Model 500 fans, prepare for increased static. [Jul 2019, p.96]

After 2008's The Hungry Saw simmered with a new, diehard energy, Falling Down A Mountain is more like climbing up. [Feb 2010, p. 103]

Altogether, a bold and beautiful record. [Sep 2025, p.78]

The Dodos switchback moods and rhythms never settle and that's the prime joy of No Color. [Jun 2011, p.105]

A classic rock record, in all senses. [Nov 2021, p.84]

Charms on the surface yet stays in the memory. [Oct 2002, p.108]

Her first album since 1968's Kufunta on Immediate. The former Ikette's voice is little changed since those days and still rooted in powerful gospel. [Aug 2019, p.88]

An exercise in soulful, somnambulant alt-R&B with a distinctively British sound. [Jul 2015, p.91]

There's no denying the intuitive understanding Stone has of the often daunting material she tackles. [Mar 2004, p.104]

Coheres as well as anything else in their canon. [Jun 2003, p.90]

Great to hear these session giants unchained. [Oct 2025, p.83]

One Bedroom finds the group in a more forthright mood -- just shifting up a gear makes a big difference. [Feb 2003, p.90]

There's a fine story-telling country song (No One Knows Us); a dramatic rocker (Church & State) - and songs whose piano and multiple harmonies feel like church (You Without Me; Joni). But it never sounds less than gorgeous. [Dec 2025, p.78]

Moments of simple, exultant joy are plentiful. [Jun 2004, p.102]

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

There's no difficult second album syndrome for laconi-pop crew Hooton Tennis Club. [Nov 2016, p.78]

Lightning Bolt consistently sound like no one else. [Dec 2005, p.105]

B.E.D.'s nine-tracks barely top 20 minutes, but it's terrific while it lasts. [Dec 2018, p.87]

Reflection Of Youth swoops through grandiose, visceral and skeletal arrangements (producer-engineer Nick Rayner is a revelation): Full-tilt rock on I Wanna Dance; warped folk bleeding into orchestrated glitch on Christine; steely, shivery ballad Survived. [Jan 2018, p.96]

Much of Days Are Gone packs bubblegum snare, toe-stubbing synth bass, and contemporised '80s pop trappings that evoke everything from Scritti Politti's Cupid & Psyche 85 to Laura Brannigan's Self Control. [Oct 2013, p.95]

Ultimately, Transmitter is a quiet beauty. [May 2026, p.86]

The idiosyncrasies of her voice are showcased to full effect in soul showstopper Call Me A Fool, with dramatic rasping and swooping that some might find off-putting, but which undeniably underlines her distinctive character. There's a delicacy too. [Apr 2021, p.80]

Jardin retain the EP's satisfyingly minimalist approach. [Feb 2017, p.92]

Rhythm takes Mahalia Jackson into orbit. [Dec 2014, p.98]

This remains at its essence an album of beguiling, rain-splashed intimacy. [May 2007, p.106]

In all, a fiery triumph. [Nov 2014, p.100]

The set includes seven songs left off This Note's, many now sturdier than versions previously issued. [Feb 2016, p.104]

This is beautiful music. [Feb 2013, p.91]

This baker's dozen mostly adheres to the Hardin principal: shorn arrangements, nuanced vocals, emotions on a short leash. [Feb 2013, p.96]

Following the creative upswing of 2012's Silver Age and 2014's Beauty & Ruin, this is definitive work. [Apr 2016, p.87]

The balming glow of the Sparhawks' sunray-through-clouds harmonies, their surfeit of haunting, enigmatic melodies, makes immersion in The Invisible Way's melancholia a sublime pleasure. [Apr 2013, p.96]

[Sleep] have customarily not rushed into nailing The Sciences, nor departed from their rubric of burroughsian ganja mythspinning, set to eardrum-busting, down-tuned slo-mo jams. [Jul 2018, p.88]

For all its romance, this is a record at the sharp end of mortality. [March 2011, p. 96]

