Initially baffling, Manafon richly replays further decktime. [Oct 2009, p.96]

God times are promised--and delivered. [Feb 2012, p.99]

Cool, humorous, tender, this is a delicious thing. [Feb 2018, p.96]

For all the grown-up entanglements and era-specific worries, it's championship-winning stuff. [Jul 2021, p.85]

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

Both beguiling and frustrating, The Ascension is complex, bold and oddly lovable. [Nov 2020, p.89]

If anything, surpasses its illustrious predecessor. [Sep 2001, p.98]

It's compulsive listening. [Jun 2013, p.92]

Timely stuff. [May 2014, p.88]

An album of studied precision and endless textures. [Mar 2014, p.95]

Hi Honey ultimately triumphs thanks to its creator' perfect chemistry. [Aug 2015, p.93]

Ambient noise draws the threads of these songs together – distant chatter, the sound of rain – but it’s the night buses and pubs of Wonderlight that best catch The Night’s Victoria Segal muted glimmer. [Feb 2025, p.82]

It's an ideal January release, time enough for Antony's spacious, textured odyssey to sink in before those Album Of The Year polls come round again. [Feb 2009, p.104]

A vital album for an anxious era. [Apr 2017, p.90]

These loose, predominantly acoustic arrangements area fine fit for Malkmus's usual shtick; shaggy, ambulatory songs full of odd twists and rococo angles that seem designed to undermine pretension rather than amplify it. [Apr 2020, p.90]

With his bijou gift for melody, over 75 minutes Hart delivers abundantly. [Aug 2013, p.86]

This is a galvanising return. [Apr 2013, p.96]

Glistening, radio-friendly fare. [May 2003, p.108]

Kid A is intriguing, eccentric, obviously a grower, but by Radiohead's standards it can't help but disappoint.

Music is fitful and its charms aren't all immediate, but Madonna is still doing what she does best--giving a lick of pop genius to the unlikely genre of experimental dance music.

Wheel reinvention, it ain't, but for insidious, emotionally overblown ear candy, Let Go hits a real sweet spot. [Nov 2002, p.113]

Ndegeocello's covers album comprises wonderful takes on R&B and soul. [May 2018, p.98]

There's a great live feel, especially on the more uptempo cuts. [Apr 2019, p.90]

TLICTFIR finds Wye Oak reaching new heights of sophistication. [May 2018, p.96]

[It] is largely unfettered by the dictates of genre. [Jul 2006, p.106]

The good news is that Have We Met shares melodic strengths with his previous high-water marks. [Mar 2020, p.88]

The line-up gel beautifully on these three long instrumentals. [Oct 2018, p.86]

This fifth and self-produced eponymous LP restates their collective intent with the hip-hop groove and soaring chorus of Gold Rush, the breezy drivetime rock of Old Tape (tackling persistent self-criticism) and the Judee Sill verses of Mad Love. [Jun 2025, p.80]

[These albums] are as much of a pendulum swing from Is A Woman as Is A Woman was from Nixon. [combined review of both discs; Feb 2004, p.90]

[A] dazzling modern dance album. [Jun 2015, p.94]

Everything you could want from a wizard, a true non-star. [Sept. 2011, p. 100]

The music draws on '70s fusion, post-rock and free jazz, and throughout McCaslin's sax expresses boldness, anger, beauty, joy. [Nov 2016, p.92]

In all, a very promising debut. [Nov 2020, p.90]

Rich, but foreboding stuff. [Mar 2003, p.106]

The result is a meditative set full pf surprises, and songs that haunt. [Aug 2018, p.90]

It all adds up to more willful magic from Plant. [Oct. 2010, p. 94]

Alongside jay Berliner's guitar lines, meaty chunks of organ, grooves aplenty and a soulful collection of new songs, it's a convincing performance. [Dec 2019, p.86]

Thundercat has finally made the all-out pop album he's been hinting at. It fits like a glove. [May 2026, p.91]

Like a fine wine continuing to mature, Mavis's One True Vine should be allowed to breathe. [Aug 2013, p.87]

If we force ourselves inside American Head, we find it full of intimate details that eschew social distancing. Breathe it in. [Sep 2020, p.86]

Goes West feels invigoratingly sunny. [Feb 2019, p.84]

Stellular serves up a lovely, liberated tonic in dark times. [Feb 2017, p.93]

Fun and fully immersive, rewinds are rewarded with a plethora of intricate detail. [Jul 2013, p.85]

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

This third Sun il Moon album demonstrates Kozelek spinning luminescent textural webs on original compositions which, like the ravishing 'Moorestown,' rank among his very finest.

His slow-burning music ... has serious cross-over potential. [Apr 2012, p.91]

Brainy music is back--about time. [Feb 2015, p.95]

Lyrically, beating the odds and ultra-violence remain fecund topics for Lemmy. [Sep 2015, p.86]

Although the second half of the album doesn't quite match up to the front, there's no sense it's dragging, either. [Dec 2015, p.88]

The Right To Love is a heartbreaker from the beautifully phrased, opening reading of Hoagy Carmichael's Skylark through to a final I Get Along Without You Very Well. [Sep 2017, p.91]

The arrangements within are more ebullient and wide-ranging. ... His subjects - all character sketches of friends or chance meetings - are also multifaceted. [May 2020, p.89]

Gibbons' gnarly guitars and sand-blasted voice are impeachable. [Jul 2021, p.80]

Organic, evergreen loveliness. [Oct 2023, p.88]

Allied to keening, reedy vocals and sophisticated hooks, these songs deliver a truly impressive debut. [Mar 2024, p.88]

Uplifting, rueful and expertly crafted. [Jun 2024, p.89]

