This is Mastodon rediscovering both their edge and their emotional resonance. [May 2017, p.96]

There's peace and a wild purity to it. [May 2017, p.92]

On their best pastiches, the jokes land often enough, but you can't help yearning for something as perfectly-turned as Benny Hill's Ernie, or as ardently silly as John Shuttleworth's I Can't Go Back to Savoury Now. [Apr 2019, p.88]

This is Smoke Fairies' strongest, most urgent album to date. [Apr 2020, p.93]

The album's 12 intimate essays, described as "elegies as much as songs," feel like ghostly, poignant testaments to our times. [Mar 2022, p.86]

The second half - "a saucy, synth-heavy cabaret" - will undoubtedly lose a few fans, yet Rowland still manages to pull a gem out of the fire with the touching My Submission. [Aug 2023, p.78]

If there are times when their adherence to that sound suggest a country-rock Status Quo the fact they now fit like a pair of well-worn gloves is actually rather comforting. [Apr 2014, p.91]

Ritual Union feels like the point at which Little Dragon's lyrical stride finally gets in step with their musical ambition. [Aug. 2011, p. 93]

Richly textured percussion, thrumming nylon-string guitars, discreet electronics and sundry guest vocalists. [Jul 2005, p.105]

With an occasional propensity for mindless wigouts slightly curbed, it's windswept anthems a-go-go on their best album for years. [May 2017, p.96]

Special Moves/Burning might just serve as a fittingly monolithic monument to their work to date. [Sep 2010, p.98]

This is a powerful collection of contemporary battle hymns that rings out lie a well-needed musical call to arms for the 99 per cent. [Feb 2014, p.88]

Her beautifully compassionate songs are cradled in gentle, melodic arrangements from ever-inventive producer John Vanderslice. [Aug 2015, p.94]

The overall effect is usually on the right side of too much, the listener lifted up by Castle's wings. [Jan 2021, p.87]

The hit rate is high, and Mike Scott is clearly having fun cutting himself free from The Waterboys' past, and playing fast and loose - much like the mercurial subject of this album. [May 2025, p.88]

Comparatively standard tunes such as To And Fro prevent Strong Feelings from being an unconditional classic, but that's tantamount to dismissing Toronto's CN Tower as a bit pointy. [Feb 2014, p.91]

Even amid its fluffy ornamentation, producer Tucker Martine spikes the players' innately epic capabilities with a puritan elixir. The rewards are considerable. [Jun 2015, p.84]

Think more of pastoral My Morning Jacket or Irish superstar-in-waiting James Vincent McMorrow and their keening, introspective-yet-expansive songs. [Mar 2013, p.96]

It's a giddy, breathless swirl of different sounds and styles. [Dec 2016, p.91]

So unlike "Raw & Alive" by The Seeds, say there's no need for overdubbed excitement here, just the Noughties' most smokin' rock'n'roll act, on breathtaking form. [Apr 2010, p.96]

Cornershop's Midlands-Asian mainspring, looks back to the homeland with an album joyously sung all in Punjabi. [Apr 2011, p.100]

None of these songs sound like they took too long to write or record, but her appeal lies in how, despite her off-the-cuff vibe, she often hits the bullseye or happens upon something enamouring. [Jun 2016, p.93]

Songs packed with breathless synth and guitar drama, yet still sounding deceptively simple. [Oct 2017, p.98]

It's not much different (from their first album), and that's no bad thing with Holly Golightly and Lawyer Dave's self-produced duets recalling Leadbelly and Jimmy Reed, as well as the gospel recordings of Loretta Lynn and Nancy & Lee. [Nov 2008, p.109]

At its best, though, The Sea is not just honest and cathartic, but jaw-dropping - and a difficult call for any critic. [Feb 2010, p. 93]

She has the same jagged, enchanting sensuality as Bjork. [Mar 2012, p.103]

Vivid flamenco guitar burnishes a confessional Scots brogue. A beauty. [Oct 2013, p.98]

It's unequivocally the guitarist's most cohesive and satisfying artistic statement yet. [Oct 2014, p.91]

Kwabs' effortless ability to glide through genres and attract ungrudging royal endorsements will, one suspects, give his moving debut serious legs. [Oct 2015, p.96]

