These 10 tracks showcase Brewis's beautifully expressive singing and, in the waltz-time jazz of Start Over, deep empathy. [Mar 2023, p.91]

Beal's vocals shift from Screaming Jay Hawkins wails to the lo-fi R&B melancholy of Cody ChesnuTT, while his chattering snake times rhythms summon up the ghosts of Moondog and Sun Ra, taking things to another level entirely. [Jun 2012, p.83]

This is possibly the most remarkable album Finn has been involved with in a decade. [Oct 2011, p.99]

Packed with songs that tug imperceptibly at the heartstrings, Odyssey runs the gamut from introspection and melancholy to hope and deep joy. It will take some beating. [Nov 2024, p.90]

At 70, he's still as intense and dangerous as all hell. [Oct 2013, p.95]

Welcome echoes include Bramah's sinister, cogent non sequiturs and the contorted, sharp-edged rock sounds, and the urgent to interpret everything as a reference to MES becomes flesh with the spectral/beefy Harlequin Duke. [Jul 2023, p.85]

It sets the same intense listening pace as XTC, Jim O'Rourke or second-act Black Country, New Road. Amid the coiled violence (In The Blink Of An Eye) and brutalist romance (One Night) lie moments of pastoral loveliness. [May 2026, p.86]

Like its closest Amos siblings, Scarlet Walk (2002) and American Doll Posse (2007, it's far from immediate, but the delayed gratification reaps rewards aplenty. [Jun 2026, p.86]

Resolve puts her comfortably on par with neo-classical giant Nils Frahm, Max Richter and Hauschka. [Mar 2018, p.93]

The pair's musical chemistry is a potent one. [May 2021, p.78]

The result is intelligent pop infested with tense, subterranean melodies. [Jan 2012, p.91]

Removed from the living artist, it may one day be hailed as a great album. [Apr 2020, p.88]

This successor is strings-free, but goes further still [than 2014's This Is My Hand]. [Apr 2019, p.94]

Highly politicised, yet leavened with deft vocal harmony and potent melodies, the album drips with passion and thoughtfully targeted ire. [Oct 2007, p. 90]

Amid all the bleakness and despair, Goulden emerges as a true shining light. [May 2018, p.92]

Miami's best tracks remain (twisted) dancefloor friendly. [Apr 2013, p.95]

Its 13 songs are mostly slow but diverse. ... Sometimes sentimental, sung in a dusty voice that still sounds strong. [Oct 2022, p.90]

The dynamic range of Elvin Suite--Part 1 and 2--composed by Watts and fellow legend Jim Keltner--proves that drummers can do more than bang on things. [Jul 2017, p.92]

Green Day are admirably assured, honest, and funny on Saviors. [Mar 2024, p.82]

A record out of time, and, in terms of quality, out of this world. [Jul 2018, p.91]

Rarely has any modern band made The Difficult Third Album sound so breezy... [May 2001, p.96]

Jambu captures Belem's delirious party spirit in full swing. [Aug 2019, p.108]

The old stomp is still here, but Alabama has stoked The Black Keys' dark side. [June 2010, p. 93]

Spry and spontaneous sounding. [Sep 2015, p.87]

There’s little that disappoints here, even after Jack’s parting of ways with Meg to plot a solo course.

Through it all, Metheny’s sole medium is a guitar built by luthier extraordinaire Linda Manzer. Thanks to his cloistered affair with the instrument, everybody wins. [Aug 2024, p.89]

Many of these sessions trump the original album versions. [Mar 2005, p.100]

A classic Fannies record with scant regard for prescribed notions of cool. [Jun 2005, p.104]

The Silver Globe leaving no doubt that she is amongst today's most striking sonic auteurs. [Nov 2014, p.99]

The resulting work is an entrancing inner space voyage through shapeshifter drones and radiant electronic nebulae. [Feb 2017, p.96]

A serious set that delivers on his promise. [Dec 2014, p.93]

[ORO: Opus Alter] is more startling than the first [Oro: Opus Primum]. [Nov 2012, p.96]

If the initial listening experience challenges, long-term exposure unfurls Instrumental Tourist's full beauty. [Jan 2013, p.91]

Infectious, propulsive, unselfconscious, The Dodos are good enough to keep such company [as Brian Eno or David Byrne]. [Aug 2008, p.106]

Encouraged by the hazy presence of co-producer Jim James, few traces remain of his previous wood-chopping ruggedness, the singer holing up with a saucerful of secrets for Homecoming, or raising inertia to an art-form on Another Day’s time-lapse blur.

