The album rocks, its symphonic depth and stratosphere-surfing melodies more affecting with each subsequent listen. [Jan 2003, p.98]

The confrontational quintet dare to seek out melody and explore a new-found subtlety on an otherwise exhaustingly visceral ride. [May 2010, p. 95]

The sound has been filled out. ... The burnished folk rock accentuates the intimacy of Power's voice and her writing. [Jul 2020, p.80]

Follow-up to 2008's widely acclaimed Dear Science recorded at guitarist David Sitek's home. [June 2011, p. 92]

Initial listens may suggest contrived incongruity. Further spins reveal the affectionate smarts behind these acts of desecration. [Jul 2014, p.87]

Rejoice stands tall alongside both artists' greatest work. [May 2020, p.95]

This is thrilling, incontrovertible evidence of a major new talent in our midst. [Mar 2006, p.102]

The joyous next single, 'Let Me know,' along with dark gems such as 'Primitive' and 'Movie Star,' make this close to a modern synth-pop classic. [Nov 2007, p.90]

Tough, yet with just enough tenderness. [Aug 2005, p.101]

The entirety celebrates the ecstatic simplicity of that era [1950s-60s] of pop. [Sep 2022, p.86]

Their sixth also has a twinkly eye, and Cartwright's songwriting is never less than a joy. [Aug 2014, p.96]

This remains far from forbidding music, with an orchestrated heft that's as close to Ennio Morricone as it is Glenn Branca. [Jun 2021, p.83]

On a couple of tracks here he feels the need to introduce some lame house beats and equally passe drum'n'bass, which is a shame because the rest of the time he creates a vocabulary that's utterly his own. [Jun 2003, p.100]

On first listen Poses feels diffuse and unfocused. [Jul 2001, p.108]

The emotion flows as true as the music.

Molina's darkest, most achingly desolate work so far. [Apr 2004, p.102]

The dignity and sharp poetic instincts on American V are all classic Cash. [Aug 2006, p.89]

It's a technical leap forward...but she wears this transformation easily. [Oct 2011, p.101]

Her second full album centres on sophisticated rococo pop, but there's also a nice viscous, keyboard-heavy prog undertow. [Mar 2015, p.93]

Tantalizing use of spare and mostly intelligible, always unsettling lyrics. [Apr 2015, p.98]

The Miraculous is complex and provocative. [Dec 2015, p.87]

The results are equal parts beautiful and unsettling. [Feb 2017, p.95]

Remarkably moving. [Jan 2017, p.104]

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

This vivid, confident collection cuts across the UK bass continuum, mixing abstract house and no-rave with moody mysticism. [Jan 2020, p.91]

As sad ballad follows sad ballads towards the close, Old Wow is not as well-paces. Nonetheless it's full of resonant music. [Feb 2020, p.94]

The strangely beautiful bounty of Mogadisco reveals more telling detail with each listen. [Feb 2020, p.103]

You need to pick through the later albums to find some occasional moments of brilliance. although if you unconditionally love well-executed '70s funky-soul, it's all good! [Mar 2020, p.105]

It's all carried off with the panache and confidence of a group making their first, not 24th, album. [Jun 2020, p.89]

Although there are hints of his alter ego GLOK's textured electronics throughout, experimentation is evenly balanced with his love of '60s classicism. [Dec 2020, p.86]

Icily cinematic, Arnalds has a widescreen future. [Dec 2020, p.85]

The warmth of the recording and the excellence of the singer and the songs, this is up there with Massey Hall - just five songs shorter. [May 2021, p.96]

Instinctual, fully lived-in record, it touches and thrills. [Nov 2021, p.93]

Idles are finding new directions home: the hallmark of a great band. [Dec 2021, p.85]

Blind Date Party is intriguing enough to be more than a one-night thing. [Jan 2022, p.82]

For all the ways these songs frenetically pinball into different corners, the nervous scratch and scrap of guitars tightening up and unspooling around obtuse angles and machine-gun rhythms, there's a deceptively complex musicality pinning everything together. [Nov 2022, p.89]

O Monolith is no less bold of palette - opener Swing (in A Dream) embraces taut post-punk chug, jazz trumpet and enveloping synths - but always follows a lucid, compelling logic. [Jul 2023, p.86]