It's great credit to both Lund and his versatile backing bad, The Hurtin' Albertans, that such see-sawing through genres can sound so much like a singular piece of work. [Dec 2015, p.93]

While their writhing, panic-driven noise never fails to excite, sustained across an entire album it makes for an enervating, overwhelming listen, and its hard to discern what substance might lie beneath their bristling, steely carapace. [Dec 2017, p.94]

Kingdoms In Colour is a bright, pan-global musical jaunt delivered as a glitter cannon explosion. [Oct 2018, p.87]

Terms Of Surrender presents a man sinking on the edges but bullishly so, not countenancing change. The effect is disquieting, uncomfortable, especially with Aaron Dessner's sumptuous production giving these songs a contrastingly romantic sheen. [Oct 2019, p.83]

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]

Rainbow is bleak. [Jun 2023, p.105]

Parts & Labor have made their best album yet. [Apr 2011, p.95]

Geographic's signature--naive oreintal pop meets introverted occidental indie--is bewitchingly realised here in 12 gossamer songs. [Nov 2009, p.101]

Her relaxed experimentation is more inviting than hearing Longstreth grind his axe. [Aug 2017, p.92]

There was much brooding menace and acoustic industrial, and things have not developed significantly. [May 2015, p.99]

Protest music that doesn't protest too much -- a music with such a joy and wit to its outrage that it acquires a universality beyond its subject matter. [Nov 2001, p.98]

This assiduously produced package is a thrilling summary of Sigur Ros, the first 14 years. [Dec. 2011 pg. 95]

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]

It's Kuroda's interplay with singer/trombonist Corey King, sharp riffs and lithe, streetwise solos that hold sway. [Nov 2020, p.85]

Their shortest statement yet, offering seven songs in 34 minutes, with a stripped-down, countrified focus. [Feb 2022, p.91]

Gira's seventh solo outing finds his sardonic-toned vocals little changed however, and lyrically, if he's not "walking through fire," he's asserting the "the scars still remain." So no change there. [Nov 2007, p.104]

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

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

While such songs can be taken on a simple level as a promise between two lovers, like so much great soul music, tghere's a sense that Black Pumas, responding to the current mood of division and fear, are providing a what-the-world-needs-now- is-love message. [Jul 2019, p.90]

So does the pairing work? The answer, from the first, strutting beats of Modern Guilt's opener, 'Orphans,' is a gleaming Yes. [Aug 2008, p.104]

A beautiful waste of time. [Sep 2005, p.88]

This is mostly an album about England, about hearts beating wild and strong through wind whipped, rain-lashed, solace-in-introspection northern living. [May 2009, p.97]

This misfires more than its hits home. [June 2008, p.108]

Murphy has smartly subverted the dancefloor diva image, and these songs come from the uncanny valley, android beauty not quite hiding their off-centre menace. [Aug 2016, p.98]

It's on the Mellencamp/Carter duets Indigo Sunset and the tough, self-questioning What Kind Of Man Am I that it all shifts up a gear. [Jun 2017, p.93]

Tennessee roots rockers ease off the barroom brawl piano blues for a more reflective, more modern sound. [Sep 2018, p.96]

These 10 compact songs work both as intimate affirmation of Jurado's current brilliance and a hushed elegy for his too-soon-departed friend. [Jun 2019, p.89]

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

These are big themes that provoke corresponding emotions. [May 2021, p.87]

It's good: at times dreamily pensive, at others a kind of psychedelic prog, layered, sophisticated and melodic. [Apr 2022, p.83]

The music that wraps around the concept is never boring and much of it is excellent....What's lacking is the nailed-on megatune--a "Clint Eastwood" or "Feel Good Inc"--that we've come to expect from a Gorillaz album. [Apr 2010, p.99]

Blessed with impeccable musical bone structure, nearly everything suits them. [Nov 2012, p.88]

This is music for smarter dancefloors. [Mar 2021, p.89]

When ghost-dub closer bathed In Grey plumbs its valedictory depths and suggests a young Matt Johnson, the loose-but-precise whole seems starkly impressive. [Oct 2013, p.87]

