The album's stand-outs come when they soften their stance. [May 2014, p.93]

Not one of his career's frequent great leap forward, but still a thrilling delivery system for his formidable gifts. [May 2011, p.100]

This adrenalised debut's handful of instant classics is way above par throughout. [Sep 2020, p.88]

Fathomlessly beautiful. [Aug 2004, p.110]

For scholarly inclined fans, the 1987 demo is a fascinating document. [Nov 2004, p.110]

This feels like Hiss Golden Messenger's overdue breakthrough album. [Nov 2016, p.89]

There’s a new level of sophistication here, befitting the fact that the one-time teenage home-recorder is now 27 and this is her fourth album. [Dec 2024, p.85]

An epic ambition that bolster Nona Marie Levine's lightly burnished vocals. [Nov 2012, p.96]

A profoundly satisfying album, unreservedly recommended. [Sep 2023, p.86]

Talking Heads: 77 still feels like a record that is always going to get past you, speeding ahead of the curve. [Jan 2025, p.96]

An energised splicing of riff, declamation and technology that sounds like a thrilling synthesis of 2003's The Real New Fall LP and 2005's Fall Heads Roll, delivered with the highest levels of vigour for some time. [Feb 2007, p.92]

There's a '60s simplicity that's instantly engaging. [Feb 2016, p.93]

Each of them [psalms] is spoken word, less than two minutes long, and set to music that's ominous, ambient, spectral and spiritual. That's side one; side two is taken up with a 12-minute instrumental - a ruminative play of dark on dark, with a deep drone and synthesized choir of ghosts that's quite lovely. [Aug 2022, p.96]

Hayes's new-found prolificacy certainly hasn't exhausted his gift for timeless pop. [Feb 2015, p.91]

The coherent Volume 1 sounds like a Midlake-as-such album: a more direct follow-up to 2013's Antiphon. [May 2017, p.89]

Plumb is a delicious tasting menu of rock history. [Mar 2012, p.103]

To fresh melodies of Guthrie would surely have smiled upon, the four adorn every lyric with fine guitar weaves of rollicking dance, rugged grind or Paris, Texas haunt. [Mar 2012, p.97]

A mix of sentimental parenting and venal cynicism, the orchestral Pot Of Gold is peak Doherty. [Jun 2025, p.88]

Morrison elevates his game on a set weighted equally between blues standards and visits to his own back catalogue. [Jun 2018, p.91]

The extras will delight Ig-heads and Bowie buffs, likewise the thoroughly annotated 40-page booklet, featuring new interviews with key participants. [Jul 2020, p.92]

An enthralling step on her musical journey. [Aug 2021, p.83]

Experimental, but far from intimidating. [Dec 2022, p.94]

This third-eye-for-the-folk-guy makeover suits them well, its 11 tracks filled with space and light. [Sep 2020, p.94]

They fare best on delicate, forlorn ballads like Walk The Backstairs Quiet and Epping Forest--tales of suburban longing which are brave enough to include some quite splendid guitar solos. [Jun 2011, p100]

It's not as spiky or sleazy as 2001's superlative Kittenz And Thee Glitz... but this is shiny, addictive pop that's never lost for a good tune. [Jun 2004, p.114]

If it's not immediately obvious what such vaunted DJs see in Souleyman, Legowelt's remix of the title track spells out the floor-filling qualities. [Aug 2015, p.91]

That voice remains intact, warm, ever communicative, ahead of the game. [Oct 2004, p.112]

This absorbing new venture is essentially a set of unaccompanied musical dialogues between the two veterans. [Jul 2012, p.94]

Represents a major leap forward. [Nov 2003, p.130]

What makes The Complete BBC Sessions so compelling is that it's mostly work-in-process, and Zeppelin veer played a song the same way twice. [Oct 2016, p.107]

Tina's mesmeriing pop-psych is also a fascinating conundrum. [Jan 2021, p.91]

Frequently gorgeous collection of slow-motion jazz standards. [Feb 2026, p.87]

Expands Casiotone For The Painfully Alone's frighteningly austere template to an almost symphonic level of opulence. [Jul 2006, p.102]