Kamaru's softly spoken words amid Arkives' discomfiting drones drags listeners to unexpected depths, his voice a ghost in a machine of otherworldly chorale, siren-like synths and heaps of static. [Aug 2024, p.87]

Ishibashi’s latest score is again subtle, delicate, but robust enough to blossom away from the film itself. It’s her balancing of disparate elements that’s so impressive. [Aug 2024, p.87]

Kokoko! again deliver a banging, agitational rave-up that’s impossible to stay a wallflower to. [Aug 2024, p.87]

Aswad and Steel Pulse stand proud amid JA heavy-hitters Burning Spear and Black Uhur u, while PiL, The Slits and The Pop Group mingle with the un-dread Joe Jackson, SLF and Angelic Upstarts. With Misty In Roots glaringly absent due to ‘rights issues’, there’s ample scope for a sequel. [Sep 2024, p.101]

Nada Surf have always been close to greatness, and Moon Mirror won’t win new fans, but it is wonderful. [Oct 2024, p.82]

As with predecessors Omega and The 7th Hand, Blues Blood brims with fresh harmonic ideas, but also an emotional potency that resonates long afterwards. [Nov 2024, p.90]

One of those bracing, snarky, crafted and fun records that reminds you of a bunch of old favourites while simultaneously exerting its own personality. [Feb 2025, p.83]

Due to the circumstances, guitarist Jez Williams takes the lead on more tracks than is customary, including gorgeous, Smiths-referencing highlight Last Year’s Man. But despite a difficult incubation, Doves soar here.[ Mar 2025, p.90]

Wasner downplays the rockier aspects of her previous two solo records to delve into her Joni bag, pulling out both folk and AOR models - with streaks of Americana - sourcing gorgeous melodies to match her glowing vibrato that resembles a young Lucinda Williams. [Dec 2025, p.84]

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]

Bailey has been constantly moving towards something truly great and Can't Take My Story Away gets her closer still. [Feb 2026, p.82]

Utopia feels like a diversion, not a destination. A nice place to visit--beautiful, even--but you wouldn't want to live there. [Jan 2018, p.89]

Clever, involving, vital addition to one of the strongest discographies of the last 30 years. [Nov 2023, p.82]

From One Day's po-sweet surprise to DsharpG's shivery vocal/harmonium drones, each gear shift is proof of a compelling new voice. [Dec 2010, p.100]

At it's core, Peasant resembles a masterpiece, but this softening of the sonic edges ultimately dulls its grand impact. [Jul 2017, p.94]

Their most corrosive cocktail yet of melodious sunshine pop and blackly comedic lyrics. [Mar 2023, p.85]

The two CDs move forward with an eerie dread and romantic wonder; violin, piano, bass, celeste, cello creating an alternate wordless narrative to normal Cave blather. [Oct 2009, p.115]

It is Mastodon's ability to blend such grandstanding flourishes with a powerful sense of songcraft that suggests Crack The Skye might be some "Master Of Puppets" breakthrough for the Atlanta quartet. [May 2009, p.98]

Upbeat, sometimes painful, all sold with witty pop chutzpah. [May 2019, p.94]

Despite its unruly title, Anarchist Gospel takes all the splits and divisions, the churn and the confusion, and turns them into something remarkably centred and complete, the work of a songwriter who knows who she is and how she got there. [Mar 2023, p.82]

His best (if worst-titled) work so far. Sometimes JPEGRAW's 12 tracks feel like they're ticking boxes: a flurry of lounge piano blues here, a blast of jazz trumpet there... But there's a clarity to the writing, with his vaulting ambition accompanied by strong hooks and an even stronger pop sensibility. [Apr 2024, p.84]

This time around, the radio programmers will be listening harder, but taken as a 68-minute whole, The Electric Lady is quite a trip. [Dec 2013, p.84]

This is a more colourful record than its predecessor, but it’s troubled, too.... Meanwhile, aficionados of pure sonic treats are well served. [Feb 2015, p.89]

Lanegan's own journey may be ongoing, but this is a vivid snapshot of where he's been. [Feb 2014, p.102]

While the line-up expands for Candace Of Meroe's infectious drunk-funk and CIYA's breezy romanticism, it's the original trio that smash the joint on throttling finale LDN's Burning--a short, sharp distillation of the fierce talent lighting up the capital. [Mar 2019, p.93]

