[The term techno] seems inadequate for the magnificent noise emanating from Clark. [Dec 2014, p.96]

This debut long-player has been greatly anticipated, and does not disappoint. Skating an agreeably fine line between conscious dancehall and complex nu-roots, Chronixx delivers 15 deeply personal explorations of Jamaica and the challenges it faces.

They return forever changed to confidently shape a form of country music that is entirely of their own character. [Jul 2022, p.87]

Thirteen years after they retired Swans return with thunderous tour de force. [Oct. 2010, p. 104]

Hinterland feels less like the spirit of the dance floor and much more like the crush of a weaponed march. [May 2015, p.98]

Thoughtfulness never rocked so hard. [Mar 2017, p.96]

A poignant reminder of a talent that may have gone forever. [Mar 2018, p.102]

The warm glow that they engender is palpable, but you do wonder what may happen if The Field broke free from the constraints of the loop. [Jan 2012, p.99]

Jazz albums don't come much better. [May 2009, p.101]

The result is intelligent pop infested with tense, subterranean melodies. [Jan 2012, p.91]

One of the albums of the year. [Dec 2006, p.120]

Look Now bounces with unforced, uncluttered and cleverly fleshed vivacity, every song a cherishable gem. [Nov 2018, p.86]

She's found a gift for reinvention; the change suits her. [Mar 2025, p.84]

[Navita] charts her course through destruction, indifference and the city sounds: doo wop, Lou Reed-y R&R, even indie rock. It's not until she stares clear-eyed at those closest to her that the way is clear: she's to honor her Latin and Caribbean roots in story and sound. [Apr 2017, p.96]

A reverberant, high-octane treatise on the transcendent power of love and loud music. [Dec 2018, p.94]

Cue more mariachi mystery carefully balanced on John Convertino and Joey Burn's tenth studio LP. [May 2022, p.90]

GENA craft deliciously anachronistic R&B, rewiring the lushness and melodic complexity of '70s soul and funk for the post-Dilla era. [Apr 2026, p.91]

Ultimately, this album stands in euphoric, unrepentant denial of its own title. [Sep 2013, p.91]

Throughout, Bryant's vocal is rich and full on songs that are framed in exclamatory horns and soothing organ. [Jun 2017, p.92]

The constantly shape-shifting and explosive dynamics of this brutal yet accessible blaze of glory are borne from a collaboration that's instinctive, primal and alchemical, effortlessly outclassing the competition. [Apr 2019, p.88]

This soaring album defines emotional shoegazing. [Dec 2009, p. 101]

Timeless and joyful. [Jul 2022, p.96]

This album engages out minds while it explores, but as it raises questions, it still comforts. [Sep 2019, p.92]

A focused tour de force. [Oct 2006, p.100]

More cohesive, languid and countrified [than Floaters and October Song]. [Sep 2021, p.83]

It's Williams's confessions, delivered with an intensity worthy of Richard Thompson, that make their second album so compelling. [Apr 2025, p.79]

Tempest is Dylan's best musical album of this century, a vibrant maximising of strict rules and the savaged-leather state of that voice. [Oct 2012, p.84]

In just any universe, Playing Favorites would dominate the world's FM stations for two years straight. [Apr 2024, p.84]

In truth, despite Diana Krall as producre and accompanist, this is hardly jazz. Instead, it's another nigh faultless array of ballads, immaculately dressed by arranger Johnny Mandel (a deluxe edition has backings by Krall's quartet.0 [Dec 2009, p. 92]

Well-served by the sparse guitar-and-vocal arrangements and intimate, reverb-y ambience. [Oct 2020, p.84]

Shauf paints an endearing sketch of his house party's many moods. [Jun 2016, p.97]

His piano-playing is a joy, his vocals a dramatis personae of lively characters. ... The whole thing feels--thrillingly, poignantly--like you're in the room with him. [Oct 2018, p.84]

While Blunderbuss appears to be definite off-loading of emotional baggage, it also feels like a move toward rebirth. [May 2012, p.80]

Thrilling collective racket. [Dec 2022, p.90]

Engaging, inventive and emotionally charged. [Nov 2005, p.96]

