Elaborate motorik grooves, dense, post-rock complexity and intricate electronic experimentalism. [Mar 2017, p.94]

False Priest is a blur of swings and roundabuots, the sheer ambition of its crazed vision propelling it through any lull. [Oct. 2010, p. 96]

This is an odyssey both emotional and educational. [Jan 2015, p.108]

Funky as early-80s Judas Priest, the title track and Trouble's Coming will become era classics in lat-out over-amplified party music. [May 2021, p.82]

Harte's mixture of charisma, vulnerability and errant tunefulness holds everything together. [Nov 2007, p.95]

Painkillers suggests their frontman really was holding his best songs back. [Apr 2016, p.88]

It's numinous stuff. [Jun 2020, p.95]

A walk on the wild side, it turns out, that's unleashed a freewheeling new strength. [May 2025, p.92]

A substantial and richly evocative work. [Apr 2013, p.89]

How she continues to turn apparent whimsy into profundity borders on the miraculous. [Jun 2018, p.92]

The Nebraskans' second LP strikes a meaty accord between classic rock swagger and the pumped up, get-in-the-van intensity of hardcore. [Apr 2009, p.107]

Jazz albums don't come much better. [May 2009, p.101]

The result is Placebo's best album since 1998's magisterial "Without You I'm Nothing." [Jul 2009, p.97]

The solo J. has all the heartfelt keening of Where You Been-era Dinosaur, but with a fresh approach to his trademark blending of powerchords and melodies.

Jones has rediscovered her mojo. [Apr 2024, p.82]

Unfolds like a hand-stitched musical patchwork quilt, gently educating its listeners in the great American songster tradition. [Apr 2003, p.114]

Hyetel continues his transformation from producing club-oriented tracks to elegant, fully rounded electronica. [Jun 2013, p.89]

Holiday Destination needs to be uncomfortable and it is, a beautifully realised disturbance of any remaining peace. [Sep 2017, p.92]

Another inspirational triumph over adversity. [Oct 2018, p.90]

An album that's rarely short of lovely. [Dec 2025, p.78]

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

A glorious convergence of talents. [Sep 2024, p.92]

The brittle world he creates is a seductive one. [Sep 2013, p.95]

On paper it might sound like a filler - nine songs, none of them original, some newly recorded, some not - but to listen to it's wonderful. [May 2022, p.94]

Their latest album offers all the anti-matter salve for the irritations of modern culture that admirers expect. [May 2010, p. 92]

Gentlemen remains his [Dulli's] masterpiece. [Jan 2015, p.108]

This is music that seems to inhale and exhale around Faithfull, making space for wonder to unfurl without crassly signposting it. [May 2021, p.86]

The sounds here do at times recall territories previously mapped by Brian and RD James, with or without MDMA, but Song For Alpha still makes for an electronic listening album of particular quality. [May 2018, p.93]

Far Enough takes the most exhilarating form of resistance, much more than riot grrrl's DIY aesthetic, akin to a harder-rocking Sleater Kinney with a similarly wailing centrifugal force in singer/guitarist Jenny McKechnie. [Jun 2020, p.90]

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

The music is sneakily sophisticated, buoyed on a mesh of relentless guitar tracks and driven by motorik drums toward a golden pyschpunk horizon. [Nov 2008, p.106]

Even at moderate volume, parts of Life Metal may loosen your neighbours' guttering. [May 2019, p.95]

Young weaves 11 modern blues of frail longing around backwards guitar, mumbling bass and homemade percussion, his chanted lyrics like pale fragile spells for escaping the 21st century. [Jun 2018, p.93]

The Psalms comes with plenty of mainstream country--in the supple, drawling warmth of Colter's voice--and spiritual certainty. But it is easy to recognise the broader, ecumenical grace and relief of Joni Mitchell's early records and Laura Nyro's salvation songs in Colter's passionate focus and rolling, intuitive aplomb at the piano. [Apr 2017, p.91]

John Legend phones it in somewhat, and Ghostface Killah makes little sense, but the brain-pummelling tecno that punctuates the latter's profane offerings certainly makes the best of it. [Jul 2009, p.106]

