The only downside seem to be an audience with a dreadful sense of rhythm clapping along. ... But an excellent selection of songs, beautifully performed. [Nov 2021, p.103]

Deep-piling beautiful microorchestration and songs which in the fashion of mature-era Fanclub slowly yet unfailingly insinuate their charms. [June 2010, p. 95]

This is a big album in every way, full of ambitious layers, heavy on piano, strings, brass and drums producing vast soundscapes and lavish arrangements which place strong emphasis on the atmospheric undercurrent of some unerringly dramatic material. [Apr 2011, p.99]

Strong synth tunes and beats, bristling with vocal angst. [Oct 2017, p.98]

Songs and melody remain paramount in this irresistible Technicolor world. [Sep 2015, p.88]

Forged from 60 hours of improvisation, the excellent follow-up to 2019’s Laughing Matter is tightly crafted without being too stable, the band throwing their melodic rope bridges over wide dark spaces on JJ’s woozy exotica lullaby or Lifeboat’s ominous electro-folk. [Sep 2024, p.84]

Some of it is tough and unforgiving... and some is pure pop plastique. [Apr 2005, p.89]

McKeown adopts a sophisticated take on 4/4 grooves: with Calumet's stuttering organic rhythms offering a confident and captivating example. [Sep 2015, p.93]

Recasting love songs as ghost stories, and with no recycled early '80s moves, The Coral's self-created world seems reinvigorated. [Jun 2005, p.96]

Calla aren't only as unique as NYC new wave gets... but beautifully tense too. [Feb 2006, p.103]

The sparseness lends a quiet power and intimacy to proceedings. [May 2022, p.100]

This newly winged Barn Owl glide on through celestial panoramas, a tempestuous sonic asteroid belt and heady, intergalactic drift. [Oct 2011]

Widow City is the Furnaces' punchiest set to date. [Nov 2007, p.104]

Breathless, and breathtaking. [Jul 2025, p.86]

He sounds like a cross between Sonic Youth and Massive Attack, and the results are immediately convincing. [Apr 2003, p.100]

New Clouds is poised between towering psych-noise and ambient beauty, intermittently etched with quicksilver. [Nov 2009, p.101]

Draws out the same intense emotional responses as that first album [Lazer Guided Melodies] but in a post 1997 Ladies and Gentleman... way. [May 2012, p.92]

There's nothing here to shock or surprise, but that's a major part of the attraction and Erasure remain a guiltless pleasure. [Sep 2020, p.91]

While this ninth LP retains Plaid's signature style, it also offers far more range than dependable recent outings Reachy Prints or Scintilli. [Aug 2016, p.96]

Crowell's clear eye for detail is evident throughout, but what gives the album its kick is the lean, clean attack that allows both barroom ravers and haikus of Zen wisdom to linger in the imagination. [Oct 2025, p.89]

Time's Arrow is Ladytron's equivalent of Simple Minds' early-'80s heyday, where burnished synth-pop meets the hyperreality of travel. [Feb 2023, p.87]

It's a long time since Kelly drank at this well, and Life Is Fine is a deep, deep draft. [Sep 2017, p.90]

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

Follow Clementine's muse, and the pay-off is huge. [Oct 2017, p.91]

Inescapably, Losing My Edge is the best thing here, yet happily Murphy has more than one trick up his stylish sleeve. [Feb 2005, p.101]

This fierce debut [is] an essential purchase for anyone who has fallen for the jazzier end of the Ethiopiques spectrum. [Sep 2012, p.97]

The heritage soul signposts multiply with almost hallucinatory rapidity. [Aug 2005, p.104]

Spotlights the songs' grit and humanity, albeit still substantially finessed by mixmaster Bob Clearmountain. [Jan 2020, p.90]

Daft and serious, catchy and strange. [Dec 2018, p.93]

Hugely entertaining. [June 2022, p.91]

The results, often transcendent and inventive, incorporate gospel elements and "found sounds," while retaining the spirit of shaky DIY experimentation. [Nov 2014, p.95]

He's rarely sounded better. [Nov 2014, p.98]

Their natural domain is bouncing festival stages, but, with pounding beats and attitude, this is the perfect way to usher people there. [Mar 2017, p.94]

Rivers is a record that will haunt you long after you've heard it. [Sep 2010, p.99]

A potent artistic tour de force, White Jesus Black Problems' message is ultimately a simple but life-affirming one: love can conquer all. [Jul 2022, p.94]

The wait has been worth it. [Mar 2014, p.88]

Sam Beam has made a commercial record by the simple expedient of making a beautiful one. [May 2013, p.84]

Earle's most satisfying album in a while--and one that should please right across his fanbase. [May 2013, p.89]

Its 10 redemptive songs oscillating between Americana, baroque chamber balladry and unabashed pop. [May 2015, p.98]

The result is like two rock esotericists in a bunker alchemising to compelling effect. [Sep 2025, p.84]

All The Young Droids has something for all manner of vintage synth fiends. [Jul 2025, p.97]

A delightful collection of woozy, folk-tinged, hallucinogenic pop. [Sep 2025, p.83]

The Lou Reed-approved alt-country band's sixth album. [July 2011, p. 105]

The whole shebang is a lovely thing to bring back to Real World, the label that first signed Arthur back in 1997. [Aug 2016, p.96]

Grand, unsettling, and a fitting finale that propels The Upsetter to a higher plain. [Dec 2021, p.91]

Bowles apples his clawhammer style to reverberating experiments. [Oct 2016, p.100]

The combination... works just fine. [Oct 2005, p.114]

It's a less alien, less disturbed and thoroughly lighter record. [Nov 2005, p.104]

