This is an inspired set that reveals new ways of hearing pop classics. [Mar 2023, p.84]

The Darkness swoop dangerously close to parody, but pull off the dizzying, sublime soprano hi-jinks of I Believe In A Thing Called Love, the deft pop-rock of Friday Night and Love On The Rocks WIth Ice's overbearing machismo with the grace of seasoned circus acrobats. [Aug 2003, p.98]

A desire to keep old traditions alive while redefining them for the 21st century drive Son Little aka Aaron Livingston, and with his excellent second album, he's achieved that. [Oct 2017, p.95]

It's the feeling of almost imperceptible menace that makes Bubblegum so unsettling. [Aug 2004, p.84]

This time nuance embellishments lend greater power and depth. [Oct 2015, p.90]

The album might almost be a study in stretching the limits of silliness, cliche and old-school rock'n'roll unreconstruction... [Jul 2001, p.114]

“People say people my age shouldn’t be making records,” Hunter has said. With his mind still agile, his piano playing still on top form and his voice still strong, Defiance Part 1 makes a nonsense of that. At 83, Hunter also sounds much more starry-eyed about rock’n’roll than he did in Diary Of A Rock’N’Roll Star. [May 2023, p.90

These are exquisitely sad songs of spare belongings and reduced circumstance, about men who fail, and the women who stay with them. [Dec 2018, p.91]

The trio's key facet is their instrumental nous, all hypnotic tension and release with abrupt chord/gear shifts. [Mar 2026, p.88]

What more than saves the day here is a better-than-good melodic performance from Elton, and an outstanding set of lyrics by Bernie Taupin. [Oct 2006, p.98]

A brave, inspired step into the unknown. [Nov 2014, p.100]

Volta bristles with life. [Jun 2007, p.102]

It's gauzy visions suggesting some rediscovered private press folk oddity from the '70s, Segall's faultless melodic instincts lent an edge by Bolan-esque warble, inward-looking lyrics and, on Saturday Pt 2, wild saxophone duets. [Aug 2022, p.87]

Lovely. [Apr 2017, p.96]

This potent return affirms Finn heeds his own advice. [Mar 2014, p.90]

This is as moving and real as Orton has ever been. [Oct 2022, p.86]

Balf Quarry sees the duo swaggering through louche wah-wahed blues, no-wave barn burners and salty pop ditties, culminating in an eerily beautiful, piano-haunted fever dream. [May 2009, p.109]

A nice little happy-ever-after. [Mar 2014, p.92]

Their work together hits an irresistible sweet spot between old-school r&b and punky ramalama. [Feb 2010, p. 101]

Minor key, acoustic introspection done so beautifully it's as if they're singing to one another in the dustlight of a pub backroom. [Aug 2017, p.97]

Evern more so than on Silence Is Sexy... a few telling elements are deployed to dramatic effect here. [Feb 2004, p.98]

Wild Beasts' stripped down songs have developed incrementally into a more electronic direction and these finely detailed arrangements feature twitchy kit and synthetic drums, sequencers, abstract sonics, '80s keyboard stabs and guitars occasionally let off the leash. [Sep 2016, p.95]

So many ideas, so much beauty and a fitting memento of Trish Keenan's poetic songwriting and inimitable, unimpeachable voice. [May 2024, p.100]

Witty and moving, somewhere an indie movie needs this as a soundtrack. [Dec 2021, p.85]

In a life of perpetual motion, Perils From The Sea provides a vital forward thrust. [Jul 2013, p.86]

The best of the original bunch is still the frantic rockabilly charge Wearing And Tearing from the Polar Studio sessions.... What gives this new Coda its edge are versions of Four Sticks and Friends recorded in 1972 by Page and Plant in Bombay with local musicians who'd never heard a Led Zeppelin song before. [Sep 2015, p.98]

If Love And Fortune covers messy terrain, the 22-year-old traverses it with cool panache, plus shades of Gen-X touchstone Juliana Hatfield and Eleanor Friedberger's glistening Rebound. [Dec 2025, p.84]

Sound Mirror is far more than an exercise of indulgence. [Jul 2014, p.94]

