Nancy Andersen sings like a chillwave Sade, her understated poise more histrionic vocalists couldn't access. [Apr 2022, p.89]

Everything Perfect Is Already Here avoids emotional overload, instead offering solace and a loving embrace, a haven of calm and normality. [Jun 2022, p.86]

Deceptively light on first hearing, Anywhere But Here possesses a vulnerability and depth its predecessor lacked. [Nov 2022, p.93]

Another game-changer; via a 13-piece ensemble. [Jul 2023, p.82]

While the collection's title acknowledges the scary presence of three Misfits songs. As for "Mistakes", however, there really are none. [Dec 2023, p.105]

Though inconsistent, the quartet have siphoned the best of punk and '90s slacker pop to create an album that couldn't be any more Rough Trade if it tried. [May 2016, p.94]

[A] flawed but magnificent album. [Nov 2015, p.88]

True North feels both stoic and positive in outlook. [Mar 2019, p.91]

While their music does have a Scando smoothness to it, its ramshackle moments recall the Beta Band more than they do Sondre Lerche, The Cardigans, et al. [Sep 2006, p.100]

The influences--Shadow Morton, Nina Roti, '80s dream pop--are easily detectable, but intuitively utilised. [Jul 2016, p.96]

A truly fine album. [Mar 2021, p.84]

Amid these epic soundtracks of rage and empathy, the legend of the Loaf lives again. [Jan 2023, p.86]

Swinging, hollar-along opener 'False Jesii Part 2' and the hilariously literal 'Request For Masseuse' are sardonic odes to indolence and pain relief respectively, while deadpan monologues 'Spent' and 'Goodbye (Hair)' reflect on time's inexorable passage with amp-crushing poignancy. [Sep 2009, p.95]

Rich, understated and resonant. [Feb 2017, p.97]

Blacc's wise-beyond-his-years tenor, sounding eerily alike a young Bill Withers, perfectly fits I Need A Dollar's dignified mourn. Elsewhere, he skillfully evades mawkishness or trite sentiment on the moving Momma Hold My Hand. [Sep 2010, p.106]

An impressive follow-up album. [Sep 2013, p.96]

Nearly seven years and three albums after Shepherd In A Sheepskin Vest, the first record to emerge from Callahan the family man, listeners should probably be acclimatized to his mid-life openness by now, but even by his recent standards, My Days Of 58 exhibits a clarity, a directness – even, on the tender depressive ramble of Stepping Out For Air, a sharp vulnerability. [Mar 2026, p.78]

Simpson's Indian summer roars on in an irrepressible blend of the English tradition and an unerring instinct for American material. [Oct 2011, p.106]

Chock-full of elegiac, beguiling earworm melodies. [Aug 2014, p.92]

There's a warmth to his rich, brown sugar baritone in stark contrast to the sharp shapes made by his keening, post-punk guitar. [Apr 2015, p.98]

An impressive album, fulled with songs that often hark back to familiar strains but offer compensation in their lyric content. [Mar 2018, p.97]

RRD's tempo is beatific, fingerpicked guitar and violin cresting sweetly, though some fervent moments provide real highlights. [Mar 2018, p.90]

The duo shine as a beacon of warm and quirky outsiderdom in a rising tide of cookie-cutter Nashville Americana. [Nov 2019, p.90]

Shadowy, masterful set. [Dec 2021, p.91]

Jones manages to transform these sad notes of memoir into glistening maps for moving forward. There is an optimism and experimentation in Jones's playing that is simultaneously uplifting and beguiling. [Aug 2022, p.90]

Full of perfect pop, its 10 songs are giddy bursts of optimism and wonderment. [Nov 2022, p.86]

Elements of deep soul and space-age pop combine to create a retro-futurist vibe, songs sounding instantly familiar but slightly fried, as if beamed in from other worlds. [Feb 2023, p.84]

...Bolgatanga is easily AHC's most accessible, vivid approximation of Brian Eno's fabled "vision of a psychedelic Africa". [Aug 2023, p.78]

If Melody Nelson had been hit by a car driven by Arthur Vercocai rather than Serge Gainsbourg, this could have been the result. Jan 2025, p.91]

Throws out the genre manual and leaves every cell, body and soul, buzzing. [Dec 2005, p.100]

Molina devotes will yearn to bask in this full bloom of Magnolia. [Oct 2007, p.91]

