It's ecentric, then, but charmingly so. [Apr 2010, p.102]

Canny, foundation-shaking urban pop. [Jun 2015, p.91]

Ultimately, the only benchmark springing to mind is the similarly-styledearly-'80sFranco-Belgians Antena. Feu De Garde is that good. [Jun 2024, p.88]

Her band is spare and empathetic, and she's a smart enough writer to avoid mawkishness and dramatics. Which just makes it grab you harder. [Aug 2014, p.93]

This is a sparse, minimalist ode to joy. [Nov 2019, p.88]

Sometimes co-written with The The’s guitarist Barrie Cadogan or keyboardist DC Collard, these 12 songs cement Johnson’s ‘cherishable agitator’ status. And – whisper it – there’s hope here, too. [Oct 2024, p.86]

Defiantly dark, dense and hazy hip hop and paranoid urban blues. [Nov 2015, p.93]

One of the most vital and imaginative records that [Coldcut has] ever made. [Jan 2006, p.120]

The easygoing Natural Information may be Callahan’s latter-day signature tune, and here daubed in Clarence Clemons-flavoured sax and quicksilver guitar, it sounds like the Eagles at a shamanic retreat. CPR for the soul. [Nov 2024, p.92]

This quick-fire sequel brutally updates the sabre-sharp formula. [Dec 2014, p.93]

Retains an elegant spirituality. [Mar 2021, p.89]

A set weighted towards her 2007-to-present day material, mainly modern freedom songs performed with energy and joy. At 79, Mavis's vocal retains its gutsy passion and vitality. [Mar 2019, p.95]

Immersive and thought-provoking record. [Apr 2019, p.87]

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]

Lightburn continues to enthral though, his heartfelt, inventive arrangements testament to many questing hours in the studio. [Dec 2008, p.112]

Halo digs deep into the unknown and bring back unexpected brilliance. [Jun 2017, p.93]

Slowly Paradise are slow love songs, but slow love songs that, thanks to Chenaux's playing, suggest an impermanence at the heart of all romance, a chaos at life's core. [Jun 2018, p.93]

[A] mini-masterpiece. [Jul 2017, p.105]

Can a band that has been as good as defunct since the 1980s truly recapture their spark? The answer appears to be yes. [Apr 2011, p.98]

Catches the sense of wistful dislocation that comes with trying to go home again, the after-hours sidewalk cafe intimacy of Manejando Por Pando or Cancion Mama suggesting quiet reckonings and reorientations. [Aug 2025, p.83]

Every song on Two Dancers reflects the meticulous intelligence of master stylists. [Sep 2009, p.90]

A triumph, possessing a universal appeal that extends beyond the dancefloor straight to the heart. [Sep 2001, p.100]

Mambo Cosmico is largely a carnival of delights. [May 2018, p.95]

In all, far more touching than we've been allowed. [Oct 2020, p.92]

KoKoKo! wield improvised technology with the deftness of touch to create the kind of pop music you'd expect to hear in the best post-punk disco in heaven. [Sep 2019, p.94]

Fatima's Hand is like the titular middle eastern amulet, a thing of intricate protective beauty. [May 2015, p.97]

This is killer stuff, with Randolph providing a supply of unbelievable sacred steel licks. [Jul 2015, p.92]

An extraordinary 80-minute concept album. [Oct 2020, p.91]

Band kiss-and-makeups can seem contrived, unconvincing; but this one feels genuine and sparky, Biffy's urgent, passionate music oxygenated by time away. [Nov 2025, p.83]

Some 18 years after his astonishing debut album Maxinquaye, Tricky has come close to making Maxinquaye II. [Jul 2013, p.88]

A best possible blend of odd and good. [Dec 2017, p.96]

Ounsworth's slurred vocals are a dealbreaker. [Feb 2006, p.92]

This ace duets set builds around extant Miller vocals from vintage demos. [Nov 2016, p.96]

WYTMWY is Knox in typically epic form, a suspenseful fusion of country-folk ballads and Twin Peaks cabaret. Bu there's a fresh clarity here too. [Feb 2021, p.88]