Stimulating, entertaining and moving. You'll listen to it more than you have Anthology, I promise. [Dec 2006, p.100]

Quite literally, a dream album. [Nov 2012, p.88]

Tucker has created an album that should endear her to those who still raise the outlaw flag while also appealing to hard-edged pop-tinged rock believers. [Oct 2019, p.83]

They lurch between plaid-smothered unresolved chords and frontwoman Sadie Dupuis's verbose story-telling, delivered deadpan a la early Liz Phair. [May 2015, p.95]

A more tasteful affair [than Leave Home], tapping into the 1980s underground's collegiate, powerpop end... plus straight-ahead rock-n-roll holler. [May 2012, p.82]

This album is barefaced '90s revivalism. [Mar 2012, p.97]

Boasting Dwyer's catchiest hooks yet. But Sorcs 80 is most alive when embracing its core weirdness. [Oct 2024, p.87]

Dan's Boogie remains fascinatingly obscure in places, but these songs are full of buried gold. [May 2025, p.84]

A more charming and seductive album you're unlikely to hear this year. [Nov 2008, p.116]

Migraines possible; good chance of transcendence, too. [Apr 2020, p.96]

Mostly Highway Prayers is a thrillingly modern bluegrass album for people who don’t even like bluegrass. [Jan 2025, p.88]

All in all, it underlines that These New Puritans remains a band apart. [Jul 2025, p.84]

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]

The absence of between-song chat makes the experience unnecessarily remote. [Mar 2020, p.106]

For all its grace and subtlety, this is a vigorous, life-affirming record. [Jul 2016, p.90]

More is that rarest of reunion records: one that transcends nostalgia to actually enhance a band’s legacy. [Jul 2025, p.74]

The Londoner's high soul voice shines through on astral-themed second album. . [Dec 2018, p.94]

A hugely enjoyable whole. After a fortnight's heavy rotation, it has yet to reveal its fatal flaw. [May 2017, p.89]

Wildflower can either be enjoyed as a horizon-filling album-long trip, or by zooming in on the array of every changing, intra-song moments, as sounds and ideas flit in and out of focus. Whatever your preference, it was worth the wait. [Sep 2016, p.92]

Sounding assured and triumphant, Scotland's finest finally have realised their true potential. [Aug 2002, p.112]

The resulting platter is overflowing with dense slabs of aromatic unrefined funk, peppered with scattershot stupid-dope old school rhymes. [June 2011, p. 92]

It's a punishing listen certain to prove divisive among his fan base. [Oct 2012, p.95]

Cooder magnificent way with bottleneck on steel is often in evidence, while his son Joachim's percussion-rich soundscapes with loped and sampled elements help contemporise his dad's inherently rootsy sound. [Jun 2018, p.90]

A very fine album. [May 2019, p.94]

A meditative counterpoint to Reflection. [May 2022, p.94]

White Men Are Black Men Too places Young Fathers firmly alongside Suede, Dizzee Rascal and Arctic Monkeys in the pantheon of those whose post-Mercury follow-ups confirm they know exactly where they're going and aren't going to let winning a modest prize distract them. [May 2015, p.88]

Its 17 yearning, numinous essays, with lyrics that are part road trip, part inward odyssey, inhabiting a liminal, sepia-tinted sound world. [Apr 2016, p.88]

It's a wilful shuffle through the space-time continuum, where powerful pearls of wisdom about memory, the future and black justice pierce the sonic murk. [Oct 2021, p.90]

The waves that roll through Mosaic are chiller, more austere, but no less beautiful. [Feb 2025, p.89]

Captures Radiohead during their majestic 2000s, delivering muscular, meticulously detailed material to an audience eager for rousing, off killer anthems (There, There) and piano-led laments (We Suck Young Blood) alike. [Nov 2025, p.101]

Between My Head And The Sky is an intriuing record, crackling with an excitement that most new artists would struggle to generate. [Oct 2009, p.97]

Loner is the sound of her undoubted talent turned feral. It's a wonderful, rollicking beast. [Jun 2018, p.94]

