Trentemøller deftness in balancing light and shade and a multi-layered approach are key to its allure. [Mar 2022, p.87]

Mahal and Cooder are giving back here like so often before. [May 2022, p.92]

You do wonder what, exactly, fires his pistons and to what end, but quality control remains excellent. [Aug 2022, p.91]

Combs's developmental arc as a songwriter continues to soar, and this deep, deep reflection suits him to a tee. [Sep 2022, p.93]

Vieux is on fine form, but it's yet more evidence that the Texans are one of the sharpest groups around. [Oct 2022, p.84]

Beguiling from the outset. [Jun 2023, p.90]

“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

Where the stage show had the intimacy of Young's between-song chats, the intimacy here comes from the sensation that you're listening in on his thoughts as one song drifts, like memories do, from one tome to another. [Jan 2024, p.90]

The veteran 4AD band bring a depth and worldliness to these songs that sets them apart. [Apr 1024, p.92]

In this filmic offering, all commentators observe our crumbling landscape. .... On the dark, drum-lead chant Baby Roe, DiFranco sounds like Billie Holiday as she upbraids the overturners of Roe v Wade (“We’re so wigged out/Yeah, we’re so devout”), before pleading for “the path of least suffering”. [Aug 2024, p.89]

Whatever ‘flow’ is, she has it, Koalas and Charlie Potato shimmering like hot tarmac mirages, and trippy closer Surround coming on like Parks and key collaborator Ruari Meehan’s nod to The Orb’s Little Fluffy Clouds. Repeat listens focus the kaleidoscope. [Dec 2024, p.87]

More a shiny recalibration of TVOTR's high-density art rock than a radical restart, especially of their more electronic, funky and pop-facing side. [May 2025, p.90]

Zajac's gnomic lyrics make the direct bits hit that bit harder, and if there are swamp-fuzz debts to J.J. Harvey, it is still a powerful piece of personal witness-bearing. [Jan 2026, p.85]

The clarity of Eçevit's tenor, the quality production values maintained throughout and the contrasting styles make for a thoroughly enjoyable ride. [Apr 2026, p.85]

One of their best, with most tracks written by various band members. [May 2026, p.89]

Silver Age is the most consistently exciting record he's made since Sugar's Copper Blue. [Nov 2012, p.86]

The likes of Beck and Stevie Nicks play supportive rather than starring roles, and the sonic flavours here recall the noir clubby pop of Humanz (2017). The woofer-pumping reggaeton of Tormenta however sees Albarn step aside to let Puerto Rican rapper Bad Bunny shine. [Mar 2023, p.85]

Another excellent installment. [Jun 2021, p.87]

Fans of the early records of Margo Price and Courtney Marie Andrews will find much to love here, while the diversion into groovesome country soul on Rows Of Clover keeps the head nodding. [Feb 2023, p.84]

It's not a giant leap but Elbow haven't been embraced to be wreckers of civilization. [Apr 2014, p.88]

While the drum-less duo reach a wonderfully womb-like stasis amid Moth To The Flame's nine drawn-out minutes - Weber's whispers all at sea in a deep duvet of guitars - they're also unafraid to explore darker territory. [Jun 2020, p.91]

Sturdy, rousing, crank-it-up Rock'n'roll that's sometimes more punk, sometimes more country. [Feb 2016, p.93]

This is the message of Barnett’s fourth: that a blind leap of faith is better than wearing a further groove into your rut; that actually, if it is broke, you should fix it. Because perhaps songs as rewarding as those on Creature Of Habit are waiting on the other side of such a change. [May 2026, p.85]

It's Plain's elusive ruminations and off-balance poetics that resonate in ever more artful, affecting ways. [Feb 2023, p.88]

This is a more expansive, rococo production than Callahan's Dream River. [May 2014, p.91]

Night Thoughts is the work of a band very much at home in the here and now, all the while looking forward. Still something else, still something wonderful. [Feb 2016, p.88]

A collection of tunes with groove at its synthetic heart. [Apr 2021, p.83]

Laus's writing is maturing, Real Man and tie My Shows surprisingly country-folk, while elsewhere there's bell-clear acoustic pop. Any occasional sameness is offset by existential stingers. [Oct 2024, p.90]

Pang! doesn't just look forward to a blazing global meltdown. Beneath the modernist sheen, Rhys roots these songs in something older and wiser. [Oct 2019, p.83]

