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

The trio's chanting, loops and metal-bashing framework is now fleshed out by some beautiful ambient-noise balladry. [Mar 2006, p.106]

Their voices have contrasting timbres and they produce some gorgeous harmonies throughout. [Feb 2019, p.87]

If you love pop, you really have to hear it. [Mar 2015, p.92]

Its 17 yearning, numinous essays, with lyrics that are part road trip, part inward odyssey, inhabiting a liminal, sepia-tinted sound world. [Apr 2016, p.88]

This blending of expected and unexpected makes Soul Power something altogether special. [Feb 2015, p.92]

Un Dia is if anything, even more challenging, a set of songs that demand interpretation even as they beautifully defy it. [Nov 2008, p.106]

Emotional yet chilled, this is an album to see you through winter's darkest, coldest days. [Mar 2012, p.99]

Sweet, shimmering, Swedish alt-pop. [April 2012, p.91]

Naturally, every song is a fully formed gem underscoring Saint Etienne's unique way with setting reflective pop upon a dance floor chassis. [Jul 2017, p.86]

Even when he's so amiably out-of-focus, Vile's melodies remain vivid, his wanders never self-indulgent. [May 2013, p.86]

Sauna becomes a transitional journey of self-surrender, Elverum's soft-sung imagist perceptions slowly reaching toward a quiet, meditative transcendence. [May 2015, p.96]

Beam's evocation of elemental themes and dramas is too profound and affecting to deny. [Jan 2003, p.92]

Dangerous, magical, and gleefully noisy. [Dec 2003, p.113]

The grown-up Ash remain every bit as irresistible as the pop-punk pups. [Jul 2015, p.87]

It's the resulting acoustic simplicity of his songwriting that makes this collection such a treat. [Jul 2012, p.101]

Stunning. [Jan 2026, p.84]

The fervid prog punk of Flesh Fondue, the synth collision of 65 Million Years Ago and the trippy Nets Of Space are further high-points on this constantly regenerating trip. [Nov 2019, p.94]

At times they resemble The B-52's having a bitter row, at others a particularly violent Femmes. [Jul 2005, p.110]

This vivid, confident collection cuts across the UK bass continuum, mixing abstract house and no-rave with moody mysticism. [Jan 2020, p.91]

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]

Definitely one of 2016's better achievements. [Jan 2017, p.99]

It's not perfect--you want it to shift up a gear occasionally, or to try different approaches, but the songs are all stuffed with daffy musicality and charm. [Apr 2007, p.102]

Full of regret, hard-won wisdom and DIY pop artistry, No Need To Be Downhearted transcends bog-standard indie to build a world of sophisticated melody and ingenious arrangements. [May 2007, p.112]

That play of sonic summer and spiritual winter shades this. [Mar 2008, p.102]

Chance-taking, richly rewarding. [Apr 2019, p.89]

An exhilarating step beyond [the 2005 and 2007] albums' late-'60s foundations. [Feb 2015, p.93]

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

That Lucky Old Sun is easily Brian Wilson's most consistently enjoyable, moving solo albums; indeed you have to go back to "Surf's Up" itrself to hear a Beach Boys long-player as good. [Spe 2008, p.99]

It's not easy listening, but profoundly engaging and redemptive. [Aug 2021, p.80]

The musicianship's great, Lloyd Maines' production's gorgeous and there's a slew of highlights. [Aug 2021, p.87]

[A] very fine third album. [Mar 2012, p.98]

A hell of a production. [Apr 2013, p.87]

This is a record that more frequently speaks and embodies the language of connection, of entwining and union, the clash between hard-edged politics and the beautiful fractals of their music less stringently juxtaposed than in earlier work. [Jul 2025, p.76]

Country-soul songs full of warmth and comfort. [Jun 2018, p.97]

The whole thing carves out and inhabits a persuasively exotic world of echo that invites total immersion. [May 2015, p.97]

Classic songwriting creatively re-imagined in pulsating, droning, rackety new environs. [Apr 2024, p.89]

A beautiful slice of contemporary singer-songwriter craft that gently nods to their love of Sandy Denny. [May 2018. p.98]