It fits easily alongside Daptone's funky analogue repertoire. [Feb 2012, p.110]

What makes it great is something else - an energy and a vibe that give the strange sensation you're there with them. [Oct 2022, p.84]

What might be Morrison's best album since 1991’s Hymns To The Silence. [Jul 2025, p.88]

[It is] a testament to Hunter's ongoing vim. [Sep 2009, p.96]

This portrait of the artist might be a gloomy, oppressive one but it’s grimly fascinating nevertheless.

Providence Canyon is one of those brilliantly timeless albums that could have been lost in someone's dusty attic for decades. [Aug 2018, p.93]

Unabashed clever buggers, their seventh is where Water From Your Eyes let their hearts rule, and it's a glorious sound. [Oct 2025, p.86]

It's moving, cathartic and achieves new levels of sophistication. [Jun 2020, p.94]

Wednesday sound in total control of the world they've build here. [Nov 2025, p.85]

The compelling, all-instrumental 39-minute studio performance remains recognisably a Field Music creation. [Aug 2015, p.94]

With production cash lavished on them, the songs lustre anew. [Dec 2025, p.84]

Bowie's best album for 20 years. [Oct 2003, p.104]

Never tumbles into dissonance. Rather, tracks like the Reichian round of Rytmy shimmer like heat haze on the horizon. [Jun 2023, p.95]

Primitives finds him channeling the celestial overlaid vocals of AnCo, Toro Y Moi's soaring gauzy electronic pop, the live, looping sample techniques of tUnE-yArDs and D.D. Dumbo, and even Steve Reich's shuddering, percussive experiments in repetition--with charming results. [Dec 2016, p.93]

Ambitious, complex, raging and poetic. a testament to the possibilities of thrash. [Dec 2018, p.103]

Heartrendingly eerie. [Jan 2018, p.91]

Save a few saggy, meh0ish collaborations mining genres, this sparky yet spiritual blend of bum-rushing hard bangers and deep soul dives further underscores his three-dimensional star quality. [Feb 2020, p.86]

Constant hitmaker or beautiful waste of time: like all great alchemists, Kurt Vile proves you can be both. [May 2022, p.87]

Another electrifying statement of unrest from the underground. [Nov 2006, p.118]

Blend anarcho-punk speed rush with the paranoid crash of industrial rock--ticking programmed drums, frantic guitars, creepy crawl vocals. [Feb 2019, p.93]

If Come Closer occasionally strays into the arena of techno-hippy (admittedly a compliment on the siren-squall of Ring The Alarm), the duo provide enough incentives to keep you there quite happily for a while. [Jun 2026, p.90]

What Yes, I'm A Witch proves, above all else, is that the world is at last catching up with Ono. [Mar 2007, p.92]

Hey Rose is a bright, infectious opener, but elsewhere Little offers darker and more reflective material. [Mar 2020, p.92]

Greta Morgan's expressive range goes creamy and detached on hazy pop-psych. [Dec 2014, p.102]

Hersh still transmits a visionary quality through her songs, her writing only adding to the sense of compulsion. [Dec 2013, p.88]

A singer-songwriter back at the peak of her powers. [Apr 2020, p.94]

This just might be their best work in 25 years. [Jan 2013, p.92]

Siamese Dream is full of bombastic romanticism and undiminished power. [Feb 2012, p.108]

There's still some beautifully glacial music....but now, occasionally, the Arctic exploration party becomes simply a party. [Aug 2008, p.103]

Magnificently unsanitised ramalams in the shape of Please Come In and BFIOU. [Aug 2021, p.88]

Akpro's narcotic melodies grip tight as dubby bass lines (played by Akpro) probe alongside loping beats, flickering embers of guitar, saxophone haze and the singer's sultry delivery. [Jul 2025, p.80]

This compilation is a reminder of the stillness and quiet power at the heart of his frank, softly sung confessional, of Smith's talent as an arranger and multi-instrumentalist, and of his able, Paul Simon-like finger-picking style. [Dec 2010, p.114]

