Valerie call this "organic moonshine roots music"--it's the perfect phrase to sum up her glorious sound. [Jul 2013, p.88]

Another weighty addition to this first-choice list. [Dec 2015, p.91]

A bewitching record. [Aug 2006, p.96]

To some, Hurts lugubrious, gruff delivery might jar with the LP, but it's entirely intentional--they cast the beauty and simplicity of the melodies into even sharper relief. [Oct 2011, p.96]

Their latest band, captured on Live Forever in full electric flow. [Jun 2026, p.84]

Martin Phillips was, and is, a singular songwriter, whose unassuming delivery belied songs of psychological depth and complexity. [Dec 2014, p.89]

The brothers have recorded an album that goes to the heart of who they are. [Jul 2026, p.80]

Exquisitely intimate; the kind of emotionally articulate record Karen Carpenter might have made had she lived longer and fully discovered her own writing voice. [Feb 2024, p.87]

Shulamith proves that intelligent pop music still has the ability to seduce and enthrall. [Dec 2013, p.86]

Vibes, instrumental and psychic, are crucial to Angeles' reverberant keys or redemptive LP coda, Pigs. [Apr 2021, p.88]

While some of its more indulgent elements may not be to all tastes, his scale of ambition and dazzling audacity should be applauded. [Apr 2025, p.76]

Self-produced and tracked with manifest passion and finesse. [Apr 2016, p.94]

Beneath the surface sheen, Resistance Is Futile is a complex, multi-layer work. [May 2018, p.88]

Dense of riff and melody but not crassly anthemic, their sledgehammer euphoria is Kyuss gone monster trucking. [Dec 2010, p.97]

Most are country ballads--sentimental, heartfelt and tend towards sacred. [Apr 2009, p.109]

The core idea brings a bright focus and forward movement to their gummy, ambrosial stoner sound, adding bright melody and fairytale zing to these end-of-summer tales of beachbound escape and smalltown torpor. [Nov 2009, p.101]

This second is more sophisticated [than 2018 debut Sistahs]; distorted guitars still feedback and synths jar, but there is also mellotron, violin and Omnichord bringing subtlety and depth. [Dec 2022, p.91]

In just any universe, Playing Favorites would dominate the world's FM stations for two years straight. [Apr 2024, p.84]

The pace plods on some mid-tempo tracks, but overall this is a personal, politically-charged mix of dark thoughts and good vibes. [Aug 2019, p.88]

The 52-minute suite was mostly recorded live, as Ray vamps, beautifully as always, through shivery glades of country blues, girl-group drama and Link Wray throb: this time around, she dwells at the shadowy end of the street, with less room for levity. [Jul 2016, p.93]

Brilliant! Tragic! soars on the crumbling wings of an Adverts-brand art-punk and Argos's much-improved bellow. [Jun 2011, p.96]

The tribute album of the year, a cavalcade of orch-pop joy, an object lesson in songwriting smarts. [Dec 2003, p.106]

This is music for interiors, sequestered days in tune with the beauty of our immediate surroundings. [Dec 2020, p.85]

No more the quieter introspection and reflection of solo tracks like Hormones or Fever Dream – here Thorn and Watt are a combined force, capturing the giddy euphoria and release of the club experience.

The shared predilection for sub-Saharan styles is implicit, if not obscure, across Let It Be You's 10, expansively produced essays. [Nov 2016, p.89]

Kasabian have always talked a great album, but Velociraptor! sees them deliver with verve and imagination. [Oct 2011, p.94]

Their fusion of Franklin James Fisher's gospel howl and post-industrial beats has grown into something searing and infernal. [Feb 2020, p.90]

Goes West feels invigoratingly sunny. [Feb 2019, p.84]

She's still the bedsit heartbreak queen for pop fans of a certain age. [Jul 2026, p.83]

An album that can only add to her legend. [May 2007, p.112]

This sensational follow-up finds Glasper adhering to the same basic blueprint [as the first Black Radio], though this time he's tweaked it to perfection. [Dec 2013, p.86]