A title that came to John Darnielle in a dream vividly interpreted as the score for a musical. [Feb 2026, p.90]

At times it's spellbinding. [Dec 2006, p.118]

They sing beautifully together and play everything. [Mar 2023, p.83]

If you like Papa M and Nic Jones, prepare to be delighted. [Feb 2025, p.87]

Much of Give A Glimpse has the warm familiarity of a beloved sweater, but none of it sounds rote or autopilot. Mascis might be tending the same patch, but there's fresh flowers sprouting from that soil. [Sep 2016, p.88]

Less electronic than the albums he made under his King Biscuit Time and Black Affair aliases, it's Mason's best post-Beta Band work. [Jun 2010, p.98]

A record of startling breadth. [Feb 2003, p.96]

Has a pronounced acoustic bent. [May 2003, p.95]

The tribute album of the year, a cavalcade of orch-pop joy, an object lesson in songwriting smarts. [Dec 2003, p.106]

Rice establishes an extraordinary intimacy here. [Oct 2003, p.107]

This is largely a quality-controlled treat. [Jan 2007, p.112]

This record is way better than we had any right to expect. [Oct 2009, p.99]

A picaresque journey through the cosmos. [Feb 2013, p.86]

Their relentless attack is deadly serious. [Jan 2014, p.104]

Not so bad as to frighten connoisseurs of, say, Dub Housing's post-industrial emptiness passages, but, yes, it's a "difficult" listen. [Nov 2014, p.98]

Taylor's balm-like burr delivers a blissful moment of healing. [Aug 2021, p.81]

C'est La Vie is as potent, visceral and concise a sonic expression of this act of courage [step up and be an adult] as you could hope to find. [Nov 2018, p.87]

It exudes an organic, direct feel from which it gains its considerable charm. [Feb 2008, p.112]

NxWorries spread their undoubted talents thinly across an offering several chillies shy of the full enchilada. [Dec 2016, p.93]

Bracing, yet insidiously melodic. [Jan 2012, p.97]

The Center Won't Hold sounds like a band urgently resetting their course, putting their fury and fear ona war footing. At times., it's on a industrial scale. ... There are gorgeous pop songs here, too. [Sep 2019, p.84]

"Surprised" might not be the answer, but these big, generous songs still land an emotional punch. [Sep 2025, p.79]

Music that's moving, beautiful and uplifting. [Feb 2026, p.83]

Debut arrives fully-formed. [Apr 2026, p.94]

No One Ever Sleeps, even with harmonies from Robin Pecknold, feels not magical, but hollow and sluggish. At the rockier end, Heartbreaker adds Arcade Fire urgency and may score alt-radio love. The rest, however, is lukewarm. [Jul 2012, p.83]

Realised with friend Chet JR White in San Francisco on reel-to-reel tapes, the songs grab from Phil Spector, Beatles, Beach Boys, JAMC and Spiritualized, and are all the more enticing for it. [Jan 2010, p. 103]

Clever, unflinching, experimental and catchy. [Oct 2017, p.98]

They've delivered their biggest surprise to date. A record that falls short for its constituent parts. [May 2011, p.100]

Wild abandon never sounded so inviting. [Aug. 2011, p. 104]

Can's high-wire spontaneous creation sustains over 90 mind-bending minutes at the highest pitch. [Jan 2022, p.101]

Never tumbles into dissonance. Rather, tracks like the Reichian round of Rytmy shimmer like heat haze on the horizon. [Jun 2023, p.95]

Save for a couple of re-edits, this deeply satisfying blend of emotional techno, Afro rhythms and stripped back house comprises all Daphni Originals. [Sep 2017, p.93]

Last Days Of Wonder is rich in history and nature imagery, yet the couple are equally obsessed with modern life. [Jul 2006, p.101]

Most important is the pure joy of these tracks and how instantly likeable they are. [Nov 2012, p.94]

There's an often harrowing conviction to Rewind The Film's primarily acoustic arrangements and elegant melodies, heralding a new level of artistry for this unique band. [Oct 2013, p.87]

Syd Arthur still dabble in jazz, folk, Krautrock and saucer-eyed psychedelia, but Apricity is a notable leap forward, even from 2014’s excellent Sound Mirror.