It represents the singer's best work since the aforesaid "Urban Hang Suite." [Sep 2009, p.93]

As with its predecessor, 2006's Continuum, not a note, not a breadth, is wasted--and the playing, from a crack team including Pino Palladino, Steve Jordan and Ian McLagan, is unfussily superb throughout. [Jan 2010, p. 90]

Sherwood's most thrillingly exploratory solo album so far. [Oct 2025, p.83]

The source isn't always apparent, as Loscil and English's manipulations drift closer to the ambient techno of Gas. [Mar 2023, p.91]

Their follow-up sees them crank everything up to the next level. [Sep 2018, p.94]

It's not gloom and vitriol, it's gorgeous. [Nov 2020, p.83]

Wheel reinvention, it ain't, but for insidious, emotionally overblown ear candy, Let Go hits a real sweet spot. [Nov 2002, p.113]

Melusine retains the intellectual curiosity of Salvant's jittery, questing catalogue. [May 2023, p.86]

It's another good one. [Jul 2006, p.100]

Placing a rich overlay of guitars, piano, banjo and synths over bleak and difficult circumstances, Cullum restores a gentle magic to the world. Heads, he wins. [May 2026, p.86]

Three singular voices, one might murmuration. [May 2026, p.90]

Bad As me is alive with some of his greatest yet. [Nov 2011, p.90]

Fusing techno with campanology is a bold aim on paper; in practice it's a revelation. [Feb 2013, p.91]

The Last Shadow Puppets is an extraordinary side project that's even more enticing than the mothership. [May 2008, p.100]

[A] gem-filled recording. [Aug 2008, p.111]

Maybe if they'd dated this collection back to 1979 and the Christian albums, they'd have a more interesting storyline, but we definitely wouldn't have had a better collection of songs. [Nov 2008, p.122]

The sun's gone out and here is the soundtrack to our long, dark financial winter. [Mar 2009, p.114]

Their early temper now lurks beneath, as chiming post-punk atmos channels affecting, emotional jabs. [Jun 2016, p.97]

The identity-crisis themed Camp trumps through whip-smart intelligence, comic brio and bristling malign intent. [Jan 2012, p.90]

[A] sturdy, panoramic critique of modern rap mores. [Aug 2014, p.92]

Dinosaur Jr, Screaming Trees and GBV overlap on this Venn diagram of melodic powerpop. [Jul 2014, p.96]

Easily Band Of horses' best LP in over a decade. [Feb 2022, p.86]

An inspired, unique dramstist, at the peak of his powers. [Feb 2026, p.81]

As distinctively fabulous as anything they have released in nearly 40 years. [Jan 2021, p.85]

[Still Life] finally moves her on from being just "one to watch" to the woman of the moment. [Apr 2022, p.81]

The band use trad tools... and trad tricks... But there's nothing trad about their cock-your-head tunings and lose-your-balance rhythms. [Dec 2005, p.100]

You're left with a record that few will better this year. [Oct 2011, p.101]

At its best, Factory Floor powerfully blurs the lines between human and machine and back again, and is very hard to argue with. [Oct 2013, p.91]

O Monolith is no less bold of palette - opener Swing (in A Dream) embraces taut post-punk chug, jazz trumpet and enveloping synths - but always follows a lucid, compelling logic. [Jul 2023, p.86]

A delectable-sounding record slathered in guitar magic: what’s not to like?

It's exquisite ghostly piano and hypnotic loops transport you to a gauzy, fantastical netherworld. [Jan 2018, p.96]

What's most remarkable is just how like the old Dolls this new record sounds. [Aug 2006, p.92]

While none of these 19 tracks reach four minutes, the music has an epic, quasi-devotional quality. [Jan 2016, p.94]

Cool, humorous, tender, this is a delicious thing. [Feb 2018, p.96]

A lot of artists are creatively bankrupt by their third album. But being still only 23, you suspect Patrick Wolf is just coming into his own. [Mar 2007, p.99]

An even grittier, country-driven powerhouse collection loosely built around themes of female rebellion. [Dec 2014, p.94]