Katy J Pearson's second album heralds few radical stylistic shifts, but showcases renewed confidence, intention and focus. [Aug 2022, p.86]

The Bros' songs mostly rollick on witrh the agreeably vaudevillian bonhomie of The Band, when not essaying gloom with swooningly lachrymose balladry. [June 2008, p.114]

From the gentle fire of the first, and title track, this is Green in the role of Love Man and in very fine form. [July 2008, p.100]

Delirious, danceable songs with emotional heft. [Dec 2022, p.89]

Winter Woma is something of a throwback but all the better for that. [Aug 2017, p.95]

Their signature tension between black blues gestures adn white boy harmonies has never been more vividly exploited than here. It'll keep you busy for months. [Jun 2003, p.95]

Shows[s] significant growth from 2023's more dream-poppy debut Erotic Probiotic 2. One senses this twisted R&B Baby Bird has even more in the locker. [Sep 2025, p.86]

Stellar noise pollution. [May 2003, p.99]

As M. Ward's unflustered, vintage-sounding guitars gift memories of Chet Atkins and Les Paul, there's a welcome, brandies-by-the fireside serenity afoot. [Jan 2012, p.92]

A record with a beauty and sense of emotional elevation to match the place where it was made. [Aug 2015, p.92]

A compelling, grimy darkness ripples throughout. [Nov 2020, p.82]

An urgent debut perfect for anyone grieving The Comet Is Coming's demise. [Aug 2024, p.90]

The acoustic demos in this forensic reissue lay bare Tweedy's raw hurt and beguiling melodies; alternative takes of the title song and I'm Always In Love show the sturdy bones of Wilco's early alt-country ideals. [Dec 2020, p.97]

The Dubliner's fourth album of original material is his most varied sonically, yet is perversely his least fussy, happy to let a simple melody be carried by his distinctively sweet, slightly prim diction. [Oct 2018, p.84]

An album that nails its subtle-but-tenacious hooks with dignity and maturity. [Nov 2004, p.94]

Boasting Dwyer's catchiest hooks yet. But Sorcs 80 is most alive when embracing its core weirdness. [Oct 2024, p.87]

If you like your teen dreams served a la Smokey Robinson And The Miracles, you'll find plenty to swoon along to here. And no nonsense. [Jan 2026, p.87]

His most complete artistic statement to date. [Dec 2019, p.93]

It's a good album, but the standout track is just him alone on Beograd, a swirling big-room French house track, where he is beautifully lost in the beats. [Dec 2019, p.93]

Linthicum's guitar adds texture and twang, as the interplay between the trio delivers their Plastic Bouquet close to country perfection. [Jan 2021, p.86]

It's really a nightmare world Oldham describes, but he cloaks it in tender beauty, slight-of-hand that remodels human failure into heartening endurance, a consoling story against the cold. [Dec 2019, p.88]

This is searching, quietly profound stuff. [Jun 2023, p.90]

A thick braid of an album, each song a bundle of strands interweaving with next. [May 2020, p.94]

What might be his [Zac Condon's] most beautiful record to date, particularly the instrumental numbers. [May 2025, p.88]

I'm Having Fun Now is a musical meeting of minds, sure, but more significantly it's continuing evidence of Lewis's rapid artistic evolution. [Dec 2010, p.98]

Whatever Royal Blood have surrendered in volume here, they have gained in new dimensions. [Jul 2017, p.89]

Unlike some other nu-folkies, this feels organic and unforced; one reason why her albums, and this in particular, have such resonance. [Jan 2010, p.92]

Sade has, as ever, fashioned an album that sounds both classic and current. [Mar 2010, p.91]

A resounding and concise restatement of core values. [Jun 2020, p.93]

Malin and Adams have managed to create a record whose fearless classicism is all part of the point. [Dec 2002, p.114]

A typically finely crafted slice of emotionally raw storytelling with an absolute peach if a guitar solo. [Aug 2015, p.93]

Instrumentally complex and inventive. [Nov 2001, p.98]

A rare (and improved) document of a more muscular Wings. [Aug 2024, p.99]

Although there are hints of his alter ego GLOK's textured electronics throughout, experimentation is evenly balanced with his love of '60s classicism. [Dec 2020, p.86]

