Marling's second album is one of staggering maturity. An old-school folk album of the best sort. [Apr 2010, p.92]

It might have been captured anytime in the past four decades. [Jul 2006, p.114]

He's walking away on style, delivering a collection of distinctive songs. [Nov 2009, p.97]

The quality dips and pitches, occasionally stuck at third on the bill at the Bill And Gate. There are tiny revelations too. [Mar 2016, p.104]

Possibly it's the glorious touch of melodic grandiosity forming the heart of Don't Mess With Latexas that supplies the most climatic moment to remember amid this remarkable, kaleidoscopic offering. [Nov 2012, p.84]

Potential is a ripe showcase of Hinton's gift for alchemising base source material from unknowns such as London's MC SdotStar and Jamaica's Naturaliss into truly transformative dance pop. [May 2016, p.90]

A consummately composed lesson in narrative songcraft, which tugs on the heartstrings as it sails into the sunset with Take Me Home. [Aug 2017, p.86]

Here comes irascible, unhousetrained indie-rock, laced with discord and lo-fi gnarl, yet thoroughly fresh and weirdly magnetic from start to finish. [Jun 2013, p.84]

Sound[s] like a typical Elephant 6-related band--absolutely fantastic. [May 2003, p.108]

With The Private Press DJ Shadow ups even his own considerable ante. [May 2002, p.96]

Overall, the album might not surpass his masterpiece The Mysterious Production Of Eggs, but Armchair Apocrypha proves Bird's knack for the musical hat-trick. [May 2007, p.102]

As the album progresses, a powerful expansion of Del Rey's folkier inclinations. [Apr 2021, p.80]

A teeming sonic bricolage of absurd/disturbing found vocals, bizarre musical fragments and their own art-funk chops, it suggests kinship with Robert Ashley, Aphex Twin and Eno & Byrne. [Sep 2010, p.97]

While her own solos have a fluent grandeur, Garcia remains as generous a leader as she was a collaborator. [Sep 2020, p.89]

Bella Hardy takes a bold leap of faith on her third album, devoted entirely to a rich songwriting talent only hinted at on her previous two. [Jun 2011, p.103]

Frazey Ford undeniably models here new album on those delicate masterpieces [Ann Peebles' I Can't Stand The Rain and Al Green Is Love], but it really works. [Dec 2014, p.90]

An even grittier, country-driven powerhouse collection loosely built around themes of female rebellion. [Dec 2014, p.94]

The singer-songwriter's fifth is no less over-reaching and torrid in its back-story [as 2013's Once I Was An Eagle]. [Apr 2015, p.90]

Jazz and trip-hop shade this darkness. [Oct 2015, p.96]

It is the most raw and intimate long-player in the 15-year career of this fine Nashville-via-New England singer-songwriter. [Feb 2016, p.93]

On his third solo album, Steve Mason veers dangerously close to that overfarmed damaged-earnest-sensitive-bloke territory, but luckily he doesn't seem capable of schmaltz or emotional cheap-shots. [Mar 2016, p.95]

Highlights are many. [Jan 2017, p.100]

While these tales may have been found in far-flung places, they all ultimately belong to the same deep tradition--and one where unvarnished simplicity enhances the material's uncanny potential. [May 2018, p.94]

Writing her way into a new persona, our heroine emerges as a badass punk with attitude and cutely clever lyrics. [Sep 2020, p.87]

Overall these "ultimate mixes" sound airy and punchy. [Dec 2020, p.96]

Topaz conveys a strong undercurrent of social commentary. [Apr 2021, p.82]

It's a daunting but ultimately rewarding listen. [Jan 2022, p.92]

The Mysterines' raw, gothic debut crawls under the listener's skin, thanks to singer Lia Metcalfe's impressive vocal range. [Apr 2022, p.88]

Throughout there is a sense of making music for the sheer thrill of it. ... This is Newcombe celebrating the moment and at his best. [Aug 2022, p.92]

Strings offers one of his most vulnerable vocal takes yet on John Deere Tractor, a tender note home to a country mom from a son stuck in and troubled by a city; it feels like a letter from the road, hungover and threadbare. And the playing is flawless and charged, from Cleveland’s steam-engine fiddle during Way Downtown to Rob McCoury’s edgy delicacy during Frosty Morn. [Jan 2023, p.85]

