A mesmerising return. [Mar 2024, p.90]

While six of these 19 tracks are intricately wrought miniatures, it's the supreme confidence of four-minute relative marathons Peel Free and horn-pricked parental paean Bloom Wither Bloom that shine. [Sep 2019, p.91]

7s feels like therapy for its creator but has the power and potential to rub off on us all. [Mar 2023, p.88]

The album's urgency and purpose is irresistible; there's a riot goin' on, and Algiers just lit the touchpaper. [Mar 2023, p.87]

The result is adventurous and totally mesmerising. [Jun 2012, p.84]

A winningly downbeat brand of urban realism, set to minimal, pounding drums. [Apr 2002, p.115]

Smoke & Fiction is lean rock'n'roll that plays to the group's strengths. [Sep 2024, p.86]

Manages to provide a more coherent and enjoyable listening experience than mainstream dance bods like Daft Punk and Basement Jaxx have delivered of late. [Album of the Month, April 2002, p.94]

This is a record that rewards digging into Treays' melodic moods and lyrical follies. It is also a staggering collection of exceptional songs. [Oct 2014, p.86]

Full of warmth, humour and depth. [Feb 2020, p.86]

The album's nine tracks oscillate between driving neo-Krautrock and string-caressed pastoralism, everything garlanded by Kaye Gibson's euphoniously harmonised lead vocals and buffed to a gleaming finish by John Entire's mix. [May 2026, p.91]

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

Rueful, ruminative and ultimately hypnotic, Garden Of Ashes sings a welcome blues for the coming apocalypse. [Mar 2017, p.97]

The tenth album from the fabulous Sadies is up there with the best. [Mar 2017, p.93]

The result is an unusual and likeable mix of country rock, rockabilly and excellent ballads. [Nov 2007, p.102]

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

This 17-track colossus is eclectic, ambitious ad expertly executed. [Nov 2011, p.103]

His most impressive album yet. [Dec 2013, p.86]

Each of the eight tracks fade into the distance, making for a hypnotic, haunting record, yet a highly individual and accomplished one too. [Oct 2012, p.95]

As ever, the sonic palette is richly clean, the harmonies stacked, and Jerry Douglas’s dobro an empathetic, keening presence in constant dialogue with the singers, now the dominant solo instrument in the ensemble. [May 2025, p.87]

His reliably nerdular delivery and thoughtful lyrics still make it sound box-fresh compared to the generic macho fare that still dominates mainstream hip hop. [Dec 2008, p.100]

An uncompromising set that will swallow hardy listeners up into its shadowy world. [Jul 2025, p.85]

The sound of an artist surfacing from his dank hypogean world and embracing a new warmth. [Aug 2022, p.89]

An antidote to pop bands masquerading as punk, this is the real deal--ugly, and utterly English. [Jun 2009, p.98]

Ambitious, soulful and joyous. [Apr 2012, p.90]

So much more than the original boy band. [March 2011, p. 106]

The winnowing, soul-pop sheen of the hit-yielding Soul Mining and Infected is long gone, replaced by an overall grungey, corrosive edge which indicates that Johnson bought up every last piece of analogue gear in town.

The surface mayhem actually masks an admirable craft. [Aug 2004, p.96]

A debut proving the universal emotional weight in teenage preoccupation with romance. One to watch. [Aug 2018, p.96]

Cronin delvers timeless, classic pop that evades cliches. [Jun 2013, p.86]

EURO-COUNTRY is everything great pop music should be: smart, subversive and tremendous fun. [Oct 2025, p.88]

The band's conventional elements are even more conventional while the boundary-pushers stretch as far as ever. [Album of the Month, July 2002, p.92]

Uplifting, rueful and expertly crafted. [Jun 2024, p.89]

Wildflower can either be enjoyed as a horizon-filling album-long trip, or by zooming in on the array of every changing, intra-song moments, as sounds and ideas flit in and out of focus. Whatever your preference, it was worth the wait. [Sep 2016, p.92]

The overall sense is of a spirited and inventive band truly coming into their own. [Sep 2015, p.87]

Although Evening... has this unexpected core of angry commitment, she's still slick with Californian cruisers. [Nov 2003, p.123]

With musical modes brilliantly elevated by his occasional producer David Mansfield, Wainwright nails the exigencies of old age through the medium of rockabilly, the quest for parking spaces in Manhattan via cabaret klezmer, and the gloating joys of i-ding a faithless girlfriend dead in a deep freeze with cheery Vaudeville sing0along. [Aug 2014, p.90]