As ever, his chord changes and arrangements betray an inventiveness seemingly borne of brilliant instinct. [Nov 2004, p.92]

Funky, playful but sinister like the best children's stories. [Jun 2005, p.98]

An album of gauzily reflective--but engrossingly atmospheric--pieces. [Nov 2005, p.108]

Stand Up blueprinted the sound that would carry Tull ringmaster Ian Anderson and his troupe through the next decade, [Dec 2016, p.105]

Fluid, cultured, but never wilfully indulgent, Days In The Desert refuses to sit still. [Sep 2023, p.89]

For anybody already smitten by Bombino or Group Doueh, this is a drop of the hard stuff. [Dec 2013, p.87]

Migraines possible; good chance of transcendence, too. [Apr 2020, p.96]

Dev Haynes' debut is a sinewy, surprising move for one steeped in metallic noise bridging semi-acoustic country rock and chamber folk with a folk-prog detour on the 10-minute centrepiece 'Midnight Surprise.' [Feb 2008, p.112]

Piroshka's debut album is propelled by forceful, driving garage songs that see off Brexit, the Daily Mail, and school shooters. [Mar 2019, p.91]

This bunch of Southend art school layabouts, constrastingly, really cut the mustard, kicking up a distinctively murky din. [Oct 2008, p.108]

Its overload of big-picture polemic, explosive virtuosity and tune-rich entertainment certainly takes some unpacking, yet is consistently thrilling. [Sep 2022, p.89]

Ever predictable, funny and imaginatively constructed, Viagr Aboys is a total gas. [Jun 2025, p.80]

This is an album that demands careful attention before its meanings and musing reveal themselves, blending apocalyptic visions with occluded celebration. [Sep 2009, p.91]

Its aim is true, uplifting and yes, mighty persuasive. [Mar 2024, p.80]

It dives into the UK's musical melting pot, blending reggae, hip-hop, Asian beats and dancefloor nous. [Jul 2017, p.93]

This is too much fun to be a one-off. [Apr 2024, p.82]

There is a levity to Uniform Distortion that differentiates it from all James's previous work. Indeed, work is the last thing it resembles. [Aug 2018, p.86]

There are some beauties here. [Aug 2015, p.91]

Heavy matter, but eminently danceable, too, thanks to some glorious playing and an adherence to the spirit of Kuti. [Oct 2017, p.95]

Their trademark bubblegum choruses are all reassuringly present, with a handful of songs here good enough to tough it out with anything on their early revered studio albums. [Dec 2025, p.83]

His albums are populated by characters, tall tales and true stories sung in that plain-dealing half-spoken voice that can bring to mind Tom Petty. ... Here we have a paean to Johnny Thunders. ... And to John The Baptist's son. ... And three separate songs about presidents. [Sep 2020, p.88]

Her most beautiful [music] in decades. [May 2023, p.87]

A companion piece, maybe, but these songs can stand alone. [Apr 2022, p.84]

It's in essence a wordless, monochrome Television. [May 2006, p.104]

In all, another most welcome Delivery from the Antipodes. [Feb 2025, p.84]

Scialfa's writing wipes away any celeb-gossip patina through the universality of convincing detail. [Oct 2007, p.92]

Man Alive is daisy-fresh, and reaching levels of unexpected bliss on the album's three ballads. [Sep 2010, p.99]

It's his most moving writing of his career. [Jul 2021, p.83]

Mapping the winding path of Chrissie and Jp's relationship as it came unstuck, Fidelity! is brave and tender, tingling and troubling the nerve-endings. [Dec 2010, p.98]

Their 14th release enschews improv for structure, its hulking grooves boosted by Melvins guitarist Buzz Osborne and the distinctive noir wail of new label boss Mike Patton. [Apr 2009, p.107]

Mulcahy is a heavy-duty Randy Newman for our times. [Jul 2019, p.95]

A low-key, highly engaging covers album. [Nov 2010, p.99]

At Weddings quickly coalesces into an utterly compelling presence. [Sep 2018, p.88]