Nearly seven years and three albums after Shepherd In A Sheepskin Vest, the first record to emerge from Callahan the family man, listeners should probably be acclimatized to his mid-life openness by now, but even by his recent standards, My Days Of 58 exhibits a clarity, a directness – even, on the tender depressive ramble of Stepping Out For Air, a sharp vulnerability. [Mar 2026, p.78]

Thunderstorm Warnings doesn't put a foot wrong, delivering the big music with heart instead of bluster. [Mar 2021, p.90]

Moran builds on the foundation of the stride of king's eclectic, joint-jumping oeuvre. [Jan 2015, p.94]

The results have a classical loveliness--track II, particularly--while retaining an air of experimental unpredictability; both players are unafraid of disrupting the reverie with free playing and fractious tones. [Apr 2019, p.94]

Best of all is Politics Don Expose Them, which hits hard yet swings on great horn lines and a catchy call-and-response chorus. [Jun 2025, p.88]

Songs are wispy but melodies strong. [May 2019, p.96]

They produced 11 perfect songs defined by sweet, honeyed vocals and spiritual uplift. [Apr 2013, p. 90]

Loner is the sound of her undoubted talent turned feral. It's a wonderful, rollicking beast. [Jun 2018, p.94]

Balances past and future with stylish precision on uplifting fourth LP. [Oct 2022, p.92]

Cherished Canuck crooner recruits Metallica's producer. [March 2011, p. 95]

Throughout, Power's vocals retain their lovable keen and Youth's production is uncluttered and crisp. [Apr 2024, p.88]

It's recognisably the same band, but lower key, less structured, a set of soundscapes rather than songs, and sometimes almost gothic in its mood. [Mar 2003, p.97]

Rhythmically dense is the result. [Jul 2015, p.93]

An odball masterpiece. [Oct 2003, p.110]

An exhilarating record by a band not only thriving under pressure but already finding new ways to adapt to its force. [Feb 2022, p.80]

If you like Serge's music, or Jane Birkin's, their daughter's latest is a laudable addition to the canon. [Dec 2017, p.89]

Pared-down twinkly electronic pop with arcane instruments alloyed to laptop smarts that chills as it enchants. [Oct 2013, p.98]

With an airy yet intimate mix from longtime engineer Bob Clearmountain, this 2-CD/4-LP package carries the requisite audio heft to compensate those who couldn't see Springsteen On Broadway in its natural habitat. [Feb 2019, p.82]

Closure, and then some. [Jan 2017, p.101]

Each little element of Queen I’s flamboyant, sometimes preposterous excess now has its own place in the sonic firmament, youthful, incomparable Freddie Mercury close enough to touch. Rest assured, though, that the integrity of the original recordings remains. There are no new overdubs. [Dec 2024, p.96]

[The Inevitable End] overflows with regret and sorrow. [Dec 2014, p.96]

It rates amongst the best three or four post-millennial psychedelic rock records. [Jan 2015, p.95]

The Western lands proffers a winning cocktail of shimmering guitar harmonics, grand sweeping choruses, drums that avoid funk like the plague and solemn, psychogeographi lyrics from the Ian Curtis school. [Oct 2007, p.94]

Sixty Summers is a record of imagination and scope. [May 2021, p.87]

After nearly two decades, this man and this woman still turn heads. [Apr 2009, p.100]

Lattimore's deftly played, sometimes heavily processed concert grand harp unfurls mellifluously against yearning keyboard ambiences to generate immersive, natural world-inspired soundscapes. [Jul 2018, p.96]

All told, an uproarious upgrade on the garage bashfest. [Dec 2022, p.86]

That's the master interpreter, though older and creakier. He brings the song to you in detail. [Apr 2010, p.93]

Tracks that will keep you waiting forever for the drop still have a corporeal appeal. [Jul 2015, p.94]

Both parties in this collaboration have been firing off great records at will lately: here's another. [Sep 2018, p.88]

