Multifaceted and consistently brilliant. [Jun 2023, p.84]

Fascinatingly oblique songs are plaed with confidence and laid-back precision, rather than smothered by a desperation to impress. [Mar 2005, p.96]

The results are often magical, the tracks' man-versus-machine provenance never jarring, the music often utterly liquid in feel. [Apr 2020, p.95]

A jittery suite of clattering protest jams, further uplifted by the ferocious interplay between trumpeter Aquiles Navarro and alto saxophonist Keir Neuringer. [May 2020, p.95]

This is a new band, but it already sounds primed for the long haul. [May 2025, p.90]

The cover of P.J. Harvey's 'The Desperate Kingdon Of Love' encapsulates the album--restful, intoxicating, sounding gorgeous. [Oct 2008, p.102]

He hones in on what he does best, and improves it. [Nov 2008, p.109]

Ultimately, it's a record filled with beauty that tries to do what therapy does: sort through a mess of emotions and reorganise them into something that makes more sense. [Jun 2019, p.84]

Copeland herself is always gloriously centre-stage. [Jun 2009, p.108]

The solid, memorable songs are at the sweet end of the bittersweet spectrum. [Mar 2014, p.91]

Together Through Life is an album that gets its hooks in early and refuses to let go. [Jun 2009, p.94]

The overall result is not the studious mess it could have been, but an adventurous, challenging and futuristic recording, albeit one that might cause a little aural indigestion. [Feb 2010, p. 93]

The other Side [is] probably the most honest reflection of himself he's ever made. [Jun 2024, p.87]

This is music that needs to be heard in as long a form as possible, so nothing breaks the immersive hallucinatory effect, and you can lose all sense of time direction and place. [Mar 2023, p.93]

Like Lamar’s grandstanding To Pimp A Butterfly, the numerous strands of Compton: A Soundtrack take time and effort to fully unravel, but the rewards are manifold.

We Move is warm, slick and modernist. [Oct 2016, p.96]

A more nuanced approach than generally prevails on his records with The Hold Steady. [Oct 2015, p.90]

EX is a contemporary masterpiece. [Sep 2014, p.88]

Stick on the nine minutes of opener Lufuala Ndonga, turn the bottom end up and stand back. What happens next is unbelievable. [May 2005, p.98]

Now he only resembles himself--a distinctive and exhilarating vituperative voice celebrating anything from glam rock to beans on toast. [Jan 2017, p.102]

The 35-track odyssey serpentines on an exotic carpet of plangent electric and acoustic guitar sounds through whimsical, sub-Basement Tapes Americana, languorous, Grateful Dead-like psych-folk and hallucinogenic, Lennon-esque-pop. [Jan 2018, p.92]

Field Music's most ambitious album yet. ... A consummate success. [Feb 2018, p.88]

On his third solo album, Steve Mason veers dangerously close to that overfarmed damaged-earnest-sensitive-bloke territory, but luckily he doesn't seem capable of schmaltz or emotional cheap-shots. [Mar 2016, p.95]

Showcases [singer Yukimi Nagano's] full emotional range. ... Six albums in, now, as ever, Little Dragon deserve far more attention. [May 2020, p.94]

Songs feel untethered, then crystallise in Sharon Von Etten-levels of devastation. [Apr 2019, p.96]

Fuses Velvetsy heartbeat minimalism with pastoral strings and acoustic guitar. [Jan 2014, p.104]

Over 50 years on, it remains a remarkable achievement, not just for its ambition but its execution. [Nov 2022, p.96]

[A] Second set of smart, retro-futurist pop. [Jun 2016, p.97]

If April's slick Midnight Rockers album was a post Studio One career highlight for reggae legend Horace Andy, then this dubbed-up companion LP even takes it up a notch. [Oct 2022, p.82]

Jonny's debut is splendid, user-friendly stuff. [Mar 2011, p.97]

This eclectic offering confirms that the trio's music is an unclassifiable meld of idioms that includes strong rock and pop influences. [Mar 2012, p.92]

They might be joyful adventures in the material world, but Matmos have a gift for hinting at something just beyond it. [Aug 2025, p.80]

Where it really gets interesting--when you notice how music evolves and genre names become meaningless-is when the walls of commerce tumble down because musicians found freedom in the cracks and crawled through. [Jul 2019, p.106]