Only on the title track's cavernous '80s-era bass synths does Jaar come close to being conventional. [Apr 2011, p.105]

Their third LP is mostly comprised of ground-quaking punk-dance anthems, they're also politically charged, shot through with ribald wit, simmering anger and references to philosopher Frantz Fanon. [Dec 2022, p.93]

It's a near-total reinvention, and a triumph. [Apr 2011, p.98]

The deep soulfulness that always set The Afghan Whigs apart from the pack was no mirage, and on Do To The Beast, it has matured with grace and power. [May 2014, p.86]

The Black Keys’ raw edges are retained amid the Hendrix fuzz of Man On A Mission, while on the slick, Philly-shaped soul standout Make You Mine, the pair soar to new poppy heights. [Sep 2025, p.79]

Far from the title's implied despair, Wit's End sounds more like home, sweet home. [May 2011, p.111]

Loyalty retains the humble immediacy of its predecessors. [Jul 2015, p.90]

There's an undeniable zip to these. [Jun 2024, p.82]

Probably his most varied album. ... The extremes work better still, be it Cyrus's eyebrow-raising raw trawl through Metallica's Nothing Else Matters or the vocal pyrotechnics which course through Young Thug & Nicki Minaj's Always Love You. [Dec 2021, p.87]

On these dozen tracks, Washington creates a playground and invites friends in to be themselves, shaping a dizzying crosshatch of ideas where George Clinton’s lounge croon sets up a trumpet-chased pep talk from rapper D Smoke, or André 3000 slips – with flutes in hand – into a nocturnal haze that feels like some futuristic Debussy state of bliss. [Jun 2024, p.85]

An album of lightness and substance, in perfectly observed amounts. [Oct 2005, p.114]

Strange Pleasures is a lush, intoxicating place to drift away in. [Jul 2013, p.86]

Dickinson is the singer's best foil since Bernard Butler, spinning a kaleidoscope of suave, modernist soul-pop. [Mar 2023, p.87]

Sparer but equally powerful record [to U.F.O.F.]. [Nov 2019, p.90]

Bob Mould's been hereabouts before, of course, but The Tubs' tightly-wound songs are good enough to transcend the concept. [May 2023, p.95]

They've perfected their emo pop. [Jan 2006, p.132]

It is a hazy path through a dusty landscape of sadness and enlightenment that never arrives at answers or certainties, but shimmers with an eternal mystery. [Dec 2019, p.90]

There’s an irresistibly slinky Stones groove to Boom Boom Back (Beck Hansen yelps mid-chorus), while Fontaines D.C.’s Grian Chatten guests on the smouldering Stranger. Throughout, Cosials and Perrote joyfully excel. [Oct 2024, p.88]

It really is good. [Jul 2005, p.99]

With Kilo, Vainio returns to sub-bass layers and industrial scree to create a dark minimal techno with strange internal narrative. [May 2013, p.95]

Annual waft of immersive drones, synthscaped romance, glassy yogic remixes. [Feb 2017, p.99]

Debut album from an eclectic yet melodic Omaha band. [July 2010, p. 97]

[Introducing] contains her best songs and most relaxed, assured performances. [May 2007, p.112]

Now, by trying something a little different, he's mustered a late-career triumph. [May 2010, p. 92]

The Weeknd starts here. Jan 2013, p.108]

Make Me Feel Alright is a joyous call and response; Souled Out On You a heartbreaker with deep feeling; Country Child, meanwhile, is pure Hill Country hypnotic boogie. [Jun 2021, p.89]

He and his songs sound beautifully close-knit. [May 2020, p.89]

Heroic in its scope and shifting moods, it's more performance piece than repeated listen. [May 2025, p.93]

With Willie, his son Lukas's band and Neville helping out elsewhere, there is audiable love in the room. Three final, reflective and intimately presented Rebennack originals shin, but best of all, perhaps, is his take on The Traveling Wilburys' End Of The Line.[Oct 2022, p.90]

This is the work of an artist who, seemingly despite himself, has turned into a major contender. [May 2016, p.93]

On Blessed she finds the perfect balance between the sweet and the sour. [Apr 2011, p.98]

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

A humane and typically eclectic affair with winning flashes of eccentricity. [Aug 2017, p.92]

For all its grace and subtlety, this is a vigorous, life-affirming record. [Jul 2016, p.90]

Writing her way into a new persona, our heroine emerges as a badass punk with attitude and cutely clever lyrics. [Sep 2020, p.87]

In pursuing the anarchic, joyous mash-up of their debut Remedy to its twisted conclusion, Basement Jaxx find themselves in androgynous, genre-bending territory that is Prince-ly in spirit even when it isn’t in sound.

