i,i never sounds less than excellent, with wide-open acoustic/electric audio structures allowing pizzicato strings to waft through and rising clouds of horns to blow in unexpectedly. It really is bleeding edge stuff. [Oct 2019, p.90]

The Right To Love is a heartbreaker from the beautifully phrased, opening reading of Hoagy Carmichael's Skylark through to a final I Get Along Without You Very Well. [Sep 2017, p.91]

Material arcane yet relevant, as well as freshly minted. [Oct 2018, p.90]

Neil Hagerty in the producer's chair is a good fit for an album that deliberately blurs the pre- and post-Nirvana boundaries. [Aug 2013, p.92]

Thick Rich And Delicious is moreish powerpop; a dish best served loud. [Dec 2025, p.87]

Snaith's upward trajectory shows little evidence of slowing. [Nov 2012, p.87]

The softer tracks find the group negotiating their path to maturity with confidence.

The youthful buoyancy of Dogrel has ebbed away, there's a chill deep into the bones of these big, bold songs. ... Fontaines D.C. sound full of new life. [May 2022, p.93]

Familiar bittersweet flavours are sensitively tweaked - Looking For You's orchestral surges; Live Learn And Forget's flickering piano - Nada Surf's cathartic heartbursts remain in perfect harmony. [Mar 2020, p.96]

This is hard rock as anthropology, administered like only this band can. [Dec 2014, p.88]

The Unthank sisters admirably translate the atmospheric melancholia of the themes, though it's Adrian McNally's piano arrangements that really carry the day. [Apr 2019, p.95]

Hands Of Glory is a flamboyant country cousin [to 2012's Break it Yourself]. [Feb 2013, p.92]

A gloriously measured and understated take on blues standards. [Mar 2025, p.84]

Another Eels album--the 12th!--to treasure. [May 2018, p.94]

The material is cleverly sourced. [Mar 2015, p.97]

Though he can give good ballad he mostly sticks to what suits his gritty vocal and his attitude best: speed-grass. [Dec 2008, p.108]

An exciting, evocative album. [Dec 2010, p.94]

All combine to make this the year's first old school soul triumph. [Jun 2020, p.87]

Their first album in eight years finds their bond as strong as ever, Burton scoring Mercer's pocket heartaches for widescreen. [Nov 2022, p.90]

[Producer Daniel Boyle] strikes a crisp specious groove somewhere between dubstep and '90s digi-dub, for Perry to voice croakily alongside co-vocalists. [Mar 2024, p.82]

London singer-songwriter attempts to annex the middle ground between Benga and Anthony Hegarty. [March 2011, p. 96]

The Fateful Symmetry finds this political/music-making radical at his most approachable and reflective, often structuring intimate 'proper' songs around piano chords and unabashedly catchy hooks. [Aug 2025, p.79]

Vanished Gardens is ultimately an uplifting and deeply satisfying record, due mostly to Lloyd's ethereal saxophone, which complements Williams beautifully. [Aug 2018, p.95]

Overall, it's the sound of a band rejuvenated. [May 2024, p.84]

A reminder that Green Day's songwriting is far more nuanced than they're often given credit for. [Feb 2022, p.96]

A stripped-back stroll through the summer of the '80s. [Jun 2004, p.106]

Plays like an xx-lite confined to analogue. [Sep 2013, p.96]

Taken as a rollercoaster whole, this will blow any right-thinking rock-action believer's head off. [Nov 2015, p.87]

There's plenty of individual spin to set k&f apart and the tension never slacks. [Oct 2012, p.89]

A fine, off-beat listen. [Jan 2006, p.124]

With [producer Justin] Raisen, she creates a powerhouse sound, one that twists so it can't be easily "curated", labeled, boiled down for vibes. [Apr 2026, p.87]

As Chloë And The Next 20th Century sees Father John Misty escaping into his parallel Hollywood reality, it's highly entertaining to slip in alongside him. [May 2022, p.90]

The hammer-down moments are the most satisfying, with End Of Time, Death Machine and the frenetic Queen Of The Damned confirming you will not hear a louder, more defiant rock'n'roll album this year. [Dec 2013, p.84]