Parlay music that while irrefutably folk, gleefully shoves aside traditionalist tropes in favour of a buoyant, full-bodied combo sound, that, passingly, recalls prime Fairport Convention while proffering a beguilingly mellifluous identity of its own. [Apr 2017, p.98]

The pace is relentlessly uptempo, but the sheer feisty spirit and conviction with which it is delivered ultimately brooks no argument. [Feb 2008, p.102]

There's no desperation here, just the sound of a fortunate man having a huge amount of fun. [Oct 2010, p.95]

[Bundick] constructs a wold of dancey digital pop out of low-slung Cali R&B rhythms, blunted hip-hop, Gallic dance pop and quirky house. [Feb 2013, p.91]

[The] band's fine third album. [May 2018, p.92]

The Hawk Is Howling finds the Glasgow's guitar army relaxing the taut, economical songcraft of its 2006 predecessor, "Mr. Beast," and setting a new standard for irreverent track titles. [Oct 2008, p.102]

Love From London once again shows his ability to reconcile the sheer peculiar wonder of being alive. [Apr 2013, p.96]

Jon Boden delivers an audacious yet subtle solo masterpiece. [Apr 2009, p.108]

Swedish chanteuse returns with guns blazing. [March 2011, p. 96]

This ragged, feverish concoction, fortified by choppy-bar-band tropes as Sensor mirrors Paul Westerberg's disillusioned bonhomie. [Aug 2017, p.90]

The forensic approach to recreating the airbrushed sounds of '70s AM pop ahs paid off--there's not a single weak track on this addictive, exceptionally polished LP. [Apr 2010, p.98]

HML offset the filthy turbo riffage with moody atmospherics and surprise left-turns. [Aug 2018, p.94]

As with 2023's downbeat Everything Harmony, what might be a Beatles-beach-Boys-Big-Star data-scrape is elevated through high-calibre songwriting. [Jun 2024, p.82]

For the most part still playing it breakneck and fuzz-covered, their trademark garage-scuzz-meets-hardcore blitzkreig is if anything more rough-riffed and faster. [Mar 2005, p.101]

[Ben Gregory's] emergence from psychiatric treatment to go solo has restored ambition, engineering a starling psychodrama, both spiritual and musical. [Jun 2023, p.87]

Bizarre, but brilliant. [Mar 2007, p.100]

What if Lou Reed and Moe Tucker joined forces with the Danielson Family? [Mar 2007, p.104]

Lush and emotive. [Feb 2017, p.99]

Its predominantly midtempo, cleverly crafted pop-Americana sounds even more substantial. [Apr 2007, p.97]

It's song-setting, rather than scene-stealing. [Dec 2014, p.86]

If nothing else, this yearning, realpolitik-infused road movie of an album is one to point to the next time somebody pronounces there are no decent protest songs any more. [Mar 2017, p.92]

This is charming. And uplifting. Happy-sad but impossibly soothing. [Nov 2011, p.92]

Fractured but never broken, Arc takes chaos and crunches it into a satisfying and surprising whole. [Feb 2013, p.92]

[An] engaging, likable, thoroughly listenable, and indeed, sing-along album. [Feb 2013, p.96]

This is continuing proof that the 42-year-old Gaz Coombes's best work is happening in the here and now. [May 2018, p.90]

Feels like a belated sequel to Laraaji/Eno's 1980 Day If Radiance. [Jun 2018, p.97]

This vital, vintage-sounding hook-up with dusty jazz fiend Ben Lamdin and reggae producer Prince fatty--packed with wilding horns and lurching bass--bridles with unwearied defiance on How Many Bullets, The Music and She Is. [Jul 2018, p.90]

The superior ones are palate cleansers or re-fertilisations of barren songwriting soil. But the best are things in and of themselves – artworks the performer has shaped just as surely and idiosyncratically as the writers. Find El Dorado is one of those. [Sep 2025, p.76]

Civilian [is] coming on like an odd, but most welcome hybrid. [Jun 2011, p.106]