Viet Cong aren't quite home yet, but they're getting there. [Mar 2015, p.100]

There's a crystalline gorgeousness in the production, too, that takes it out of homage territory and into a rarefied league that most recently recalls The War On Drugs. [Oct 2014, p.88]

Occasionally remarkable, American Twilight is a timely reminder of the instinctive songwriting that a certain other, more feted southern gothic Melbournian has sometimes mislaid. [May 2013, p.95]

There are moments of a chamber ensemble compactness and clarity, but at times it all gets suspended in and blurred b clouds of ambience. [Jun 2016, p.95]

The album is packed with sunny tunes which carry a '60s and '70s feel, but Prewitt never coasts. [July 2002, p.104]

Twelve years after the band split, it's immensely reassuring to hear Forster deliver lines only he could have written in his bruised, laconic, declamatory tone...

A wealth of gorgeous melodies and hallucinogenic kitchen-sink orchestrations. [Dec 2001, p.98]

Sounds like an all-girl early Beastie Boys.... The politics, though, are somewhat sounder. [May 2003, p.99]

The big tunes--Push Upstairs, King of Snake, Born Slippy--are brasher and more powerful, and while the studio subtleties evaporate, they are replaced by thundering rock-n-roll energy and even wilder streams of lyrical consciousness.

Possessed of hazily catchy and irresistible choruses, the end result is an endearingly affectionate blend of radio-friendly AOR and homely indie-rock touches anchoring their grand pop to something human. [Mar 2008, p.106]

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

Master of genre purity in R&B, Country and folk, Knopfler shapes each style to his own purpose and personality. [Oct 2012, p.83]

The album certainly sounds fresh and is hallmarked by Spigel's knack of shaping memorable pop melodies out of a few notes or chords. [Dec 2012, p.85]

Wilson's Raven can sound magpie-like--with jazz-rock joining the classical prog references--but tunes as lovely as Drive Home or the slow-burning title track remind you that he has a vision that's all his own. [Apr 2013, p.94]

Relic sounds like an album that could have been recorded in the last 50 years. [Aug 2014, p.89]

Plangent retro charm. [Jul 2015, p.89]

Eldritch psych-folk that recalls Meg Baird's work in Espers. [Jul 2018, p.98]

Melds the LA band's sonic fuzz with mellifluous recent LPs, sombre dispatches, ambient and wistful pop. [May 2019, p.96]

It's wholly bewitching. [Jul 2019, p.90]

With its transforming moods and quiet beauty, Stars Are The Light might just be Moon Duo's finest to date. [Oct 2019, p.83]

A well-constructed, unselfconsciously retro set. [Apr 2020, p.96]

Witty and moving, somewhere an indie movie needs this as a soundtrack. [Dec 2021, p.85]

Lux Æterna [is] a prime example of 72 Seasons' astonishing vigour. ... Metallica are worthy again. [Jul 2023, p.82]

If the crackle of original Dylan electrifies Marshall's voice, she finds her own phrasing, both robust and reverent, as she ringmasters Ballad Of A Thin Man's mystic forces, or brings a limpid empathy to Like A Rolling Stone. [Dec 2023, p.92]

[These 14 jazz-pop miniatures offset whimsical structures and playful flaws with sharp hooks. [Dec 2024, p.94]

It works beautifully, the band gently distorting their songwriting surfaces wit sudden psychedelic sun-spots and experimental flares. [Dec 2025, p.81]

The material is of consistently luminous order. [Oct 2007, p.90]

The gleeful exuberance of Hey Venus! finds the band refreshed.... If Hey Venus! lacks anything, it's the thumping-heart centerpiece that made SFA's early records so special. [Sep 2007, p.108]

What Dylan gives us in these recordings is something of a sentimental memoir.