The opening tracks' motorik rhythms--all Juno-G keyboards and Roland bass--suggest an M1 retread of Autobahn undone by the spectre of sleep, but later tracks like the howling Pennine drones of A Non-Place imply a final destination far from the shoulder; somewhere overgrown, primitive and ancient. [Jan 2013, p.100]

Throughout Seek Shelter delivers the sort of ragged MC5/Stooges/Stones cocktail Primal Scream have spent a career trying to nail. [Jun 2021, p.85]

It's faux-naif orch-pop that crashes and thunders. [Feb 2008, p.108]

This is not the James of Sit Down vintage, which means there's still life in the old dogs yet. [Oct 2010, p.103]

A convincing and often quite brilliant restatement of Ubu's early noir-meets-B-movie-sci-fi inclinations. [Feb 2013, p.93]

Mr. Love and Justice unvels a warmer, less blustry, more soulful Bragg. [Apr 2008, p.102]

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]

This may sound wilfully eclectic but actually hangs together, bound by May's showman-like vocals. [Mar 2009, p.109]

The gently ticking, lightly compressed acoustic instrument arpeggios will be familiar to fans of both songwriters, but it's the pair's half-whispered vocals blend that enchants. [Nov 2021, p.88]

This 5-CD sets lets us revel in his creative process. [Nov 2021, p.102]

May can be schmaltzy, yes; but also needle-sharp. [Sep 2017, p.94]

Every one [of the songs are] a solid treasure. [Jul 2013, p.92]

Heroic riffing and Joe Cardamone's raw yodel ensure they never disappoint. [Aug 2013, p.98]

Her pearlescent, Joni Mitchell-style voice and feel are the clearest yet. [Nov 2017, p.101]

The music makes fearsome sense on its own, but a viewing of The Cry Of Jazz is recommended before listening. [Jun 2023, p.87]

Here he sings, using multiple guitar tunings for the complex arrangements, and his voice is variously a warm croon, sometimes darker but mostly pure and tender. [Feb 2021, p.82]

Yawn is a sublime show of songwriting strength. [Dec 2018, p.86]

She turns doubt and anxiety into subtly burnished, soulful nocturnes, more sensual than any existential crisis should be. [Oct 2024, p.82]

Despite omitting anything from FFS, their career re-booting alliance with Sparks, this is as good as introductions get. [Apr 2022, p.95]

When it rocks, it rocks hard, and when it slows down--which it does several times--it's grimmer and more emotional. [Feb 2020, p.84]

DSU's charm is its blissfully carefree vibe. [Dec 2014, p.92]

When it ends it leaves a weird absence that can only be filled by playing the thing again from the start. [Dec 2014, p.90]

There's much to enjoy in his artistic arc. [Mar 2020, p.107]

Defiant cosmopolitanism doesn't come much more feisty, or compelling than this. [Sep 2007, p.104]

Rose Golden Doorways will undoubtedly repel and attract, but its sheer force is spellbinding. [Apr 2020, p.94]

It's Bramwell's knack for a kind of "surely this one must be a cover-version" classicism that impresses most. [Feb 2013, p.96]

Ghost Culture;s pungent, treacly melodies and fidgety, complex syncopation are a robust blend. [Mar 2015, p.97]

Slowing down, but in no need of the hard shoulder. [March 2011, p. 97]

Unlike the super-saturated rush of Everything Ecstatic, There Is Love In You radiates a mellow subtlety, the wonderfully named She Just Like To Fight a twinkling pastoral while the luscious groove of Plastic People pushes its most interesting clicks and skitters to the periphery. [Feb 2010, p. 105]

Bold and absorbing set. [Sep 2020, p.82]

An electric chemistry courses through the line-blurring electro-acoustic hybrids of Hyperglyph. [Oct 2025, p.89]

Only relenting for the odd Tinariwen-esque chill moment (Takoba; Imajughen), this one's an amps-on-11 polemical masterpiece that warrants worldwide respect. [Jun 2024, p.90]