The trio return with 12 mesmeric tracks that are a love letter to their native south Manchester and its iconic brutalist architecture. [Aug 2025, p.85]

Anima is his third solo album, outside of soundtracks, and it's his richest. [Sep 2019, p.87]

How Big, How Blue, How Beautiful is more lyrically direct and honest, even if the lure of The Big Music remains strong for Welch. [Jul 2015, p.87]

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

Genre-hopping in style with one-woman band Merrill Garbus. [July 2011, p. 114]

Performance is White Denim's most produced album, thickly textured with brass, keyboards and studio atmospheres. Play it loud, though, and you easily imagine the euphoria at the bar after every track. [Sep 2018, p.84]

The sound of Beans returning to the hip hop that hatched him, remaking it in his image. [Dec 2004, p.100]

Never one to be soul-bearing or crass, Corgan pulls off his "Songer" task with enigmatic, starlit aplomb. [Dec 2017, p.86]

Nada Surf have always been close to greatness, and Moon Mirror won’t win new fans, but it is wonderful. [Oct 2024, p.82]

The sprawl of her vision is impressive; the mystic excellence of its execution suggests she should make a habit of such recordings. [Sep 2020, p.88]

James ford and Jas Shaw's command of synth hardware lends itself to organic songwriting. [Dec 2016, p.93]

Songs hang in the air, implying rather than asserting uncanny dimensions. Dylan’s voice, again, is quite beautiful, with a control and nuance so many thought he’d lost. [Jul 2023, p.97]

The Horrors manage to balance vinyl excavation with experimentation and a huge dollop of pop magnificently. [Aug. 2011, p. 90]

There's no happy ever after, of course, but at least this excellent record has come out of the darkness. [Mar 2016, p.92]

It's the garlanded ritual folk of Kan Me ("May Song"), however, that underlines this is a record of changing seasons and transitional states. Accept the offer of tea but prepare to lose days in the process. [Aug 2022, p.90]

Rare, Forever's prevailing mood is sensuous and luxurious. [May 2021, p.88]

With hooks as deep as heartbeats, this has the sweep of the desert dunes in it. [Apr 2020, p.93]

Her voice [is] a soft, soulful instrument that draws the listener in with seemingly minimum effort, then delivers whatever message she wishes to impart to willing ears. [Dec. 2011 pg. 94]

Third shows Portishead in the tradition of, say, Fairpoint Convention as much as Massive Attack, and though it might not convert sceptics it is convincing, and occasionally thrilling, demonstration that the wilderness can be a great place to cook up new ideas. [May 2008, p.103]

Storytime and Greensward Days showcase Andy Strickland's thoughtful guitar work, Dr Clarke essays a home counties kind of Pebbles psychedelia while Ten Years celebrates the quiet joys of 60-something man chat. [Apr 2025, p.78]

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

Into his eighth decade of unblinkered creativity, Hayward continues to thrill. [Dec 2023, p.93]

Microcastle could be 4AD's best release in well over a decade. [Dec 2008, p.108]

The Chimp awakes. [Jul 2017, p.96]

As lush, escapist pop, Waiting On A Song is a triumph. [Jul 2017, p.90]

Hallelujah, melodies and lyrics are not just sensitive but sharp and witty, glittering with a dazzle reminiscent of Britpop at its deftest. [May 2015, p.96]

Springsteen's choice of songs, especially in the deep tracks and left turns, also i=underscores a deeper retrospect and aspiration. [Jan 2023, p.82]

Hey Panda may seem whimsical at first, but its depth is all the grander for the work it takes to mine its many gems. [May 2024, p.84]

He is, if anything, singing better than ever. [Dec 2003, p.104]

Acute while charming, she captures the sadness and silliness of the months when she hightailed it out of Ortonvile, Michigan, pop. 1,442. [Jun 2014, p.95]

A very fine record. [Feb 2003, p.86]

Ratchets up the accessibility quotient considerably. [Nov 2004, p.102]

While the nebulous quality of Mercy was very much feature-not-bug, a cloudiness indicating the limits of memory, here Cale seems to have sharpened the edges of his songs, any mist or drift purely down to old fashioned meandering. [Jul 2024, p.86]