A gentle, spartan album overflowing with straight-forward songs and harmony vocals, which evoke Emmylou Harris as much as Margo Price. [May 2025, p.87]

It's a classic soul album, its strength lying in Fields' gift for storytelling and his extraordinary delivery. [Apr 2012, p. 86]

Vocally she delivers, Southern fried and passionate. But the songs, ever diverse, lack shape. [Aug 2015, p.98]

For the most part, this is soothing, circular psychedelia with added depth, warmth and texture. [Feb 2018, p.93]

The law school drop-pout is at his analytical best here. [Jan 2013, p.93]

Almost impossible to replicate in the studio, this is the level of energy and conviction which drives the album as newly buoyant Thompson discovers his second wind. Scintillating. [Sep 2010, p.93]

A noteworthy comeback. [Feb 2018, p.94]

This latest doesn't noticeably monkey with their formula, and with good reason. [Dec 2015, p.93]

Les Savy Fav hunker down to return to what they do best: a masterful combination of post-hardcore energy, tight white funk and playful art-school abstractions. [Oct 2010, p.104]

Peripatetic post-Americana quintet release their Yankee Hotel Foxtrot. [July 2011, p. 104]

What they [Sun Araw & M Geddes Gengras with the Congos] produced is startling and unique. [May 2012, p.89]

This radiantly executed effort is also, curiously, Childish Gambino's most anonymous. [Feb 2017, p.92]]

He sublimates his playing to the whole throughout, his swerving tones and arching lines ducking and diving through cracks in the strings. [Jan 2019, p.88]

One seriously heavyweight record, even by Boris' far-reaching standards. [Sep 2017, p.92]

A kaleidoscopic funfair of angloid psychedelia, baroque folk-pop and open-minded sonic exploration. [Mar 2005, p.96]

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]

Although still rooted in rockabilly terra firma, with cameos from the likes of Nashville groovester Aaron Lee Tasjan, McPherson's horizon has never sounded so open. [Nov 2017, p.102]

Nutty as Emotional Mugger is, it's a joyful trip. [Feb 2016, p.91]

Led by spectral-voiced dreamer Jannis Makrigiannis, they have made a desolately pretty debut, its tangible, space and reverb-worn expansiveness conjuring vast Nordic skies. [Dec 2009, p. 92]

It's a warm and heartfelt album. [May 2018, p.97]

He calls his style 'slavishly copying,' we know it better as sweet soul. [July 2008, p.108]

Uneasy listening at its ghost-in-the-machine best. [Apr 2011, p.104]

Like all the best dreams. [Oct 2011, p.100]

He achieves a delectable balance between affecting and creepy. [Nov 2012, p.85]

O'Donovan has a fragile, heart-melting voice and is a fine songwriter. [Sep 2013, p.88]

A debut both thrillingly volatile and touchingly melancholic. [Jan 2017, p.104]

Achieved what they wanted: Mariah Carey scaling dramatic peaks on Somewhat loved (There You Go Breakin' My Heart); Babyface recrowned the king of quiet storm on He Don't Know Nothin' Bout It, and Usher, the love doctor, all breathy and hot on Do It Yourself. [Oct 2021, p.95]

Modern country-funk jams packed with slick guitar licks, springy basslines and endless hooks. [Mar 2022, p.90]

Live At Berkeley 1971 powers through it all – relentless, often overwrought, often brilliant, too. [Jun 2023, p.99]

A slightly more cohesive album - a complement to 1978's Comes A Time rather than a first take, perhaps. [Apr 2025, p.97]

["This Is How We Make Our Dreams Come True" is] one misfire in a never-predictable and constantly shapeshifting and imaginative album. [Jan 2026, p.85]

'Love Runs Deeper' is vintage Buckingham soft rock, while the barmy title track recalls the new wave-inspired weirdness of 'Tusk.' [Nov 2008, p.118]

RTZ is a must for Six Organs fans and anyone interested in what has since been termed "nu weird folk." [Mar 2009, p.123]

This is an album of easeful warmth, the sound of an ever restless, exploratory musician coming home. [Jul 2013, p.94]

While subsequent albums have traced the faultlines of parenthood, until now on the exquisite Sun On he Square, their teenage kids are leaving home. Everywhere, Peris notes absence. [Aug 2018, p.94]