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

A triumph in thematic/aural juxtaposition, Come Ahead is up there with Primal Scream’s best. [Dec 2024, p.92]

Their star power indeed might be largely borrowed, but they wear it well. [Nov 2014, p.98]

Freeman has emerged from Ween with his mojo intact, and less inclined to platy the joker this time around. [Nov 2014, p.99]

The stylistic shifts and sheer quality of the songwriting make Fever Longing Still almost the perfect Paul Kelly album. [Dec 2024, p.93]

They are strange, sibylline and gorgeous. [Nov 2014, p.94]

An album of unashamed emotional purgation. ... Swamp's late renascence is wonderful. [Apr 2020, p86]

Hyper-melancholic, ultra-vivid, CrazyMad, For Me showcases Thompson's off-beam pop skills, a distinctive voice in every way. [Nov 2023, p.86]

There's a cohesion and thrust to the fusion, a mathematically bracing energy that they have't quite located since 2011's D. [Apr 2019, p.86]

V. creates a sense of space, both mental and physical, as well as the idea of an alternate perception that is the calling card of West Coast psychedelia. [Jun 2018, p.91]

10 of the funkiest tracks Dr. John's been involved in since the '70s. [May 2012, p.93]

Celebrates the little people with full powerpop majesty. [Jul 2003, p.108]

A joy. [Sep 2020, p.84]

This new material finds them in [a] more experimental mode. [Oct 2017, p.90]

The resulting record is one that softens with repeated listens, even if it's so full of bad juju you may initially feel compelled to burn it at the stake. [Jul 29011, p.112]

It's an absorbing listen. [Nov 2019, p.108

The Afro-beat timbres peeking through also reveal more about who Vagabon is, and what she is capable of. [Dec 2019, p.95]

With swaying synths, popping drums, synth melodies and wistful lyrics, it's Depeche Mode for the juicing era. [Dec 2019, p.96]

Invisible Cities feels three dimensional with some animated movement beneath the surface. [Mar 2021, p.89]

An unsettling soundtrack of misanthropic club dystopias. [Nov 2014, p.99]

Reverberant secular folk, with spectral guitar and magic-realist vocals. [May 2026, p.93]

Much is familiar, via the archive releases VU and Another View. But with all traces of ’80s remixes removed, the performances now sound as they should--less like a rock band and more like The Velvet Underground. [Jan 2015, p.104]

Culturally rich, and instantly identifiable as excellent, this one's an extra-hot essential. [Mar 2016, p.97]

Not even Cat Power can turn an album of cover versions into anything more than a facinating detour from the main journey, but Jukebox is a precious waste of time nonetheless. [Jan 2008, p.98]

Here is a pop masterpiece so toe-tapping and huggable that we might just have to rearrange the canon. [Mar 2008, p.106]

There's a pleasing, ad hoc nature to these loose-limbed grooves. [Mar 2016, p.97]

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

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

Now restored to their original length, the Fillmore performances--characterised by lysergic avant-funk and tripped-out soundscapes--are incredibly powerful and a permanent reminder of Miles Davis's pathfinding genius. [Apr 2014, p.107]

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]

[Jess Shoman's] roller-coaster voice, sometimes Kermit-like, sometimes as out there as Mary Margaret O'Hara, is an acquired taste. yet she's successfully sensual on Be. ... Everything comes together on Sharp Wheel. [Dec 2022, p.82]

Born on a Gangster Star is the more accessible volume. ... 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 Follower places him alongside Caribou as a master of emotional reverie. [Aug 2016, p.99]

That Dark Matter succeeds so well is due to the and focusing their creative energy, just as Watt's sonic Nutribullet technique condense PJ's core rumble into punchy blasts. [May 2024, p.82]

Bright Phoebus turns out to thoroughly deserve its reputation as a milestone in British folk rock. [Sep 2017, p.104]

Nonetheless shows the duo pulling themselves up to full songwriting height, not just forging on, but flourishing. [Jun 2024, p.87]

An ambient set of quite stunning beauty. [Sep 2004, p.95]

The deadbeat look befits an album that travels from slacker pop to a kind of desolate, beautiful blues in a series of quite astonishing songs. [Oct 2011, p.104]

These are ingenious, affecting songs on a DIY recording budget. [Nov 2013, p.88]

The resultant instrumental album, although about atmosphere and texture, is more filmic and wide-screen than before. [Nov 2014, p.99]

It's dense and intense digital compositions enter your headspace with stealth or, at other times, occupy it with an assault of breathless beats. [Feb 2017, p.95]

She has the voacl talent of a young Alison Moyet, and thankfully this debut lives up to expectations. [Mar 2008, p.112]

Cavalcade harbours considerable thrills for those up to its challenges. [Jun 2021, p.83]

This belated reunion has developed further into thr most affectingly sad, sweet, sepia sound rooted in Marcus's forlorn vocal and delicate ripples of detail--jazzy-to-motorik rhythm and haunting synthetic drones. [JUly 2008, p.102]

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

Brass blasts and strings reveal cinematic vistas. [Jun 2017, p.95]

An enfolding, transcendent work of aural theatre tracking Artaud's journey. He would probably have approved. [Jun 2019, p.94]

Her naturalistic voice is a relaxed conduit to elegantly detailed songs about the psychogeography of er native Cardiff (Ghosts Of You), expectant motherhood (St Ives New School) and Jarvis Cocker dancing stylishly alone (kitchen sink pop jangling Dancing ON Volcanoes). [Aug 2025, p.79]

The Candy House's garbled distress flare or the My Bloody Neubauten of I Don't Miss My Mond confirm she is still picking up signals nobody else can, [Apr 2024, p.88]

It's all about Rosanne's voice. And she's rarely sounded better. [Nov 2009, p.96]