The title track, inspired by the band's current motto, is a powerful evocation of The Strokes going electro, while Path Of Most Resistance taps a kooky, Devo-ish guitar hook. If Your gym playlist needs refreshing, look no further. [Sep 2025, p.82]

The horny Dry Spell is typically smart storytelling, cheekily contemporary and as wittily candid as her hero John Prine, while Back On The Wagon is a credulous assertion of faith in an erring lover from an unreliable narrator. [Jul 2026, p.87]

An unexpected beauty. [Nov 2024, p.84]

As The Moon Rests is thrillingly bleak, but not so bleak there isn't a crack of light visible at all times. [Nov 2022, p.93]

Don't be deceived: these songs have the substance to become - unlike those eBay purchases - an obsession that sticks. [Apr 2024, p.83]

An album truly fit to do battle with the rock classics of any age. [Jul 2013, p.80]

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]

The result is the right step forwards at the right momement. [Aug 2019, p.96]

It's a mark of Shauf's talent that songs this deft could ever have been left to gather dust. [Dec 2021, p.92]

The six lengthy meditations here refine the formula. [Jan 2023, p.84]

A little loosening up might help those serotonin levels. [Jul 2014, p.96]

There's some blurring over 17 tracks, but as a whole piece, Freetown Sound is a record with unusually sharp focus. [Aug 2016, p.90]

At times, the tracks seem almost overburdened with poignancy - typically, the tectonic major to minor chordal shifts of Gold push Birgisson’s ululations into ever more heartrending melodic shapes – and everywhere a kind of voluptuous awestruck sublimity pervades. [Sep 2023, p.84]

In taming their wilder side, Future Islands' ecstatic melancholy has never sounded quite so free. [Apr 2014, p.96]

In these crop-to-fit times, omnivorous, visionary pop is at a premium, and there's all the more reason to prize an omnivorous visionary pop record like the Week That Was. [Sep 2008, p.96]

Overlong, but provocative and engaging. [Dec 2002, p.116]

She's one of a handful of people who could sing the telephone directory. [Dec 2002, p.115]

Babelsberg is, without doubt, one of the finest expressions so far of Rhys's talent. [Jul 2018, p.90]

It's really a nightmare world Oldham describes, but he cloaks it in tender beauty, slight-of-hand that remodels human failure into heartening endurance, a consoling story against the cold. [Dec 2019, p.88]

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

It's one of the most thrilling rocksteady albums to have been made since the genre emerged in the late '60s. [Nov 2016, p.89]

Gregg's vocal technique was remarkably intact despite his illness, as was his trademark ability to convey love, honesty, anguish. [Nov 2017, p.97]

Across the ensuing 85 minutes there are sufficient six-string pyrotechnics, pop hooks and lyrical urgencies to shame an artist a third his age. [Jan 2019, p.88]

The LP's title might suggest the randomised poetry of google translate, but Low Probability Of A Hug speaks a language everyone can understand. [Oct 2019, p.85]

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]

Matt Sweeney's commitment to supply Bonnie "Prince" Billy with "guitar parts that hold his voice like a chalice holds wine" is fully delivered upon here. [May 2021, p.76]

It's extra-colourful and top quality. [Sep 2022, p.87]

Another self-titled album is a risky statement of intent. The Bad Plus pull it off with pith and swank. [Nov 2022, p.91]

While Idles boast similar reserves of adrenalin and attitude, Italia 90 better deploy groove. [Feb 2023, p.84]

Aside from the occasional rote workout (Sweeden, enlivened only by Denys Baptiste’s squalling sax), Renascence finds Cymande firmly in the pocket. [Mar 2025, p.93]

The superior ones are palate cleansers or re-fertilisations of barren songwriting soil. But the best are things in and of themselves – artworks the performer has shaped just as surely and idiosyncratically as the writers. Find El Dorado is one of those. [Sep 2025, p.76]

Hannon's most personal and poignant album to date. [Oct 2025, p.86]

Yielded their finest collection to date. [May 2026, p.87]

This eponymous offering once again demonstrates his effortless, and seemingly innate, ability to make the familiar feel fresh and enticing. [Feb 2017, p.90]

It's like Lonnie: The Movie in sound - an absolute blockbuster. [May 2025, p.92]

A record that's serene on the surface but with a dark undertow. [May 2016, p.91]