Coming Home has a timeless quality. [Jul 2015, p.87]

Four albums in and their metronomic nursery rhymes are still capable of delivering pop thrills. [June 2010, p. 104]

The four tracks on which they collaborate are timely reminders of The Stooges' initial impact and their ongoing influence. [Oct 2003, p.106]

With its captivating melodies and sci-fi charm, News Of The Universe is as poignant as it is hopeful. [Jul 2024, p.88]

A couple of cracking originals of his own and beautiful production. You have to doff your cap. [Oct 2017, p.95]

Manzanita mostly shimmers obliquely with light and spells. [Apr 2023, p.90]

This London quartet's third LP avoids indie cliche, taking various routes to achieve electro-pop lift-off. [Oct 2018, p.94]

Moves from a first LP of monumental pinguid hypo-groovers to a second of fried-amp creepy-crawl sludge and crude-oil ghost harmonics. [Dec 2021, p.86]

There's always a soulful undercurrent to James's work, exemplified by album's deliciously dream title cut. [Jul 2014, p.92]

If it wasn’t for a couple of unfortunate lulls and longueurs, the odd dubious creative choice, it could easily look Norman Fucking Rockwell in the eye. [May 2023, p.85}

Nino Rojo is no mere best-of-the-rest affair, but a sibling piece of equal intimacy and inspiration. [Oct 2004, p.102]

Restrained but emotionally compelling songs. [Sep 2014, p.93]

It never feels as though her best work is behind her. [Nov 2018, p.96]

The songs about hurt, hardship but also hope are sung in raspy voices with sparse guitar and farming tools used as percussion. [Dec 2019, p.88]

Excellent comeback. [Apr 2026, p.90]

After 20 years, Fuzzy Logic still hasn't stopped making sense. [Jan 2017, p.110]

A furiously funky soundtrack to impending doom. [Aug 2023, p.85]

Soulful, questioning, and the perfect introduction to Smith's unique, illuminative jazz. [Feb 2018, p.99]

A quintessential "pocket trip" record, then, sculpted and sequenced to perfection. [Jan 2020, p.87]

Neither the return of the Last Gang In Town, nor the crisp, literate, wonderfully confident pop with which Albarn perfectly crystallised the mid-1990s. Instead, The Good, The Bad & The Queen is a noir-ishly understated suite of songs, further testament to its chief author's need to keep on moving. [Jan 2007, p.98]

Strangelet's not so much odd as unusually good. [May 2007, p.102]

Everywhere ageless rock'n'roll brio comes freighted with careworn sagacity. [Mar 2017, p.93]

Lifeline is a classy record that never outstays its welcome. [Sep 2008, p.98]

Tankian has created a forward-thinking album that swerves convention. [Dec 2007, p.98]

A heady cultural cocktail where the Sahara meets the Rising Sun. [May 2020, p.87]

A piece of music caught between the human and alien, the reassuring and the uncanny. [May 2020, p.91]

For Radio Wars, producer Dan Grech-Marguerat has opened out their sound, but the atmosphere of intrigue remains. [Apr 2009, p.98]

There's gentle humour to take the edge off but this is haunting, impossible beauty. [Jul 2025, p.80]

The results are truly beguiling. [Jul 2009, p.104]

Though the shadows of Wilson and Lennon/McCartney loom large over this latest psyche-pop platter, the Apples tap into a tradition of classic pop songwriting rather than merely plagiarising their ancestors.

Their ability to serve up soulful, clearly hard-lived songs - think bespoke merge of Gram Parsons, Glen Campbell, Todd Rundgren, Fleetwood Mac and Supertramp - without sounding kitsch is quite some feat. [Sep 2025, p.83]

Tapping myriad trusted influences yet distilling something uniquely corvine, it's a thrilling return. [Apr 2024, p.82]

Withering, witty and clever. [Apr 2011, p.94]

Power sings in an emotion-laden, ever-modulating voice that summons the spirits of Tim Buckley and Tim Hardin as readily as Sibylle Baier or Sandy Denny. [Aug 2016, p.93]

More spacious acoustic currents entwine to create softer, calming reveries every bit as difficult to resist. [Jul 2015, p.90]

It's an adrenalin rush to experience rather than listen to, and the 11 tracks are over too soon. [Nov 2020, p.81]