The Stylistics would've killed for a song like Paradise, and I'm not sure they'd have performed it better. [Aug 2025, p.82]

Tinariwen still speak to the world as outsiders, but now they are telling us more about ourselves than we knew before. [Mar 2014, p.92]

It's the brooding dancefloor ordnance which marks Hairless Toys as a career highlight. [Jun 2015, p.88]

The most satisfying Melvins-related release since Nude With Boots in 2008, Crystal Fairy also makes for a fine entry-point into Teri Gender Bender's dark, gnarly and theatrical oeuvre. [Mar 2017, p.97]

The herbally-enhanced sound he creates is blissfully minimal and knowingly sultry, Galcher Lustwerk's enervated baritone amplifying the somnolent mood. [Jan 2020, p.91]

A singer-songwriter back at the peak of her powers. [Apr 2020, p.94]

Fetch finds the band a newly slimline two-piece in pursuit of fresh territory. [Jan 2014, p.102]

A delightful demonstration that sticking to your guns can be well worth it. [Mar 2017, p.95]

One of Americana's most exquisite singers. [Dec 2004, p.114]

Patina exists on an arc where grunge, the rave era, Britpop et al never occurred. What would have happened if the second half of the '80s had defined much of what came next? Tallies provide the answer - these nine tracks are that good. [Sep 2022, p.94]

A record that is demanding and compelling, though often beautiful. [Jun 2017, p.90]

On their latest LP, the group's influences -- the thrift store soul of early E Street Band, late period Clash, and the besotted rock of The Replacements -- are still worn on their sleeves. [July 2010]

The gauzy seductive songs feel like euphoric conjuring, chinks in the doors of perceptions that reveal another hidden capital, a misty tapestry of late-night idylls, laced with a rapturous melancholy magic. [Oct 2017, p.91]

Generally rawer than it's predecessor Home, Under Cold Blue Stars is as evocative as Rouse's much-lauded debut Dressed Up Like Nebraska, while reaching still further from the twang of his adopted Nashville. [Mar 2002, p.100]

Her voice is as irresistible as her songs. [Feb 2004, p.103]

Their debut album triumphs, thanks to how well those constituent parts complement each other. [Apr 2016, p.91]

Marshall's irregular flashes of idiosyncratic brilliance impress, though The OOZ's 19 tracks contain many longueurs that merely baffle or bore, so tread carefully. [Nov 2017, p.100]

It's moving, cathartic and achieves new levels of sophistication. [Jun 2020, p.94]

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

Williams' forward-pushing, inter-generational sound - 70s fusion-era grooves mingle with modern club motifs - is fully formed on this second full solo outing. [Aug 2020, p.91]

A far cry from the murky jazz-metal wig-outs of yore, TMV is a triumph of melody, smooth instrumentation and soul. [Oct 2022, p.82]

Arguably they're at their best when wrapped around each other, such as on "Santa Monica Dream" and "Draw Your Swords," where it's a sweet and savoury blend to warm the soul. [Apr 2010, p.94]

A Splash Of Colour remains more grab-bag than coherent statement. [Jun 2016, p.104]

Stunning. [Jan 2026, p.84]

Driven, hooky, moving. Better than Prozac or a sunny day. [Aug 2015, p.88]

It's an uneven but at times wonderfully eccentric mix of early-'80s synth-pop mores and a kind of post-industrial electro that wants to sound like Depeche Mode but then wants to get all nasty on you. [Dec 2013, p.98]

Pay No Mind plays appealingly like The Jesus And Mary Chain slowed to 16 rpm. Then, just as you're settling into drowsy twilight, out of nowhere, a lyric smacks like citrus on the tongue. [Jun 2018, p.89]

The album levitates with light and serenity. [Mar 2021, p.88]

From the cascading choruses of See In The Dark to the title track's stylish chimes, and in What Do I Know she may have found Deep Sea Diver's key to crossover. [Apr 2025, p.83]

Anyone who fell for Fontaines D.C.'s 2019 debut Dogrel should find plenty to love in this first offering from Cork's Cardinals. [Mar 2026, p.81]

[A] dazzling selection of pop songs. [Aug 2005, p.96]

End Of Everything surface gloss barely conceals a raw intensity. [Jun 2023, p.90]

Throughout, a world weariness and wisdom far beyond John Fullbright's 25 years. [Jul 2014, p.93]

Many of the inventive musical excursions were improvised live in the studio. [Nov 2014, p.95]

It's hot, loose, raucous, and retro in an overlapping-era kind of way. [Jun 2012, p.93]

Though Anderson buries his voice and words in the maelstrom, his declared (if not immediately) apparent) theme of a constantly thwarted search for "true love" seems right at home in shoegazing's characteristic marriage of bliss and anxiety. [Dec 2023, p.93]

The remainder unfurls in similar fashion: laudably spirited, often astoundingly catchy and entirely indebted to the past. [Jun 2011, p.101]

Throughout, singer Ellie Roswell is a compelling presence, and the result is Wolf Alice's best yet. [Oct 2025, p.80]

This full of 303 squelches and flat, ever wonderful 808 thups-thups, sinister vocals and robot rumba rhythms. [Aug 2012, p.102]

Hallelujah Anyhow needs a shade more definition to cut through the reassuring vintage fug. [Nov 2017, p.94]

Theirs remains a gallows wit. [Nov 2005, p.112]

It's a bona fide Lee Hazlewood classic: Mournful and orchestrated, imbued with a heart-rendering yearning. [Oct 2012, p.102]

Tapping myriad trusted influences yet distilling something uniquely corvine, it's a thrilling return. [Apr 2024, p.82]