There's no faulting Shemekia Copeland's voice. [Sep 2018, p.91]

For Sale ratchets up the band's ever-present anxiety with a dose of on-stage adrenaline to make this the Holy Grail 'Mats fans have hankered after for decades. [Nov 2017, p.109]

10 elegantly rendered tracks, uncovering an intersection of The Clientele and Waxahatchee. [Jun 2023, p.91]

There are still instances of thrilling freneticism; a Scandinavian Deerhoof. But this LP is often more cleanly directional – less angular and full of unexpected calm, as with the sweet vocal/ guitar chimes on Bell. [Sep 2024, p.89]

Time Ain't Accidental has a blazing confidence. [Jul 2023, p.84]

On fire indeed. [May 2026, p.89]

Almost inevitably, Adore Life overcompensates, but in a good way. This is Savages' love album. [Feb 2016, p.91]

Every so often an album comes along that's so original it's difficult to accurately liken it to anything else--even Efterklang's last album, "Tripper," is left behind by Parades. [Nov 2007, p.106]

Atmospheric, reverbed beats that suggest indie boys who dance. [Feb 2013, p.98]

On all fronts, a nourishing listen. [May 2025, p.86]

An impressive debut. [Nov 2008, p.109]

The overall tone is one of forbearance rather than rabble-rousing provocation. [Mar 2015, p.100]

Piano and guitars soar vertiginously; lyrics are bittersweet or pleasingly surreal. [Apr 2013, p.98]

Decidedly bolder than 2016's Ellipsis, it is an album that revels in subverting expectations. [Jun 2020, p.88]

The finest track is Lukas's high tenor take on George Harrison's All Things Must Pass, a hymn to wisdom and humility its timelessness reinforced as a country song. [Jan 2022, p.82]

The Belair Lip Bombs exude the simple joy of being in a band, breezing out of your speakers without affectation. [Dec 2025, p.82]

A deft pop nous and palpable devotion to his influences ensures each experiment really works. [Aug 2013, p.96]

Lanegan brings dependable authenticity to these savvy pop songs; dire admonitions, but also an abundance of swagger and fun. [Nov 2019, p.94]

This never feels thrown-together, which is some achievement. Instead, the album feels like one to spend ample amounts of time with as you travel its far-flung corners as it reaches for the stars. [Feb 2021, p.84]

This most thrillingly deathly of bands remains alive. [Dec 2024, p.90]

The teen delivers poetic social realism. [Nov 2012, p.90]

Been Around has heart, soul, a voice and tunes to die for, an early highlight of 2020. [Feb 2020, p.90]

One of the albums of the year. [Dec 2006, p.120]

Crackling with radio-primed hooks, whipsnap breakbeats and Boucher’s helium-pitched vocals, Grimes’ third album makes a convincing strike for playlist ubiquity, with a healthy dollop of the oddball chucked in.

Landing On A Hundred is a strong comeback that hopefully won't be followed by another decade of silence. [Dec 2012, p.84]

Colossal. [Apr 2025, p.85]

Whitley's is an unconventional neo-soul debut. [Apr 2013, p.98]

The rest is equally compelling, oscillating between eccentric skronk essays, woozy nocturnes, and harmonic hymns. It's jazz shorn of cliche that demands to be taken on its pigeonhole rebuffing merits. [Mar 2010, p.92]

Her lyrics draw you in, as she explores the chemistry of attraction on the title track to an appropriately sexy descending chord sequence, while a fly-by-night lover gets his comeuppance on Easy Street. [Oct 2018, p.84]

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

Merrick's smoke-ring vocals rarely become agitated; the lyrics are unforced, unadorned, conversational to the point of artlessness. ... Yet there is tension here, lurking in the disconnect between Merrick's nonchalant vocals and the simmering volatility of the music. [Apr 2022, p.82]

[An] Extraordinary album. [Apr 2022, p.92]

Songs build from hypnotic bass grooves and spindly guitar lines, Lottie Pendlebury's nonchalant vocals intertwined with circular countermelodies that pull you into their undertow. Lyrically deft and witty. [Mar 2021, p.82]