There's also a cameo by Ruben Blades on the lively Pajarito Volo, but Ochoa remains the undoubted star of the show. [Sep 2023, p.82]

Top-drawer tunes throughout. [Oct 2023, p.78]

A joy. [Nov 2023, p.89]

There's almost too much to bask in. [Nov 2023, p.91]

Contrasting bleak truths with giddy popsike, bubbling defiance and a rebuff to arts-funding BS. [Jul 2024, p.95]

Morton & Russell rarely overplay their emotional hand, the music colour-changing to match the narrative of damage and resilience. .... Once it locks in, Daffodils & Dirt is hard to shake off. [Jul 2024, p.88]

The feel is sweaty, late-night techno, and while the Detroit clatter and acid squelch is more alluring this time around, it's Saoudi's lascivious persona that really pulls yoyu into the album's nether world. [Feb 2025, p.84]

Hamdan works slowly, but this has been worth waiting for. [Oct 2025, p.87]

This collaboration was always going to produce something sonically elegant. Accordingly, this six-song cycle is built around a drone, its individual tracks manifesting as if in curls of smoke. [Jul 2018, p.93]

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

The palette-widening Northern urban soul colours supplied by The Dap Kings' equally convincing playing and arrangements are evry bit as key to their fourth album's sucess....Never unnecessarily flash, Jones is in tremendous voice from start to finish. [Jun 2010, p.102]

Fantastic mix of rare jazz and soul, cut with contemporary electronic meditations from Sarah Davachi, Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith and more. [Jun 2019, p.102]

The restraint, especially from the horn section, is astonishing; the overall effect absorbing to the point of transcendence. [Apr 2019, p.93]

Not for the uncommitted, this is a time capsule to a place where those over-burdened by taste will not want to go. but junk shop superhead/compiler/indie rock Zelig Phil King has reminded us that if we do some things differently in the past, they do other things--thrills, strangeness, escape--the same. [Apr 2019, p.103]

Lyrically, it's Merrick's diary of their delirious reaction to that vast continent, such as the sublime desolation of Somewhere near El Paso, bathed in "a half-lit Denny's sign", or Lily Pad, where Merrick, sounding almost horizontal. [Jul 2024, p.88]

Allelujah! Don't Bend! Ascend! feels simultaneously enormous and tragic; the sound of victory, firmly set in the jaws of defeat. [Jan 2013, p.91]

The mind-boggling multiplicity if voices on Key Markets, the sneaking sophistication, and the beyond-colourful language, serve up a currently unrivaled feast for the mind. [Aug 2015, p.89]

Sonically rich and lyrically intense. [Aug 2018, p.94]

Everybody scream is both a re-statement of what made her so beguiling and a gentle step forwards. [Jan 2026, p.85]

An album of quite magnificent mardiness. [Mar 2018, p.94]

This relentlessly engaging album hangs together even better than its illustrious predecessor.

Any notions that this [name change]--and additions of brass and strings--is a major label ploy to smooth their edges and distance them from the spiky traditional elements that chracterised "The Bairns" is soon decimated by this new album's equally moody, uncompromising nature. [Nov 2009, p.102]

One of the most compelling [albums of his 15-year career]. [Apr 2012, p.95]

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

London singer-songwriter attempts to annex the middle ground between Benga and Anthony Hegarty. [March 2011, p. 96]

The use of computers and electronic SFX here emphasises their dark, distorting, disturbing qualities...

This portrait of the artist might be a gloomy, oppressive one but it’s grimly fascinating nevertheless.

FM! initially feels slighter, not least because of a brisk 22-minute duration. The breeziness is deceptive, though, as Staples and producer Kenny Beats construct a minimalist update of G-funk where the jams are always freighted with an awareness of potential violence. [Feb 2019, p;.84]

This is an album that demands careful attention before its meanings and musing reveal themselves, blending apocalyptic visions with occluded celebration. [Sep 2009, p.91]

"It's not too late to find where you are," he sings on The Tern; Hadsel seems to tremble on the brink of that revelation. [Dec 2023, p.88]

Smart, funny, characterful, there’s virtually nothing not to like about this record. [Dec 2024, p.88]

The poetic soloing ad celestial melodies of Carried It All Around and woozy, irresistible anthem In Hollywood affirm that The Besnard Lakes are masters of their art. [Dec 2025, p.83]

Big, beautiful new record. [Aug 2018, p.94]

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

A modestly sized, nine-track snapshot of the singer in a more appealingly inward phase.

