Its 11 new originals that wouldn't sound out of place on country radio or in a roadhouse in the '50s and '60s. [Jul 2013, p.92]

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

Everywhere Bourne's judicious minimalism proves compelling. [Sep 2017, p.89]

The songs feel like they're boiling over, there's so much heat under them. [Mar 2004, p.95]

Disappointment and cautious optimism for the future, rather than recrimination, is About Farewell's weapon of choice, a welcome female counterpoint to, say, the bitterness of Bob Dylan's Blood On The Tracks or Josh Ritter's The Beast In Its Tracks. [Sep 2013, p.86]

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.

Shows a good deal more focus than their last two studio efforts. [Nov 2005, p.104]

Karate consummately glide through those crisp changes, unleashing wafts of Thin Lizzy swing (Defendants), Hendrix-y picking (Liminal) and stuttering Costello new wave (Rattle The Pipes). Farina’s honey-voiced complaints (see Cannibals’ swingeing cancel-culture takedown) clinch a spicy comeback. [Nov 2024, p.86]

A mighty result. [Dec 2012, p.84]

Ritual Union feels like the point at which Little Dragon's lyrical stride finally gets in step with their musical ambition. [Aug. 2011, p. 93]

Its wintery charms and enervated intrigue are hard to deny. [Feb 2019, p.90]

A stylistic serpentine of an album, it wiggles insouciantly from sugar-rush synthetic pop to harp-caressed ballad. [Dec 2013, p.88]

It’s subtle, it won’t grab you by the lapels, much less the jockstrap or G-string, but it does carry that twangy tang of life.

Victoria's wracked, whispery, smoky rasp exudes her inner suffering. [Apr 2019, p.91]

It's confusing, with flaky endings and mood swings, and an utterly compelling mix of not caring at all and desperately caring. [Apr 2016, p.87]

The songs are beautifully crafted in that Davies/Weller/Doherty English tradition. [Aug 2008, p.103]

Day After Tomorrow finds her in fine form, the famous falsetto is an octave or two down but the conviction that she brings to the songs is as strong as ever. [Oct 2008, p.106]

While not short on garage freakouts there's added twang to Hell In Texas and a spaghetti western shimmer on New day's unheavenly chorus. [Jun 2021, p.90]

These lads really knock together a proper tune. [Oct 2008, p.108]

His songs are simple and instantly seductive. [Mar 2012, p.99]

The Next Day [is] Bowie's most impassioned and convincing work in decades. [Apr 2013, p.84]

This is a triumph of achingly beautiful pop protest music. [Jun 2017, p.94]

Her Dusty-meetsNancy tones glide as imperiously over violin-caressed opener 'French Navy' as on lustrous indie-country upgrade 'You Told A Lie,' reaching sublime lvels of heartache on the Spectoresque title track. [Jun 2009, p.109]

This album more than does him [Vic Chesnutt] justice. [Apr 2011, p.98]

Rendered with a delicate, impressionistic touch, Phasor's dreamlike entreaties cut far deeper than predecessor Far In's lockdown ruminations. [Mar 2024, p.90]

Vanishing Point might be the best of this bunch, the group's B-movie R&B leaner and lairier than ever. [May 2013, p.86]

Graceful and witty with 'Old Wounds' and mordant and terse in the spiky 'St. Albans,' while the sublime 'Mimi' reveals a storyteller's eye for nuance and character. [May 2009, p.102]

And In The Darkness, Hearts Aglow again shows Mering's most extraordinary craft. [Dec 2022, p.82]

Slaraffenland are a complete surprise. Unfettered yet poptuneful, they harmonize constantly--with a melodic cool, more churchy than surfy--but plough those vocal lines into dense, dynamic texture with fierce drums marching as to war. [Jun 2010, p.103]

While subsequent albums have traced the faultlines of parenthood, until now on the exquisite Sun On he Square, their teenage kids are leaving home. Everywhere, Peris notes absence. [Aug 2018, p.94]

The seven-minute title track best reflects the fluid magic of the quartet as they travel from deep soul to deep space. [May 2024, p.89]

More symphonic in structure than Herren's previous work and richer in melody and theme, it eschews loops in favor of fuzzy interference and acoustic vibrations. [Jun 2011, p.97]

This is a radical musical departure, certainly, but one that affirms the assured versatility of a singer/songwriter whose talent knows no boundaries. [Jul 2015, p.92]

Music best experienced as the sun drops below the horizon. [Nov 2021, p.91]