The album's exemplary and diverse array of toothsome guitar sonics helps, but more crucial still is yer Hawks; oh-so-distinctive vocal harmony blend. [Jun 2016, p.96]

If any art is currently encapsulating the sense of "wrongness" abroad in our land, this is it. [Dec 2018, p.82]

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

More deliciously downbeat analog instrumentals. [Feb 2015, p.96]

Here the formula is still fresh and potent, with punchy production, twisting song structures and sweeping choruses. [Feb 2017, p.96]

The 12 songs here are mostly wild, loud, anarchic and irreverent but hardly ever subdued. [Feb 2017, p.96]

Stream of realpolitik consciousness lyrics come leavened by a synthetic, dancefloor-wise production. [Jun 2017, p.95]

This is as back to basics as it gets. ... Highlights: Baby Please Don't Go, Sundown Blues and a truly broken-sounding take on Heartbreak Hotel. [Oct 2018, p.93]

If these tracks often sound like bejewelled, undiscovered relics then much of that is down to the tough musical palimpsest on which Bratten worked. [Aug 2019, p.93]

Her eerie, seductive first solo outing takes your brain to a new plane. [Sep 2019, p.93]

The whole soundtrack comes downbeat, mum-like fusion of standard instruments and glitchy electronics run throughout all the atmospheric instrumentals. [Sep 20129, p.89]

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

This is fresh, contemporary American music and Dion's throat is still golden despite the mileage. [Aug 2020, p.91

Three long, meditative ideals of 49-note microtonal singing. [Dec 2020, p.89]

Packs ear-worms and dulcet vocal harmonies galore. [Mar 2021, p.86]

Shades of Harry Nilsson and the odd splash of Allman Brothers-like lead guitars further distinguish this one-man band outing. [Jul 2021, p.84]

Amid the chaos, some rare calm and solace from Emmylou Harris's favourite rhythm guitarist. [Sep 2021, p.78]

The nine tracks sound pleasingly out of step with contemporary norms. [Feb 2022, p.91]

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

25 tracks of faux-Brill Building candy, corn and echo-laden chaos with linernotes by Richie Unterberger worthy of a PhD thesis. It is also an essential, at times wickedly delightful‚ corrective to the habitual dismissals of this era, Reed’s included. [Nov 2024, p.96]

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]

This time, this sound pitches harder and faster between the troubled and te transcendent, the mystical and the physical, but Greentea Peng is still dispensing powerful medicine. [May 2025, p.85]

Tribal, jazzy, at times doom-laden, After The Flood is undoubtedly the darkest moment in Kuepper's long and storied career. [May 2025, p.89]

There are effortless covers of Bo Diddley (Dearest Darling) and Slim Harpo (Got Love If You Want It), but mostly it's Childish's own back-catalogue that is mined and re-imagined here. [Jan 2026, p.82]

It's frequently beautiful psych-pop songs throb with a gentle electronic pulse. [May 2026, p.93]

A transporting, densely layered record which retains a certain lyrical opacity. [Mar 2020, p.89]

A thought-provoking, welcome addition to the cosmic jazz uprising. [Apr 2019, p.94]

There are moments of real beauty, and Air may well prick up the ears of film producers looking for new scoring talent, but as a listening experience in itself, it's often heavy-going. [Jul 2022, p.90]

As Ever, they're at their best when Amy Millan and Torquil Campbell trade vocal lines. [Aug 2022, p.92]

The result is a thrilling excursion, possessing an otherworldly ambience and substance you'll spend months decoding, every spin yielding something new. [Aug 2017, p.88]

They do an excellent if eccentric job of evoking the pixelated ineffability of, well, existence itself. [Apr 2021, p.86]

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

[Wayne Coyne's] prolix tendencies have been stripped down into sombre considerations of lust, mortality and universal chaos. [May 2013, p.87]

Oui LSF remains firmly in the group's idiosyncratic wheelhouse, equally foregrounding their bristling dissonance and acerbic pop flourishes. [Jun 2024, p.90]

The repetitive refrains and orchestral interventions of Lil' Beethoven are developed with the judicious use of rock guitar into something bigger, yet just as beguiling. [Feb 2006, p.90]