In short, it's the kind of pop music that works in any era. [Aug 2013, p.89]

This fourth album takes then back to the headlong kitchen-sink pop of their excellent 2009 debut Jewellery. [Oct 2015, p.95]

There's a lot of it, nearly five hours' worth, but you don't need to have a working knowledge of the inside of a Lambretta to enjoy the sharp-suited sounds here. [Mar 2022, p.98]

Understandably, the 76-year-old's voice has lost some if its technical precision, but the backdrops have light touch and when she growls Don't Lie To Me's motif, "How do you sleep?" or evokes "thunderclouds of alibis" on the imperious The Rain Will Fall, she oozes despair and fury. [Jan 2019, p.84]

An experimental, sensual collection of songs harking back to the days of the first Gorky's EPs. [Mar 2006, p.104]

With Songs Of A Lost World, The Cure, often seen as the soundtrack to an eternally doomy adolescence, might just be coming of age.

Throughout, you feel Homme's pain, but ultimately marvel at his ability to channel it into music so brutally uplifting. [Aug 2023, p.79]

It's pleasingly dizzying, yet curiously coherent. [Feb 2016, p.98]

Familial is an acoustically plucked, feet-on-the-ground record, Selway's fragile and inviting voice a delightful match for his slightly anxious, if misplaced, self-doubt. [Sep 2010, p.98]

Boy From Michigan is Grant in panoramic mode, looking back and looking forward to create his biggest picture yet. [Jul 2021, p.86]

It's Green's pitch-perfect delivery, his ability to switch from sublimely giddy pop joy to earnest moments of heartache and convince utterly in both instances, that make The Lady Killer a treasure. [Jan. 2011, p. 96]

Atmospheric chromatic harmonica, swirling strings, shadowy woodwind and Bargeld's rich voice add up to an album demonstrating that black has many shades. [Jun 2016, p.95]

The end result just about captures the riotous, magical bustle of their live shows, so seek it out. [Jun 2009, p.101]

Embryonic greatness, maybe, but still great. [Sep 2020, p.103]

The thread which binds is Merchant's seductive, bittersweet voice, something which quickly finds the richer you, than nourishes it. [Dec 2001, p.104]

Critically, Dark Matters evokes, rather than merely simulates, the band's hallmark quirk and strangeness, lending integrity to the ongoing endeavour. [Oct 2021, p.97]

Richly textured, panoramic celebration of the natural world. [Oct 2020, p.87]

A blissful escape from whatever ails you. [Feb 2023, p.89]

The result is charged and post-apocalyptic. [Oct 2019, p.90]

Milk For Flowers sound wide awake; gloriously alive. [Apr 2023, p.89]

Throughout, a world weariness and wisdom far beyond John Fullbright's 25 years. [Jul 2014, p.93]

Those who have grown up with him will find much to love here. [May 2004, p.90]

Lighten Up takes its sometimes melancholy frown, turns it upside down and delivers an infectious beam of musical sunshine. [Mar 2022, p.82]

Far from being a doomfest, the music is quite beautiful. [Oct 2005, p.114]

As The Murlocs wave their freak-flag high, the party raves on via the taut Southern rock riffage of Common Sense Civilian and Russian Roulette's rogue Farfisa. [Aug 2023, p.78]

Leonard's half-spoken, slow, dark blues growl is powerful. [Nov 2014, p.86]

John Talabot and Axel Boman share a rep for expressive, expansive rhythms aimed at forward-thinking dancefloors--music that can stand in its own right, away from the club. Thrust together, it's an approach that the Catalan/Swedish twosome maintain. [May 2017, p.91]

It feels both strangely timeless and oddly new. [May 2020, p.93]

Heartfelt and brilliantly executed, it's a creative peak. [Feb 2013, p.89]

The Messenger duly wipes the slate clean and bursts with the same efflorescent skills that made Johnny Marr a guitar hero for the generation which had supposedly repudiated such a concept. [Mar 2013, p.90]

This superb second album does indeed make a dramatic leap forward. [Mar 2014, p.90]

His latest sounds like the product of a much-needed rethink, bracketed by two cosmically speculating slowies: the opening, sparkling title track documents its author's self-fulfilling quest to mine a deeper instinctual creativity, while closer No Man's Land has a wide-eyed romanticism, evoking Mercury Rev. [May 2018, p.93]