If these last two [fire and freshness] are tough to keep up 15 years on, it doesn't show. [Aug 2014, p.93]

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

[Miles Whittaker and Andy Stott] summon Northern Industrial music's ancient frequencies to produce a dense hypogeal noise. [Jul 2014, p.96]

It has a head, a tail and a massive great beating heart. [Nov 2017, p.92]

It's a fine album, mixing lean rock anthems... with the kind of ballads lesser artists would need years to write. [Oct 2004, p.116]

Jones's playing is inventive throughout, comparing favourably to his work with the M.G.'s. [Sep 2013, p.86]

They were recorded in different session over 16 years, though feel right at home with each other. [Feb 2021, p.85]

It's the sound of a band on a roll. [Jun 2006, p.110]

A poignant portrait of post-industrial Britain - one that's leavened by some less-than-commonplace vocabulary. [Apr 2025, p.78]

A giddy chaos of fuzz-noise and thundering drums ensures these sclectic experiments still sound like no one else but The dirtbombs. [May 2008, p.114]

Have Some Faith In Magic pushes further out, into a gorgeous and strangely spacey conflagration between the pastel end of '70s prog, the Kosmiche end of funk and '90s dance. [Mar 2012, p.103]

This lean, hungry and impeccably intense record is everything the involvement of those collaborators [RocketNumberNine & Kieran Hebden] might lead you to hope for, and a lot more besides. [Mar 2014, p.95]

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

It's a huge step forward on their earlier recordings. [May 2015, p.95]

Intimate, absorbing. [Sep 2020, p.94]

The dozen self-penned songs blend traditional genres rather than rewriting the style guide, but that weight of musical and emotional heritage only adds to the compelling effect of the whole. [Jan 2004, p.99]

Walk The River is far more direct and carries a mood of singer-songwriter writ (very) large. [May 2011, p.105]

A big wet dream of loss and isolation, sex and the search for grace. [May 2004, p.92]

In truth there's little here that wouldn't belong on the 1992 breakthrough, Let Me Come Over, their enduring warm embrace marking Buffalo Tom as a band you can grow old with. [Jul 2024, p.84]

The Record is beautifully integrated, each song feeling like an ongoing conversation, a harmonious thread they can pick up any time. It’s very much worth getting to know it. [Jun 2023, p.85]

Reduced to a duo for Southern Records' live-in-the-studio Latitudes series in 2012, Tucker and O'Sullivan seasoning their cosmic mantras with such sweet tinctures as early Eno, This Heat and the acoustic mirror harmonies of early OMD. With Glynnaestra the potion is perfected. [Sep 2013, p.86]

Razor-sharp production, lazy lolloping dance grooves and a polished, poppy glow lends the debut from Essex producer Tythe more than a hint of anything goes, '80s Balearic sheen. [Sep 2013, p.95]

The album's eight, unusually varied essays largely eschew sonic wallpaper stereotype, invested as they are with playfulness and a genuine sense of Eastern-flavoured spiritual uplift. [Dec 2017, p.92]

Capture/Release's clanking guitars and shimmering melodies meld the abstract and the earthy with a Mark E Smithian panache. [Sep 2005, p.102]

An extraordinary comeback. [Mar 2025, p.84]

The ballads confirm that she was singing better than ever. [Dec 2017, p.88]

Marvellous. [Jul 2006, p.106]

The inevitable irony is that the first-class packaging and mono fidelity makes this serial potpourri feel new and thrilling again - while none of it accurately reflects the Beatles' creative intent and daily momentum. [Dec 2024, p.100]

Expansive, restless, subtly volatile, Radio red is intriguing enough to keep it locked. [Sep 2023, p.84]

The blueprint's not rewritten, but Something From Nothing and The Feast & The Famine dose the Foos format with steroids, while Grohl's earnest delivery redeems the occasional detour into cliche. [Dec 2014, p.89]

In the category of great rap reinventions, file it next to Daniel Dumile's post-KMD rebirth as MF Doom and Ultramagnetic's MC Kool Keith re-training as Dr. Octagon. [Aug. 2011, p. 94]

Ultimately, Afternoon X finds its strength in contrast: while the mostly languid pace suggests meditation, the lyrics reveal a theme of carpe diem. [Nov 2023, p.92]

The backgrounds are rich, warm and authentic sounding, but the real power lies the potent, passionate vocal trinity. [Jul 2017, p.87]

What Did You Expect is a breathlessly exciting debut, it's giddy raunch'n'revisionism hard to resist. [Apr 2011, p.100]