Ane Brun has never before sounded so alive.[March 2012, p.98]

An album that's warm, honest, awash with tuneage, never corny, and really rather marvellous. [Jun 2018, p.95]

Pissed Jeans' fist-pumping tunes, thrilling noise and acidic wit ensure their permanent bummer is always a good time. [Apr 2024, p.87]

Pig Lib is full of as many little mysteries as it is revelations. [Apr 2003, p.91]

An album as confrontational and consistent as Public Enemy's Apocalypse '91. [Feb 2002, p.93]

This is a more expansive, rococo production than Callahan's Dream River. [May 2014, p.91]

Big, beautiful new record. [Aug 2018, p.94]

The title track, inspired by the band's current motto, is a powerful evocation of The Strokes going electro, while Path Of Most Resistance taps a kooky, Devo-ish guitar hook. If Your gym playlist needs refreshing, look no further. [Sep 2025, p.82]

The music's suboptimal sound quality is only a minor drawback to a sonic experience whose raw intensity is both disquieting and uplifting. [Nov 2021, p.102]

This is terrific, 90-minutes of ice-quaking noise, jet-engine feedback, histrionic metal screaming, Gothic doom and ambient euphoria that feels simultaneously ecstatic and terrifying. [Aug 2015, p.95]

A rich, compelling album. [Jun 2003, p.93]

One for the fans delighted he's still here and fascinated by how such classic songs started out. [Jan 2022, p.82]

The 14 tracks here represent just a fraction of what he produced in his prime, so beware that it may be habit forming. [Oct 2011, p.110]

WE is Arcade fire's best album since 2010's The Suburbs. By circling back, they've once again moving forward. [Jun 2022, p.86]

Owusu is a charismatic anchor throughout this boundary-pushing debut. [Apr 2021, p.85]

These mostly instrumental voyages speak loudly of no known universe. [Mar 2017, p.98]

A major work. [Jan 2013, p.92]

[An album that] makes you wonder where they will travel next. [Nov 2011, p.101]

Strip off the rock'n'roll trappings of Spiritualized circa Pure Phase, or tune in to Terry Riley at his most horizontal, and you are close to the immersive pleasure here. [Jun 2021, p.85]

It's been worth the wait. [Feb 2012, p.96]

There are some serious jazz chops visible amid the instrumental chaos; a devotional intensity that earmarks them as psychedelic idealists rather than nihilistic noise-punks. [May 2019, p.91]

Their debut exists in a musical moment, conjuring a freedom and thrilling abandonment in its hypnotic shuffle boogie and punky blues rock riffs. [Mar 2015, p.93]

Like the rest of this moving album, it whispers in the dark instead of hitting you in the face. [Dec 2008, p.110]

Bringing out the too-often buried pop nuances of his stylish songs and new inventions from his under-rated guitar work, it's a stylistic cloth that Ward seems very comfortable wearring. [Mar 2009, p.111]

The [7-year] hiatus hasn't impaired the band's vivid country-gothic grandeur one iota. [Apr 2012, p. 90]

Though the full potency of this band is only ever manifest live, ABOMINATION REVEALED AT LAST - the Osees' 8th LP in five years - bears thrilling testament to their appetite for insurrection. [Oct 2025, p.88]

His [Chris Collingwood] Kermit-does-Carole King voice can be too sugary for some, but not for high-spec pop fans. [Sep 2016, p.99]

The alternative takes are uniformly excellent, with studio chat, and even a stray telephone interrupting Bitter They Are, Harder They Fall. Above all, In The Jungle Room revels once again how superb his voice remained to the very end. [Oct 2016, p.110]

Blanket Of Leaves oozes rueful, autumnal soulfulness; you can almost feel the sea fret during the minimally arranged Ships In The Rain; only A Kingdom, with busy snare drums, hoedown fiddles and raindrop guitars, approaches anything like vigour, offering a welcome change to the mood of wistful languor. [Oct 2011, p.105]

Even at 52, this Dinosaur senior is a miracle of ongoing evolution. [Dec 2018, p.88]

Council Skies is very much a creative success. It's the sound of Noel Gallagher pushing onwards, while once again playing to his strengths. [Jul 2023, p.85]