It's captivating stuff, with the gnomic lyrics adding to the implied oppostion between the natural world and the machines used to make the record. [Apr 2009, p.108]

On this debut album, the plaintive dizziness of Peter Ericson Stakee's vocals is offset by crashing guitars and wind-swept epic aesthetics that recall The Verve's early post-shoegazing incarnation, then City Walls comes on like a socially maladjusted Kasabian. [Feb 2010, p. 104]

Throughout, the Brothers' riotous dustbowl carnival sounds and Ian's pointed deadpan make for a consistently entertaining cocktail. [Oct 2021, p.92]

There's something rather comforting about finding them wholly unchanged after four decades and nearly 10 million album sales. [Sep 2019, p.89]

This is Nelson's best album in over a decade, following flirtations with blues, reggae and jazz. [June 2010, p. 94]

Stripped back to vocals, drums and piano not a million miles from Nick Cave's Boatman's Call, of 10 tracks, not one's a duffer. [May 2013, p.87]

A lyrically strong album. [Jan 2022, p.82]

The only gripe is that at 38 minutes, Insignificance is too short. [Feb 2002, p.92]

Jungle skillfully replicate the sexy patinas of their varied influence. [Sep 2014, p.94]

Fans of Badu, Solange and Janelle must investigate. [Jan 2019, p.85]

This lavish 36-track celebration doesn't settle for just reheating the best bits, cheerily omitting anything from Kamasi Washington's jazz clarion call The Epic, while proffering 22 new tracks that flaunt its roster's strength in depth. [Jan 2019, p.105]

Rarely has a plunge into apocalyptic hell been such a hoot. [Aug 2023, p.82]

A diverse yet flawless disc. [Sep 2006, p.96]

With Memories Are Now, she understands exactly when to use the bridle and bit on these wild, wise songs. [Mar 2017, p.98]

It's a miracle that anyone can sustain such quality songwriting over such a prolific output. [Apr 2025, p.83]

A lush and trippy affair with shades of Edward Lear-like surrealism and John Winston Lennon amid strawberry Fields. [Mar 2008, p.103]

A vivid, pulsing rhyme banquet that's out-there, edgy and kaleidoscopic. [Mar 2014, p.96]

Let It Die's first six tracks find The Shaky Hands joyously rocking it up - like the less self-consciously arty Wilco, pre-Yankee Hotel Foxtrot - while the more reflective mood that settles over the album's second half is a wistful reverie rather than a spiritual malaise. [Feb 2010, p. 102]

His breathless falsetto remains a dealbreaker, but such vaulting ambition should appeal to fans of US forebears Deerhoof and domestic square pegs Wild Beasts. [Oct 2008, p.109]

It's artfully rumpled, but the ragged angry gasps that close the record confirm Bridgers' songwriting isn't the effortless dream it seems. [Jul 2020, p.78]

He's not strayed too far from his usual template: beautifully crafted yet unashamedly earthly songs which soar and contemplate at just the right moment. [Nov 2022, p.89]

It's a creative fecund, primeval power. [Jul 2009, p.100]

An unexpected treat, as he takes great liberties with some of the material. [Sep 2017, p.93]

The whole is deeply bittersweet - but also a joyous farewell from this most wonderfully acute of English pop ensembles. [Oct 2025, p.80]

Delicate yet resolute, Geist is a beautiful spin through the windmills of Lay's mind, unreal in the best ways. [Nov 2021, p.92]

A claustrophobic, mesmeric soundscape akin to My Bloody Valentine and Spacemen 3's early work. [Apr 2003, p.114]

Knockin' Boots shuttles between classic disco, '80s electro soul, Gallic House tropes and stripped-down future funk with significant aplomb. [Aug 2015, p.88]

On the surface, Beware The Fetish is like My Bloody Valentine or Metal Machine Music, as unbowed or compromised by trying to give the people what they want. Yet at its heart is a burning desire to make fantastic pop music. [Aug 2014, p.88]

Glass Boys' legacy will likely be the Fucked Up record fans praise for its songs, rather than the risk-taking. [Jul 2014, p.95]

One Step Behind shifts the goalposts, compromising a 32-minute title track and the eight-minute Heart And Soul, an elegant, soulful comedown in the mould of Music From Big Pink. [Nov 2019, p.94]