Musically satisfying. [Apr 2026, p.93]

Closure is more substantial than that implies, carrying on the more direct approach of 2005's Disaffected. [Feb 2017, p.95]

Supreme Balloon is an airy sphere of joyful electronic possibility. [June 2008, p.103]

If there's little of the duelling gamesmanship that made their 1993 debut so remarkable, this is still a joyful comeback, brimming with big screen music. [Feb 2015, p.91]

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

The result is a record so euphoric and emotionally direct that understanding the words is not a prerequisite. [Jun 2025, p.86]

She has the same jagged, enchanting sensuality as Bjork. [Mar 2012, p.103]

Original, but with traces of early Dizzee, Rodney P and The Streets in Slowthai's savvy grime-punk. [Jun 2019, p.96]

James's reputation as one of electronic music's most daring, inquisitive artists grows record by record. [Dec 2022, p.91]

Living Fields is no instant hit, but the twilight world you're eventually drawn into is difficult to leave. [May 2015, p.98]

It's a triumph for experimental chemistry: dramatic, deeply felt, dynamically designed. Minor Victories might've been put together at a distance, but it's all there. [Jul 2016, p.92]

This is her best to date, but she'll be better yet. [Sep 2002, p.102]

In Colour really comes into its own when Jamie xx gets abstract and confounding; where his ability to conjure something wonderful from mosaic, non-linear paths is most evident. [Jul 2015, p.84]

A debut of undeniable quality. [Oct 2004, p.106]

The 50th-anniversary edition affirms the underrated triumph in Cahoots. [Feb 2022, p.97]

Warning: the only rarity of note in this reissue, outside the remix narrative, is Lennon running down I’m The Greatest in a near-Beatles reunion with George Harrison and Ringo Starr – and that’s tucked away as a hidden bonus track. The Mind Games you get instead, in this lavish, rejuvenating treatment, is the several brighter, bolder albums it might have been, on the way to the one that fell flat in 1973. [Aug 2024, p.92]

Display[s] a lurid intelligence that seeks to explore an alternate American history. [Oct 2004, p.102]

A worthy addition to the genre. [Nov 2016, p.92]

If any art is currently encapsulating the sense of "wrongness" abroad in our land, this is it. [Dec 2018, p.82]

The superb Ditherer belies its title with head-on immediacy even if it giddily ignores the confines of triangular rock. [Sep 2007, p.108]

The street-wise intellect certainly lets his slightly off-pitched voice do most of the heavy-lifting over the stuttering spacey synthetics, phased keys and warped Rhodes of B-Roc's atmospheric production. [Apr 2017, p.95]

Exudes warmth. [Dec. 2011 p.94]

An unadorned diamond in the rough, and his best record. [Mar 2014, p.94]

The songs on Mr. M might be mostly slow and beautiful but they don't have the drifting dreaminess. [Mar 2012, p.96]

At first spiky and combative, gradually (and ultimately) it is hypnotic and calmative. [Dec 2022, p.89]

There's a playful quality to the chunky adrenalin-soaked fuzz the duo create. [Jul 2015, p.86]

Dwyer's crew are oft-cited as the world's most exciting live rock band; they're also making some of its most exciting rock records. [Sep 2017, p.93]

Hotly tipped Ipswich rapper's expansive debut. [July 2011, p. 112]

Beautiful songs studded with dissonant eruptions of noise. [Oct 2018, p.94]

It's a compact yet satisfying set of 10 surging semi-acoustic almost-ballads with occasional electric interludes. [Sep 2013, p.91]

Arguably Plant's most Zeppelinesque solo work to date. [May 2005, p.92]

It's not tidy, but fittingly for such unabashed pop maximalists, there's a lot to love here. [Jan 2019, p.84]

Think Jolie Holland, or P.J. Harvey's To Bring You My Love, and prepare to be entranced. [Jan 2019, p.90]

A more intimate dimension to this incisive chronicler of beleaguered times. [May 2022, p.88]

It's as if the quintet has not yet achieved lift-off velocity. As such, the most fascinating tracks here are the older standards. [Sep 2023, p.94]

The years don’t fall away – you feel every one – but this recording shows just what a beautiful thing that can be.