It lacks the crisp modernity of old but it's knee-deep in lush curvature and angular salvos, and new favourites keep emerging. [Sep 2012, p.94]

[Evil Spirits] was a curiously muted affair. ... Darkadelic does much to address that imbalance with the Cap back to showboating magnificently on Bad Weather Girl and Girl I'll Stop At Nothing and adding vibrant, shimmering psych textures throughout. [Jun 2023, p.84]

This excellent new record encapsulates Pine's eclecticism with its amalgam of cool jazz and sultry R&B flavours. [Nov 2017, p.101]

It’s their most expansive LP so far. [Nov 2024, p.92]

The Kills sound and feel like no other band--nocturnal, wayout, untouchable. [Apr 2008, p.100]

This album comes with a strong sense of fantasy: authors can be rock stars, “unknowns” can become known and Stevie Wonder is right over there. What is solid, however, is Ronson’s ability to throw a swell party.

The result successfully veers from radio-friendly gems Everyday Magic and Time Waited (built around a tumbling piano sample from pedal steel player Buddy Emmons’ 1969 LP Emmons Guitar Inc) to Free-styled riffer Squid Ink and bluesy closer River Road. [Apr 2025, p.78]

Seen from 2022, Stereolab's sheer breadth of endeavour here can justly be vaunted as heroic. [Oct 2022, p.100]

[Wayne Coyne's] prolix tendencies have been stripped down into sombre considerations of lust, mortality and universal chaos. [May 2013, p.87]

Glasgow Eyes' liberal use of electronics is a renewing force, and a kind of homecoming too. .... Glasgow Eyes is a positive twist in the sage of these negaholics synonymous. [Apr 2024, p.86]

Every Valley is timely and useful. [Aug 2017, p.89]

In this 30-track collection marks Snow Patrol as a band backed with some serious songwriting heft.

Heavyweight and sodden like the starry mills of Satan. [May 2012, p. 103]

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]

There’s something about this mix of scrawling guitars, frank lyricism and brazen dub that is a joyfully empowering inversion of the girl group sound. [Mar 2023, p.87]

Lloyd is joined by pianist Jason Moran and guitarist Marvin Sewell, who prove highly empathetic collaborators, creating delicately nuanced backdrops that are conductive to the saxophonist's poetic storytelling. [Nov 2025, p.82]

Sometimes, the abiding mood is one of grand interstellar drift, an ancient exhausted spaceship cruising through deep space, leaving rippling waves of a strange blank intensity in its wake. [Jul 2014, p.95]

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

On all these fabulous tales, Gira's voice remains reassuringly salty. [May 2005, p.106]

Booze and heartache are constants, but the mood is never morose, borne aloft by Lenderman’s guitar playing, which is primal but emotionally lucid. His tender lyricism is another big plus, locating laudable empathy for his cast of lovable losers. [Oct 2024, p.90]

Something notable about Albarn's tracks is how hard they are to pick out from the others. [Jul 2023, p.83]

Like Marianne Faithfull’s grazed, rueful daughter telling fragile stories of heartbreak. Or sometimes like Faithfull’s hopeful but world-weary grandmother.

The exceptional songs of Martin Henry are served by the trio's undemonstrative guitar, bass and drums being augmented by keyboards, glockenspiel and harp. [Feb 2016, p.91]

The Liminanas have returned all their favours by creating a blast of colourful psychedelia. [Apr 2018, p.93]

Further confirmation, then, that this stalwart of the rave generation, with a little help from his friends, still has plenty of fire left in his belly. [May 2020. p.89]

The State Between Us offers a subtle, multi-layered but potent riposte to latter-day jingoism, the spirit of compassionate inclusion made manifest or woven implicitly into the eclectic sonic narrative. [May 2019, p.95]

Song for song, this is their finest to date. [Oct 2011, p.95]

COYB trade in wintery, foreboding hymnals that conjure Sigur Ros, Radiohead and an existentially challenged Aled Jones staring out across the abyss. [Apr 2012, p.94]

This may be the best album of their 50-plus years together. Bonkers, yes, but quite brilliant. [Jul 2025, p.84]