Dark, minatory rhythms underpin stark lyrics telling of hard times in the north of Mali. [May 2015, p.95]

One of the most inventive, exploratory albums of the year. [Jan 2023, p.90]

As with Daptone's soul projects, the emphasis is on authenticity and integrity and the result is spot-on. [Jun 2018, p.94]

Formed around Orcadian singer/guitarist Erland Cooper, former Verve guitarist Simon Tong and drummer David Nock, best known for his work with Paul McCartney's The Fireman, Erland and co meld influences to create a psych-folk mosaic. [Feb 2010, p. 101]

Good album, clever guy. [Jun 2011, p.100]

These non-linear creations are vehicles for an incredible contralto that echoes Anohni, Diamanda Galas, Jarboe, even late-era Scott Walker. [Jun 2024, p.84]

These are stories about patterns of behaviour, like dreams that keep returning, or won't end. The way out, these songs counsel, lies in relinquishing. [Oct 2019, p.85]

Ishibashi’s latest score is again subtle, delicate, but robust enough to blossom away from the film itself. It’s her balancing of disparate elements that’s so impressive. [Aug 2024, p.87]

A glorious snapshot of Silver in his prime. [Dec 2025, p.99]

The tunes are still naggingly memorable, but often less convivial, more melancholy. [Feb 2022, p.86]

Closer listens reveal small universes of movement, tension and suspense pulsing just beneath the surface. [Dec 2019, p.88]

The Beloved Scouse songsmith's virtues are writ large: heart swelling hymns to the common man, irrepressible shanties, imaginatively deployed strings and brass, affectionate songs of booze-love, as unhinged a school-days memoir as you'll ever hear, and, at the closing Adios Amigo, the fondest of farewells. [Dec 2017, p.92]

Often startlingly brilliant. [Mar 2026, p.85]

Linderman's triumph is more sophisticated than a simple contrast. The Ravishing music is studded with jazz details - the impressionistic gusts of saxophone and flute; Linderman's own clangorous guitar overdubs - that add a neurotic edge to the proceedings. The words, meanwhile, luxuriate in the prettiness of our world. [Mar 2021, p.80]

While the album's nine, wordless pieces for mournfully beautiful cello and shifting ambient atmospheres may not always conjure seismic volatility, there is certainly an underlying tension close to the surface of swooning opener Hellebore. [Jan 2016, p.96]

One of the best rock'n'roll albums of 2014. [Dec 2014, p.96]

Molina devotes will yearn to bask in this full bloom of Magnolia. [Oct 2007, p.91]

The Complete Budokan 1978 is a richer picture of this restless nerve at work. [Jan 2024, p.101]

An altogether more positive attempt to commune with nature. [Jun 2017, p.88]

The former High Llama may be low, but this is no menopausal weepy. [Apr 2016, p.96]

There's no arguing with craftsmanship like this. [Jul 2017, p.88]

The Horrors are operating at a way more advanced level, dragging rock, feedback-drenched, electronic and electrifying, into a new decade. [Jun 2009, p.101]

The vocals of core dynamic duo Alisa Xayalith and Thom Powers instantly proffer more light and shade, while the punchy garage of Kraut Of All Of This, distorted, gliding My Bloody Valentine-lite of Frayed And Spank, or thundering Chemical Brothers detonations at the heart of A Wolf In Geek's Clothing all point to far more than just obscure psych records in their collection. [Apr 2011, p.100]

[Moyet] sounds notably energised throughout this second electronic pop outing. [Aug 2017, p.94]

So beautiful Or So What is a deeply spiritual record, its more reflective moments offset by playful fare. [may 2011, p.106]

The dreamy riffs swirl amid powerful songwriting smarts, and melodic hooks abound. [Jul 2015, p.96]

A few sag under the weight of brooding brass and strings - Lookout For Hope, Doom - but others soar - Beautiful Dreamer, Electricity, We Shall Overcome. Ultimately it's a winner. [Jun 2024, p.91]

North radiates a humanity that wasn't altogether apparent on, say, The Juliet Letters or When I Was Cruel. [Oct 2003, p.104]

It's the confessional aspect that makes this compelling stuff, whether relating mid-life disappointment in Living The Dream or detailing a life reset in the delicately chiming Clean. [Jul 2024, p.84]

Their groovy, meditative parlaying consistently elevates Live! Beyond the realm of optional for-diehards-only purchase. [Feb 2001, p.94]