The ballads bewitch, reminding us that Tracey is one of the unique British voices, up there with Dusty. [Apr 2007, p.100]

He delivers another strange and beautiful record, retooling is soporific folk sound with synths and experimental soundscapes. [Apr 2021, p.81]

Songs to keep returning to with no hope of ever exhausting their meaning. [Apr 2020, p.84]

In The Magic Hour is, in turn, both exhilarating and exploratory. [Feb 2016, p.97]

Overall, this is pretty near perfect. [Dec 2013, p.90]

The Truckers have always been a direct band but this time there's a kind of foreplay, where each song gives the other time and consideration. [Mar 2008, p.100]

Wriggins remains his own elusive self, his songs forever moving between the prosaic and the ecstatic. [Sep 2022, p.89]

A fourth album of brisk Saharan grooves, heavy jamming and trance percussion. [May 2018, p.98]

Velocifero is comparable to pop at its best--travelling straight to the brain's pleasure centres but taking a strange tantalising cargo with it. [July 2008, p.110]

Through the overdriven riffage, juggernaut rhythms and starey-eyed James Cox's foghorn yowling, some proper and highly dynamic songcraft does emerge. [Apr 2019, p.93]

Two dark, roiling 22-minute tracks that conjure up a world of nature in turmoil. [Feb 2012, p.97]

You can't pin them down, but there lies the joy. [Jun 2025, p.84]

While Tonight: Franz Ferdinand might not take all the chances those early reports suggested, it shows the band examing their world from all angles, from the unflattering profile in the mirror behind the batr to the long hard look into the soul. Life in three dimensions suits them very well indeed. [Feb 2009, p.102]

A trancelike alliance of technical mastery and instinctual chemistry far greater than the sum of its acoustic parts, GoGo Penguin already feels definitive. [Jun 2020, p.93]

Witty, tender pieces to charm even those for who wrestling means Shirley Crabtree. [May 2015, p.100]

The main strength of this album is how the guitar playing, which is superb throughout, feels inextricably bound to the structure and shape of the melodies. [Jul 2016, p.95]

The Space Between is a delicate, dignified joy. [Nov 2022, p.86]

The result is the right step forwards at the right momement. [Aug 2019, p.96]

As the concerns that drive Lytle's lyrics lift out, the well-known tremulous quiver and fragile vocals become increasingly irreplaceable, the perfect medium for songs about articulating the intangible. [Jun 2003, p.94]

Their most forward-facing jazz album yet, packed with complex, multi-storied compositions you can still dance to. [Nov 2021, p.89]

A forward-looking treat. [Jul 2015, p.87]

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

Bosnian Rainbows is no less powerful for its focus, segueing from fractured futuristic funk rock, to thorny melodic pop, to resonant power balladry with a fire and confidence confirming the Bosnian Rainbows as no mere "project," but indeed a whole new direction. [Jul 2013, p.86]

They may have just failed to make a Great Rock Album--though it has many moments of greatness--but they have unquestionably become a Great Rock Band. [Album of the Month, Nov 2002, p.90]

It gets on the dancefloor to create some bona fide hits of its own. [Aug 2013, p.89]

Garden Party is a golden-hour dream of a record, balmy keyboards and cicada-like percussion setting a perfect scene for the easy, receptive conversations between the guitars of Johnson and Barry Walker. [Jun 2023, p.87]

There’s only one moment when the production distracts from the players, a brief yet clunky guitar overdub on Arajghiyine. Listeners who love a wide soundstage, however, with well-separated guitars coming at you from all angles, will be in heaven. Thankfully, the guests shun the spotlight, leaving Ibrahim, Alhassane Ag Touhami and Abdallah Ag Alhousseyni to concentrate on that elusive sound, the guitars cleaner and crisper than those that introduced Tinariwen to the world 20 years ago. [Jun 2023, p.82]

It's a familiar mix of delicate acoustic tracks and crunching country rock - but The 400 Unit has evolved via the deepening emotional heft of their leader's songwriting. [Jul 2023, p.86]

A bijou flashback to a place of quiet nirvana. [Feb 2006, p.107]