An adroit demonstration of Power's aim to reflect today's festering political landscape. [Apr 2017, p.97]

A richly detailed synth-pop LP of admirable sophistication. [Jul 2023, p.82]

'Easy Does It' is pleasant and clever rather than emotive and memorable, like so much of this album. [Aug 2008, p.114]

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

These are songs that chime delicately within uncertain world, in the best possible way, neither here nor there. [Feb 2020, p.90]

Genuinely inspiring, the story of Bananagun is a great yarn. [Aug 2020, p.87]

The songs are wonderfully non-toxic, obsessed in only the best possible way, a refreshing take on country love and lust. [Sep 2023, p.82]

The groove here is mostly grainy, organic, natural. [Nov 2025, p.83]

A modern soundtrack for city life--an aural survival pack that pulls out moments of delicate beauty from all the shit and cacophony. [Dec 2003, p.122]

Despite a shared Giorgio Moroder influence, they are more DAF meets Soft Cell and early Detroit techno than a 21st century Human League.

The album is crowned by the extraordinary, seven-minutes-plus Death Engine, where a gospel feel gives way to a lengthy, rolling, Bach-like coda. On an otherwise tonally unified album, this is where Linden's emotions are at their rawest. [Jun 2020, p.89]

The years have proven that the deceptive simplicity of their music only increases its potency, working hand-in-hand with their long commitment to the healing powers of brotherhood and melody.

The Long Blondes sound pleasingly frayed around the edges. [Dec 2006, p.118]

A filmic atmosphere is constant. [Jan 2016, p.96]

The skill that always made him singular--his ability to shape perfect pop melodies--still shines. [Mar 2016, p.92]

Lovely. [Apr 2017, p.96]

It dives into the UK's musical melting pot, blending reggae, hip-hop, Asian beats and dancefloor nous. [Jul 2017, p.93]

Another strong set. [Oct 2018, p.94]

B.E.D.'s nine-tracks barely top 20 minutes, but it's terrific while it lasts. [Dec 2018, p.87]

A similar debt to motorik beats turn this debut album from a potential Baggy cul-de-sac into an electro-gliding beauty. [May 2019, p.93]

Sea Of Mirrors stands up without the set dressing. It ends with a brief reprise of the opening track, gently lighting the aisles to the exits; you might well find yourself staying put in the dark, ready to let it run back to the start and play out again. [Oct 2023, p.76]

A wonderfully upbeat, Sherwood-produced comeback. [Nov 2023, p.89]

There's no arguing with Fogerty's singing either - nor his distinctive guitar; part anger, part mad joy, like he's playing mid-Apocalypse. As for the arrangements, they're pretty much can't-believe-it's-not-Creedence. [Sep 2025, p,86]

An electric chemistry courses through the line-blurring electro-acoustic hybrids of Hyperglyph. [Oct 2025, p.89]

A bold and beautiful record borne of quiet surety, this is their best since The Trials Of Van Occupanther. [Dec 2025, p.86]

[An] alarming intimacy is the bedrock of Devils & Dust. [Jun 2005, p.92]

After 33 years of intuitive playing together they are able to show you their close-up sculpted technique, as if revealing their workings, and then do something so transcendent, so miraculous, that it causes you to believe in magic once again. [May 2020, p.90]

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

Sunn O))) devotees will find satisfaction, but newcomers should start with 2009’s igneous rock classic Monoliths & Dimensions.

Many of these 25 short pieces are rich in layered melody and texture, and full of primary coloured sonics. [May 2018, p.94]

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]

Attention wanders as the album slips into a lazy mid-pace skunk groove and Robinson falls back on 'one love' lyrics, but when the duo are joined, on three tracks, by the spider-baby vocals of Kiki Hitomi the effect is unnerving, like modern urban folk tales whispered by a disembodied duo of night bus wraiths. [Jan 2010, p. 96]

From the second opener Get Got's frantic arpeggiations synths kick-in there's little let-up on a mind-mugging set so fresh even Delia Smith can't test its flavour. [Jun 2012, p.85]