Not as immediate as the previous two albums, this one takes time before its effortless flow, interweaving harmonies and low-key chords really sink in. [Aug 2004, p.102]

Intermittently challenging; ultimately it offers a comforting embrace. [Dec 2025, p.85]

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

Casually devastating. [Mar 2026, p.86]

A powerful and uplifting experience. [Mar 2026, p.84]

Adventurous of chord-voicing but never showy, the band nail most of their zesty songs in well under three minutes. [Mar 2006, p.92]

The big sell is a new mix of A Momentary Lapse. [Jan 2019, p.103]

Besides A Sympathetic Person's skippable spoken-word intro, every move lands securely, with melody and frontman Ramon Shanker further assets. [Apr 2026, p.90]

Each track is a combination of the cosmic and the deliberate. ... What connects these songs is Weaver's unearthly voice. [Apr 2021, p.86]

Both artistically and in terms of a new business model, In Rainbows is a necesary masterstroke. [Dec 2007, p.96]

On Lysandre, his vision feels more expansive. [Feb 2013, p.88]

Keith's surreal wordplay has one leg planted firmly in the future, ensuring Dr. Octagon is still one of a kind. [Jun 2018, p.96]

It's the exclusives that made this a cornerstone of any grunge collection. [May 2017, p.106]

An attractive ad hoc vibe pervades these seven longish songs, partially recorded live: a DIY futurism, all tinfoil and stick-backed plastic, that harks back to Pulp's early '90s. [Jun 2020, p.92]

Protector feels rooted in the psychedelic quicksand that surrounded 2020 debut, and Of No Junction. It's no less enchanting though. [Dec 2022, p.92]

The pop-soul of Hawthorne's A Strange Arrabgement sounds and feels genuinely convincing. [Oct 2009, p.100]

Highlights: Bird On A Swing's Glen Campbell moves and Lou Reed's gorgeous tribute to a "tai-chi Master". [Oct 2025, p.91]

There is a pinch of prog too, manifested in kaleidoscopic intricacy rather than anything unnecessarily tricksy - their sound remains muscular and funky. [Feb 2010]

The vibe is six herberts sinking the sherbets inviting you over for banter, yarns, setting the world to rights and all of the fun of rhyme, rhythm, blues and country-rock back in the day. [Jul 2015, p.94]

You might assume, given the title, that beam's seventh full-length album as iron & Wine is lightweight and whimsical. Actually it's pretty magnificent. [Jun 2024, p.84]

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]

This stately, sometimes gospel-esque, album has the forceful intensity of a coiled spring. [Oct 2025, p.84]

Exuberant and undeniable... if you don't own a Luna album, start here. [Aug 2002, p.112]

World Peace is unquestionably the most subtle and decorous Morrissey album for many years, possibly since the hallowed Vauxhall And I. [Aug 2014, p.84]

A liberating 73-minute sprawl, constantly blurring the lines between euphony and cacophony. [Dec 2021, p.89]

Elbow reflect an unruly world here, but if they sometimes lose faith, they never lose heart. [Nov 2019, p.87]

Unique and hugely addictive. [Apr 2020, p.95]

It ranks right up there with 2010's exquisite Black Sands. [Feb 2017, p.98]

Some of the best moments, though, are when you can get past their familiarity and hear the newness of the individual voices creating the harmonies – and also hear how much they seem to enjoy and inspire each other. [Dec 2024, p.103]

It has a gentle, pared-down intimacy, flowing with acid ballads and devotional dream pop. [Jul 2022, p.86]

Encyclopedic US indie rock--American Civil War, Walt Whitman, Hold Steady, Shakespeare all included.

While retaining the melodic approach of his debut, the singer-guitarist has shaped some additional, more diverse sounds. [Dec 2012, p.88]

As always, Genders writes beautifully strange folk songs that wouldn't sound out of place back in folk revival clubs like London's Les Cousins, except they pop and ping with Lindsay's lo-fi beats and organic samples. [Feb 2025, p.83]

There are plenty of cherishable moments to be savoured. [Jan 2015, p.96]