With its meticulous ebb and flow, Time Is Glass is best approached in a single sitting. [May 2024, p.86]

His most impressive skill is echoing the laid-back charm of Bill Withers and the melodic instincts of Stevie Wonder. [Dec 2006, p.104]

It's got real presence. [Jan 2018, p.88]

Anthropocene is rich with stark beauty and wry smiles hidden among Oren's observations of "billboard signs touring God's designs," and "the Bible belt taking to itself all night on the FM waves." [Jan 2018, p.90]

It doesn't all work; but when it does, it's wonderfully widescreen. [Jun 2018, p.96]

Relying on her exquisitely malleable voice, slickly inventive production tics, and winning vocal support from south London's Sampha and Tanzania's Diamond Platnumz, among others. [Nov 2020, p.80]

Faun Fables do gothic folk with admirable vigour and this is incontrovertible force of nature. [Jan 2011, p.104]

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

The 13 numbers they've chosen are sung with respect and restraint. And beautifully. [Mar 2013, p.96]

There are moments where the duo sounds unfortunately like Muse. Yet for the largest part, this collection of tightly wound, riff-oriented rock makes for an exciting debut. [Oct 2014, p.90]

Even if it's not quite the Pretenders, it's good to have Chrissy Hynde back. [Nov 2016, p.86]

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

Evoking cinematic cliches is almost unavoidable on a mutant, spirited debut whose diversity is its greatest asset. [Mar 2014, p.95]

[James Jackson Toth] fleshes out more whiskey-warmed, heart-sore folk with flashes of humour. [Feb 2013, p.98]

[An] intriguing debut. [Sep 2005, p.103]

This is a truly freeflowing masterpiece that stands shoulder to shoulder with Mos Def's 'Black On Both Sides.'

A quirky yet coherent whole. [May 2002, p.97]

If rock'n'roll is supposed to be dying, then these are exactly the guys we want manning the emergency room. [Aug 2001, p.98]

For every aching melodic twist and sagacious lyric, there's a lumpy, sub-Beach Boys dirge and dicing-with-doggerel couplet to negotiate. [Mar 2003, p.103]

Their patchwork approach to psychedelia recalls the shoestring ingenuity of cult mid-'90s act Neutral Milk Hotel. [Jan 2005, p.104]

Rivers is a record that will haunt you long after you've heard it. [Sep 2010, p.99]

The next must-have pastoral American sensation, from Oklahoma.[Sep 2011, p.97]

The trio blow out the cobwebs with their relentless blasts of heavy metal sax/bass/drums power. [Feb 2014, p.98]

We Move is warm, slick and modernist. [Oct 2016, p.96]

It's their slickest yet. [Feb 2012, p.99]

Among many highlights, the best and brightest is the Guided By Voices-do-Status Quo elation of Box Batteries, an elegy for youth designed to live forever. [Jun 2015, p.88]

Haunting, unsettling hybrid. [Jul 2020, p.83]

The occasional slo-mo reverb-guitar twang, and on The Answers To The Questions a weary beatbox, cap off a supremely unsettling update on Lynchian pop weirdness. [Sep 2024, p.92]

He transforms the bi-hearted bop of randy Weston's Little Niles into a plaintive musical love letter that, like much of what surrounds it, demands repeated listens. [May 2011, p.108]

Blending gargantuan, rack-stretched riffs with corrupted kosmische synth drones, spectral vocals and unyielding, relentless drums, the alchemical result [Oro: Opus Primus] is the heaviest form of psyche-doom space rock. [Jul 2012, p.85]

This is a very organic, modern album. And it's brilliant. [Mar 2014, p.93]

Negrito transcends his influences to create a new kind of hip, gritty, thought-provoking urban musical currency. [Sep 2020, p.83]

Any sketchiness only adds to the impressionistic atmospheres that the musicians create. [Apr 2018, p.93]

Doesn't quite hit home. ... Letting loose more might have benefited the flow. [Mar 2020, p.95]