A striking mix of rock and electronics on Philadelphia group's second record. [Sept. 2011, p. 94]

The overall effect is more inline with how Townes made his early albums. [Jun 2009, p.96]

There's something romantic about this quiet, thoughtful music, but there's a sad quality to it too. [Feb 2017, p.94]

On all fronts, a nourishing listen. [May 2025, p.86]

Highlights: Bird On A Swing's Glen Campbell moves and Lou Reed's gorgeous tribute to a "tai-chi Master". [Oct 2025, p.91]

With Sing to the Moon, Laura Mvula set a new standard for 21st century soul. With this follow-up, she's raised that standard higher. [Jul 2016, p.89]

Drunk Tank Pink is the sound of a band pushing themselves to discover new sonic and emotional terrain. [Feb 2021, p.82]

Ambitious in scope and abundantly stocked with viral melody, Silent Alarm is hugely impressive--flawed certainly... but nonetheless blessed with outbreaks of great flair. [Mar 2005, p.100]

Played loud, and listened to intently, it's the Bonnie Prince's most vital new release in more than a decade. [May 2016, p.88]

While some of its more indulgent elements may not be to all tastes, his scale of ambition and dazzling audacity should be applauded. [Apr 2025, p.76]

Raw yet warm, Love What Survives has a distinctively comforting setting. [Oct 2017, p.92]

A 2am album of sheer, devastating beauty. [Jun 2012, p.86]

Almost inevitably, Adore Life overcompensates, but in a good way. This is Savages' love album. [Feb 2016, p.91]

Powerful stuff. [Jun 2020, p.93]

The playing is dappled, unostentatious, the mood often disarmingly pretty. [Jul 2021, p.85]

Grizzly Bear sound enchanted with the pure pleasure of texture; hooks take their time to emerge, but Morning Sound and Sky Took Hold are the best entry points to this stately, meticulous music. [Sep 2017, p.90]

Few other bands could provide properly sympathetic backing for a singer who delivers his roiling emotions in such sad, sleepy tones. [Oct 2004, p.112]

Their orchestral meditations on aging are convincing and beautiful. [Jun 2011, p.96]

Wyatt has a knack of making happy song sound melancholic, but conversely brings some wry levity to the lovelorn ennui of jazz standard. [Nov 2001, p.103]

This is a sumptuous and personal record capturing universal human themes of hope, fortitude and loss. [Jul 2018, p.95]

With its acute portraits of a troubled and tangled life, Reunions is ultimately a story of redemption through fatherhood and self knowledge, epic country-soul opener What've I Done To Help setting the mood perfectly. [Jun 2020, p.95]

The "low tide" hinted at on side one submerges the second half, but delivers some of Brown's deepest, most affecting work. [Feb 2024, p.88]

As nuts as they are, The Mars Volta recall the raw potential rock held before it was castrated by radio programmers and corporate control. [Aug 2003, p.99]

Realm's refusal to shut up after a radio-friendly 180 seconds, surely, make them all the more cherishable. [Feb 2014, p.96]

Koenig is a formidable lyricist, and behind the music's occasional larkiness lies a record of high seriousness. [Jun 2019, p.88]

Intense, painfully frank, hysterically funny,and in the end, exultant... OSIGTS isn't always an easy listen, but it does offer a fearless experience that invests pop with more theatricality than the form can usually tolerate. [Jul 2012, p.80]

The awe fades quickly as this album progresses. [Jun 2003, p.100]

Point is less a stylistic mash-up and more a stylish exploration of mood and groove. [Feb 2002, p.98]

Though "French Rock'n'Roll" is somewhat lacking in zest (quelle surprise), the care afforded to the rest of this record's conception and execution is obvious.

Their full-length follow-up to 2007's "Burning Off Impurities" is a multi-textured out-rock masterpiece. [Jan 2008, p.101]

Furnaces is an entirely winning proposition due to its high melodic content, making for Harcourt's best record yet. [Sep 2016, p.90]

Highlights: I Know's breathless vocals and pummeled drums; Invisible Man's irradiated energy, railing against Alzheimer's. [Nov 2016, p.96]

The Future and the Past is a triumph, a coming-of-age that over-delivers on all Prass promised, and suggests limitless skies in answer to where she might go next. [Jul 2018, p.86]

As well as Billy Zoom's fuzz-punk rhythm guitar there are psychobilly drums, hints of country and some tangy, Blondie-esque pop melodies. [Aug 2020, p.86]