For the most part, this is another absorbing chapter in Schott's one-woman sonic odyssey, and where her protean creative compass will take her next is intriguing. [Nov 2017, p.99]

It's almost too strenuous in its attempts to top its predecessors, 20212's Big Inner and 2015's Fresh Blood, but once inside White's all-enveloping world, there's no space to worry too much. [Oct 2021, p.98]

Polizze's bubblegum melodies cut through the fuzz (Out The Door is a cracker), while Baby ups those '80s bona fides by echoing Pixies' Wave Of Mutilation. [Apr 2023, p.89]

There are inevitable quibbles. The omission of The Band’s own songs here is a missed opportunity to tie together these two institutions, both then wrestling with unknown futures. In the sleevenote, critic Elizabeth Nelson forgoes research into a historical moment where the primary witnesses are rapidly disappearing for a spree of purple prose. Some tapes are, of course, better than others. But, by and large, pick a track at random and you’ll find yourself stunned by how hard these six were pushing. [Nov 2024, p.98]

The melancholy feels more goth than hippy and, ultimately, both the sounds and lyrics feel unresolved. [Apr 2024, p.90]

Steve Mason's second album under his own name is more melancholy meander than Molotov Cocktail. [Apr 2013, p.95]

Despite the band's commendably cyclonic hardcore punk energy, Premonition underscores the fact that White Lung are a vehicle with only one gear, and one that has now run out of road. [Jan 2023, p.88]

It's not all bleak: within the lumbering inevitability that a drum machine brings, Broadrick pulls off a singular funkiness, which ensures that the titular 'purge' is fully transcendent, even enjoyable. [Jul 2023, p.90]

Bird escorts well-worn standards down unexpected alleyways. [Jul 2024, p.89]

Looting a Smithsy guitar line for Winter In The Hamptons or aping Steve McQueen-era Prefab Sprout on My Love Has Gone momentarily lifts Rouse's gloom, but it is scant relief from the stillness at Nashville's core. [Mar 2005, p.106]

Still crossing the many rivers of doubt, hope and despair that have faced him since his American Music Club days, Mark Eitzel's tenth solo album can nonetheless throw out surprises. [Feb 2017, p.96]

Minor caveats notwithstanding, at its best One Breath is, indeed, breathtaking, and an undeniable upgrade on its much-vaunted predecessor. [Nov 2013, p.87]

Harris's spellbinding songs still feel beautifully half-hidden, buried in black space. [Dec 2014, p.92]

This edition adds a 1999 concert. .... It's R.E.M. at their sweetest. [Jan 2023, p.99]

El-P's portentous delivery lacks poetics. [May 2007, p.110]

[A] dazzling folk-pop crush. [Mar 2014, p.94]

In all, an unexpected and all-encompassing feast. [Feb 2021, p.98]

Gorgeous and achingly candid. [Nov 2021, p.93]

Paints on a much broader canvas here than 2019's debut Fyah, roving roughshod across genres. ... In Cross's seasoned palms the tuba's possibilities feel endless. [Dec 2021, p.89]

The limits of comfort zones are not breached. [May 2017, p.89]

A mesmerising return. [Mar 2024, p.90]

Regular producer Dan Austin teases atmosphere, buries mysterious sampled speech and navigates the piano-led title track bank into Hacienda territory. What kept them? [Oct 2020, p.90]

Here's a quiet rhapsody of twining acoustic guitars, cherry-sad reeds and songs that feel solid for a bit then slip away into dying-fall bluenotes and the kind of lines that provoke romantic poetic recollection. [Jul 2014, p.88]

Segall's not reinventing the wheel--he's just here to keep the amps humming, as loud and as often as humanly possible. [Apr 2019, p.90]

At a couple of number shorter than its predecessor, Lazaretto packs a hell of a punch. [Jul 2014, p.84]

It take a rare confidence and skill to throw a million (roughly) ideas into an album and make it sound not just coherent but as good as this one. [Apr 2012, p.91]

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

As striking as her career-defining 2010 album, The Brothel. [Sep 2017, p.92]

Though other instruments emerge from their corners their sparing deployments against Amidon's fragile voice lends them a far greater power, like vivid flourishes of colour in a starkly monochrome film. [Jun 2013, p.92]

If this is about cities, it's cities glimpsed in poetic, fragmentary dreams. [Jul 2017, p.90]

The band's primary strength is their ability to harness cold electronica and synth sounds to deftly create earthy-sounding atmospherics... Stirring. [Dec. 2011 p.97]

Mysterious and enfolding, Ascent seduces. [Oct 2012, p.90]

High On Fire's fourth album sees them once again on thunderous form. [Nov 2007, p.95]