Singing with a sweet weariness, Kline can seem bemused by her melancholia, her resigned acceptance given an appealing warmth by a band whose gentle sway lends her pop miniatures depth. [Aug 2025, p.78]

It's when Marr stops thinking "big festival rock sound" that this LP shines. ... Ultimately, it's all about the angle of his jangle--ever unimpeachable. [Jul 2018, p.88]

An impressive debut that crackles with vitality. [May 2011, p.112]

Listen closely and you'll probably detect the likes of Wire, XTC and New Order but like contemporaries Hot Hot Heat and Ted Leo's Pharmacists, French Kicks are rocking their own joyfully addictive sound. [Jun 2003, p.101]

There's considerable ambition at play here. [Dec 2021, p.90]

Dan Bejar's surprising mix of slinky '80s soft rock and sophisticated disco. [July 2011, p. 106]

Highly engaging. [Dec 2019, p.96]

Just like McCartneys I and II, III is a confounding cocktail of genius and misfires. [Jan 2021, p.82]

Their improvisational roots are still evident, but the bursts of outsider pop shining through proves they have plenty more to dig up. [Jan 2019, p.89]

It's more of what we know, which should suit Metallica heads just fine. [Dec 2017, p.105]

Audacious, hook-packed debut. [Nov 2014, p.102]

A fifth studio album filled with hooks aplenty and gonzoid fun. [Nov 2014, p.102]

By the time the closing spiritual Requiem rolls around it's self-evident Russell is very much in a genre of one. [Nov 2023, p.86]

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]

Continues to hit the sonic sweet spots. [Jun 2019, p.93]

A sumptuous, sonic world built from dense, sampled snippets, repetitive phrases and percussive sound design. [Jun 2019, p.95]

Gardot's torch ballads smoulder intensely. [Apr 2009, p.103]

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

The Great Bailout is a grand, artistic and political statement in an age when such vision is too rarely attempted. [Apr 2024, p.87]

Their best in years. [Dec 2003, p.118]

This is an album that stands up to the touchstone indie classics it references. [May 2011, p.112]

The results are mesmeric in their stately extrapolation of gloom. [May 2002, p.102]

Scrappy, heartfelt, yet utterly beautiful, it's a fitting farewell from a unique talent. [Oct 2025, p.87]

It's Orcutt's genius to find tenderness in the most forbidding places, and this time out he does so in the best possible company. [Oct 2025, p.85]

His spark remains undimmed. [Jul 2013, p.87]

All guns are still blazing, but slightly differently. [Mar 2023, p.86]

A much more emotionally spooked record than either of its MOR predecessors. [Sep 2016, p.97]

WOW's melodies and motifs are pretty with a dash of strange. ... But Kate NV remains thrillingly individual. [Apr 2023, p.89]

The songs effortlessly stand alone. [Jul 2014, p.86]

By the third listen, Burner is starting to feel like a great 21st century pop record. [Sep 2005, p.103]

The Future Bites is a great grown-up pop record - knowing and self-aware, but never too much for its own good. [Feb 2021, p.83]

Their strictly modal, contemplative soundscapes have rarely sounded more compelling. [Mar 2006, p.93]

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

The worst thing you can say about this record is it's low on surprises. [Sep 2010, p.103]

It's a beautiful, nuanced record, the sound of new boundaries forming and realigning. [Aug 2022, p.94]

Like other recent albums, this is not consistent enough to be classic Wilson but her voice still regularly seduces. [July 2008, p.109]

It turns to a clutch of its founding fathers and allies for its 14th outing. [Feb 2014, p.97]

[Azel] finds him maturing rapidly. [May 2016, p.93]

The NYC three-piece are a band playing to their strengths. [Feb 2009, p.113]

Audaciously, it all coheres. The vision is precise and the execution meticulous. The album's 14 songs are tightly arranged and energetically delivered. [Sep 2021, p.81]

There's a back-to-basics feel on the mid-tempo country rockers, the slow beauties and mournful lap steel, and even on the musically warm, more upbeat, almost Tex-Mex opening song. [Sep 2009, p.92]