Anderson's playing is simultaneously muscular and relaxed, defiant and heartfelt, a new nomadic American music for her own troubled times. [Jul 2018, p.91]

These 11 songs sound like they've been here forever. [Jan 2022, p.82]

REVELATOR is confrontational and sometimes uncomfortable (see CCTV’s shrill metallic screech), but always enthralling. [Dec 2024, p.91]

The easygoing Natural Information may be Callahan’s latter-day signature tune, and here daubed in Clarence Clemons-flavoured sax and quicksilver guitar, it sounds like the Eagles at a shamanic retreat. CPR for the soul. [Nov 2024, p.92]

Richman sings with jaunty assurance in I Was Just A Piece Of Frozen Sky Anyway, the near-title entrance to his eighteenth solo album. [Oct 2025, p.86]

The best Paisley Underground-adjacent, Byrds-infatuated new LP you've heard in a while. [Jun 2026, p.68]

The Horrors manage to balance vinyl excavation with experimentation and a huge dollop of pop magnificently. [Aug. 2011, p. 90]

Their clearest vocal to date, not from a guest, but from guitarist/mouthpiece Stuart Braithwaite. ... Yet another high water mark in Mogwai's irresistible ride. [Mar 2021, p.83]

Rossiter's tremulous, torchy delivery plays to the gallery, but beautifully, touchingly and sometimes exhaustedly. [Dec 2012, p.86]

Apocalypse is a multi-storied cosmic rollercoaster that asks the big questions while relocating hip hop on the astral plane. No mean feat. [Aug 2013, p.88]

Much of the album's charm lies in its simplicity, often paring back the instrumentation to focus upon the group's strongest elements. [Nov 2010, p.96]

If the alcoholic's lament Death Came teeters close to parody, then the bare-boned country pop of Place In My Heart and Bitter Memory offer some much needed respite. [Feb 2016, p.90]

Allen is inspirational throughout, creating a range of personalised drum patterns, and hey! You can dance to every darn thing. [Dec 2017, p.88]

At times you'd think she's finally stepped around her natural sophistication and freed her true nature. But then her rooted unwillingness to share, via comprehensible diction, the lyrics she's carefully crafted does step between the different intimacies of sound and sense. [Jun 2014, p.88]

Intense. But the much tougher stuff here is emotional. [Sep 2022, p.86]

Producer/arranger Joel Burton steeps Bock's butterly-rich voice in shifting contours that match the nuances in her words while leaving acres of space. [Aug 2022, p.90]

Gay's treacly voice and keening cornet pierce the static on another initially oblique musical jigsaw, whose pieces begin to fit after a few listens. [Aug 2025, p.85]

Hval's folkish vocals and poetic framing deliciously counterpoint a fusillade of muscular beats and Volden's jabbing guitar. [May 2021, p.87]

All-enveloping and omnivorous, it's hard to tell if this record wants to hug you or eat you, but it's blissful submitting to its embrace. [Jun 2011, p.93]

A transporting treat, tapping both the personal and the universally political. [Jun 2020, p.86]

It's often a mess, but to witness he process is genuinely exhilarating. [Jun 2018, p.88]

Dead is visceral, propulsive and bursting with life. [Mar 2014, p.88]

There's no happy ever after, of course, but at least this excellent record has come out of the darkness. [Mar 2016, p.92]

All but unchanged aesthetically at 64, this alt-rock icon's rockin' on. [Apr 2025, p.78]

Grinderman 2 finds the group continuing their musical voyage inot the id. [Oct. 2010, p. 91]

Like the band's best '80s output, Lilac6 is the work of a bona fide songsmith. [Nov 2001, p.108]

It is quizzical, troubled, socially concerned, compassionate, schizoid, retro-eclectic, strikingly modern, racially mixed--and even likes women. [Apr 2002, p.112]

It really is incredibly good, even if sometimes it's hard to feel you're hearing the real Jolie and not a character she's adopted. [Jun 2004, p.110]

These are songs to admire rather than lose oneself in. [Jan 2004, p.116]

Melds way-out weird with a pop welcome that sounds like no one else around right now. [May 2004, p.105]

Moments of simple, exultant joy are plentiful. [Jun 2004, p.102]