A suite of songs that are more reflective than self-pitying, and unlike her last, beats-free album, often grounded by solid grooves that allow her bewitching melodies to soar. [May 2024, p.85]

John B Sheff's wavering, sometimes overwrought, vocal takes getting used to, but it's worth it for songs like these. [Mar 2008, p.108]

Heavy at heart, but eminently hummable, Sunshine Rock is an affecting, uplifting set. [Mar 2019, p.92]

Sauna becomes a transitional journey of self-surrender, Elverum's soft-sung imagist perceptions slowly reaching toward a quiet, meditative transcendence. [May 2015, p.96]

An extraordinary comeback. [Mar 2025, p.84]

He understands the value of restraint, his meticulously assembled songs slowly giving up their secrets rather than tipping everything out at once. [May 2013, p.82]

Silence Yourself demands you shut up and listen. Compliance is advised. [Jun 2013, p.87]

Standouts include Burn Through, a Springsteenesque tale of blue-collar grit, and the haunting Corner Girl, where a lonely kid opens up her world like a plant unfurling. [Feb 2011, p.109]

A lot of artists are creatively bankrupt by their third album. But being still only 23, you suspect Patrick Wolf is just coming into his own. [Mar 2007, p.99]

More confident that last year's transitional Drop, this new line-up's second album together finds Nick Murray's drumming busy and complex, but thrillingly so, lending sophistication to the band;s trademark trash-psych. [Jul 2015, p.91]

Anderson never sounds too like any of those people for comfort, she just projects a similarly high level of sinewy individuality. [Jun 2011, p.94]

Many who don't like Springsteen may love this. Many who love Springsteen may hate this. [Jun 2006, p.100]

With its poetic allusions to loss and loneliness, will resonate with many who have felt the same. [Dec 2021, p.90]

While not as revelatory as 1995's Live At The BBC, On Air is a very enjoyable collection. [Dec 2013, p.98]

Walks the same Cold War-era Bowery streets as Interpol but is not more than a half step away from lysergic brilliance. [May 2005, p.108]

An unaffected and experimental, homely yet transcendent set. [May 2021, p.86]

The London trio founded by drummer Yussef Dayes and Keyboardist Kamaal Williams give it an urban twist , factoring grime and broken beat influences into their unpredictable improvised jams. [Jan 2017, p.99]

The Consuming Flame is rich, intense and deftly woven into three hour-long suites. [Oct 2020, p.91]

Why Hasn't Everything Already Disappeared? is more exploratory than Fading Frontier, but there's a minimalism that helps its stark ideas and sad-eyes melodies shine through. [Feb 2019, p.88]

There's an artful intricacy to her lo-fi pop. [Aug 2019, p.92]

The four songs drawn from eco-themed album The Crying Light gain particular vitality.... The other major beneficiaries of Muhly and co.'s top notch orchestral work art Antony's earliest songs. [Aug 2012, p.82]

Like a cookie full of arsenic, Universal Audio's indie sweetness conceals a dark, deathly heart. [Nov 2004, p.114]

That these and a tranche of equally alluring gems were never released during Russell's lifetime only adds to their poignancy. [Dec 2008, p.104]

Formed around Orcadian singer/guitarist Erland Cooper, former Verve guitarist Simon Tong and drummer David Nock, best known for his work with Paul McCartney's The Fireman, Erland and co meld influences to create a psych-folk mosaic. [Feb 2010, p. 101]

Listen, Whitey! is quite simply ace. [Feb 2012]

Metheny conjures up a dense sonic tapestry comprising kaleidoscopic tone colours. [Mar 2013, p.94]

From His Head To His Heart To His Hands is a generally satisfying mix of milestones and rarities. [Mar 2014, p.100]

Dan and his cohorts craft an especially intimate and understated kind of English-born Americana that could easily hold its own in any late night session with the likes of Bill Callahan, Will Sheff or Tim Rutili. [Sep 2014, p.90]

The Silver Globe leaving no doubt that she is amongst today's most striking sonic auteurs. [Nov 2014, p.99]

Badwan and Zeffira have done him [director Peter Strickland] proud. [Apr 2015, p.89]

Golden Ticket is a diverse treat. [Sep 2015, p.93]

The results present a dense mesh of disparate tempos, hypnotic rhythms and passages of glittering beauty. [Apr 2017, p.97]

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