It really is incredibly good, even if sometimes it's hard to feel you're hearing the real Jolie and not a character she's adopted. [Jun 2004, p.110]

Overall, Love, Loss, And Auto-Tuned is a deviant masterpiece. [Oct 2018, p.92]

These 11 songs sound like they've been here forever. [Jan 2022, p.82]

The absolute highlight is Dion's magnificently assured live performance of his own King Of The New York Streets. .... New York Minute stands out, with its overt nods to Dion's late-1950s doo wop sides. [Jan 2026, p.89]

Ocean Child achieves its aim - emphasising the vibrant depth of Yoko Ono's (approximately) infinite universe. [Apr 2022, p.83]

A soaring Here In Spirit joins reincarnation musing Who Am I? at the pinnacle of its daft-genius. [Jan 2020, p.92]

Another hip-rolling, dabke masterclass. [Jan 2020, p.92]

A tear-stained, yet tasteful, requiem. [Feb 2006, p.93]

Not a bad song on the album. [Oct 2013, p.96]

This time the music is as rich and detailed as [Finn's] wordplay. [Feb 2007, p.100]

Thrilling third from the ex-Headcoatee's duo. [May 2010, p. 93]

It's all wonderful stuff here. [Dec 2012, p.85]

Theatrical swishes of piano, mellotron, guitars and percussion back her powerful, red velvet voice. [Feb 2016, p.98]

This short but sweet EP is her love letter to the Lone Star state. [Mar 2017, p.93]

This is a shape-shifting beast, its classic pop sensibilities leavened with occasional samples or stretched into epic, groove-based jams. [Apr 2007, p.96]

Sixteen short, sharp blasts of garage pop, Castlemania addles Dwyer's catchy, wryly dippy ditties with mind-melding mellotron blasts and acid-fried clarinet and flute additions. [Aug. 2011, p. 96]

A gimlet glare cast not downwards but right between your eyes. [Mar 2020, p.107]

Turnbull readily unleashes his inner thespian but he's got playful pop-song chops, making A Hound At The Helm something of a post-modern glam trip that's far too good to be neglected a second time. [Jan 2015, p.94]

Throughout the album's crisp 10-track sequence, this reconfigured band are clearly once again enjoying the fruits of the unfathomable confluence of life and art. [Apr 2016, p.87]

Ultimately, Innerstanding finds Harrison marking out his own territory, sustaining a brooding musical atmosphere and filling it with sterling melodies. [Jan 2024, p.88]

The vigorous, often zippy arrangements finessed at guitarist Jonathan Pearce's Auckland home studio offer chipper contrast to the subject matter, Stokes a thoughtful, knowing presence. [Oct 2022, p.89]

Admirably obtuse, Slug put the odd into prog odyssey with style. [Jun 2018, p.93]

She immediately impresses with a solid version of Wanda Jackson's Funnel Of Love, then moves on to deliver a brace of Patsy Cline classics that stand the comparison test, before with the aid of Vince Gill, whooping it up on You're The Reason Our Kids Are Ugly. [Jun 2016, p.94]

A misbegotten romance plays out across the album in disturbing, always enthralling fashion. [Jul 2018, p.98]

The stated modus operandi--everybody is leading and following--results in some fascinating new angles and delicious surprises on familiar material. [Apr 2011, p.107]

The playing is dappled, unostentatious, the mood often disarmingly pretty. [Jul 2021, p.85]

The music is taut, the vocals, if anything, under-emoted, and the overall feeling is that of a muse rediscovered. [Jun 2009, p.108]