Behind the parachute silk and dry ice, the smoke and mirrors, stands a record in high emotional definition, its outline becoming sharper by the second. [Nov 2019, p.92]

Subtitled "Ghana Music Power House", a fitting epitaph for Dick Essilfie-Bondize. ... Highlight: the blissful whirl Yeaba by CK Mann's Carousel. [Feb 2022, p.103]

A terrific set that explores the themes of loss, friendship, aging and legacy, in 12 songs that are both familiar sounding and something new. [May 2023, p.84]

While opener Der Lange Marsh 1 sways like a marram grass in the breeze, there's a relentlessness to the album's overall progress. [Mar 2022, p.87]

This Fascinating, individual and exhilarating fusion welds classical tropes to such diverse elements as Arcadian folk, doo wop, Steve Reich and Greek Mythology. [Oct 2012, p.95]

Thirty years on from Dubnobasswithmyheadman, the masters of post-rave audio narrative still know how to blow your tiny mind. [Dec 2024, p.90]

Rarely has ruminations on decline, in fact, sounded so vigorous. [Mar 2025, p.90]

She's clearly not afraid to prolong the exquisite agony and, selfishly, you hope Macve never cheers up. [Apr 2017, p.98]

The latest dispatch carries on its immediate predecessors' good work with familiar Wire tropes all in place. [Apr 2017, p.91]

The constantly shape-shifting and explosive dynamics of this brutal yet accessible blaze of glory are borne from a collaboration that's instinctive, primal and alchemical, effortlessly outclassing the competition. [Apr 2019, p.88]

Natalie Prass's debut luxuriates in the same effortlessly timeless space as Rumer's Seasons Of My Life and I Am Shelby Lynne. [Feb 2015, p.94]

Evoking cinematic cliches is almost unavoidable on a mutant, spirited debut whose diversity is its greatest asset. [Mar 2014, p.95]

An effortless conflation of over-amped belligerence and feisty pop mellifluousness. [Mar 2012, p.94]

Burgess's bushy-tailed optimism and quality control never dips. [Nov 2022, p.94]

Richly layered and astutely arranged. [Jul 2017, p.96]

Aided by Gabrielle Drake's spoken word and arrangements that vary between bare, the lyrical and the dreamy, it makes for a most moving collection. [Jul 2017, p.92]

The Canadian quartet have long proved their sidemen chops, and sound as good on honky tonk, back-porchers or country ballads. [May 2009, p.101]

This is a more soulful, less arch record than Tranquility Base. Not quite as detached from Monkeys past as it first appears, either. [Dec 2022, p.84]

While synth stomp Full Of Fire circles the (twisted) dancefloor, the bias is for brave, immersive, and high-risk music. [May 2013, p.88]

It's surely their most eclectic. [Oct 2009, p.103]

The Cribs of 2009 sound bold, fully-realised, their anthems polished and radio-ready, without sacrificing the acerbic edge that's powered them this far. [Sep 2009, p.88]

While the odd misstep lurks, longueurs are few and far between, the skippy guitar figure of Nightcrawler and creeping tension of Wide I's scaling harmonic heights against the odds, recalling early millennial triumphs Double Figure and Spokes. [Jan 2023, p.86]

Both the Entermedia set and the alternate takes underscore how much the studio shaped and sculpted these songs. Like the etiolated, unstrung Polaroid band portraits on the album sleeve, there’s a lack of connective tissue in these versions, the alternate Found A Job lacking the delirious carnival sheen of the album take, the live Artists Only missing the full cinema-matinee drama of Jerry Harrison’s moustache-twirling keyboards. [Sep 2025, p.88]

Cat's Eyes are the sound of something beautiful in a state of slow decay. [May 2011, p.104]

Even though her dreamscapes are surreal, there are moments that jolt. [Sep 2019, p.90]

This is Black Star Riders' best work yet. [Oct 2019, p.88]

With her soaring, passionate voice the wail of a spectre, she's the incubus Kate Bush. [Aug 2013, p.88]