Overall, a compelling set clearly completed in the aftermath of a storm. [May 2026, p.87]

Better still [than 'Stepp Off']. [Sep 2006, p.98]

Likewise explores empathy's limits and dialogue's importance, Quinlan's densely-packed lyric sheet give anything hackneyed a wide berth. [Feb 2020, p.92]

His seventh album vibrates with fear, rage and fierce defiance. [Mar 2018, p.92]

His music finally a match to his unswerving anti-capitalist manifesto. [Jan 2013, p.93]

From the get-go, JID022 crackles with a kinetic energy that drives the album's unrelenting, addictive dance pulse. [Dec 2024, p.89]

Make the most of dead Son Rising, as its diversity is its strength. [Nov 2011, p.103]

They might shake, they might tremble, but The National remain a safe pair of hands. [Jun 2013, p.86]

At 70 minutes long, there's a lot to digest but it's worth persevering with as repeated listens gradually unveil a musical universe unlike any other. [Sep 2015, p.89]

This epic finally reveals his personal vision in all its frenetic glory. [Aug 2012, p.94]

Undoubtedly his definitive statement--not just as a guitarist, but as a songwriter and vocalist. [Jul 2005, p.96]

Less has become more for Richard Thompson. [Sep 2005, p.96]

If letting the world in has resulted in an album this beguiling, there's nothing to fear. [Oct 2012, p.80]

As sad ballad follows sad ballads towards the close, Old Wow is not as well-paces. Nonetheless it's full of resonant music. [Feb 2020, p.94]

Timeless and joyful. [Jul 2022, p.96]

Happiness Ltd is all about neat production, inventive time changes and romantically inclined witticisms. [Oct 2007, p.92]

Well after its final note fades, Islands lingers long in the memory. [Oct 2014, p.93]

This album is a punchy, lyrical and moving set. [Nov 2011, p. 103]

This curiously beautiful little album has retained the surreal, daydreamy quality and rustic chill of its predecessor, while adding a lot more warmth. [Feb 2012, p.99]

On the second listen it sounds like a future classic. [Nov 2008, p.109]

Hip-hop originator meets Mercury-winning button-pusher du jour. [MArch 2011, p. 108]

Bold emotional directness supplanting gobby perpetual-teen 'tude on a set of soulful urban pop. [Jul 2018, p.98]

The trio's gifts mesh to deliver a truly idiosyncratic attack, as refreshing and labyrinthine a hip hop debut as New York has delivered since Company Flow's Funcrusher Plus. [May 2014, p.87]

Super-barbed, electro-pub rock. [Jun 2015, p.96]

Gorgeous and achingly candid. [Nov 2021, p.93]

An album to make you happy feeling sad, Scratch My Back gets better with each play; it might just turn out to be the best surprise present of the year. [Mar 2010, p.88]

What might be their best yet. All the various elements of Joe's songs are here. [May 2024, p.88]

Fabulously serious work. [May 2024, p.91]

Despite its unruly title, Anarchist Gospel takes all the splits and divisions, the churn and the confusion, and turns them into something remarkably centred and complete, the work of a songwriter who knows who she is and how she got there. [Mar 2023, p.82]

An epic, cataclysmic set playing host to moments of magnificent Strum-und-Drang. [Sep 2015, p.92]

The future and past collide throughout. [Aug 2013, p.91]

Her textured roar means even the less melodic songs have traction. [May 2005, p.103]

From Terry Edwards’ dysregulated trumpet on Always A Stranger to the wheezy strings of The Secret Of Breathing, Soft Tissue is a magnificent reminder that few people know better how to arrange life’s broken pieces, how to orchestrate the chaos. [Oct 2024, p.84]

Those fans who jumped on with 1994's breakthrough album Dookie should rejoice: your favourite slacker-punks are, briefly, back. [Oct 2012, p.82]

Everything Perfect Is Already Here avoids emotional overload, instead offering solace and a loving embrace, a haven of calm and normality. [Jun 2022, p.86]

A bold work of divine and nourishing textures. [May 2021, p.86]

The debut - one of several solo releases by CSNY post-Deja Vu - is the stronger of the two, heartfelt and unpretentious. Nash's voice has barely changed and the band arrangements are mostly subtle and complementary. [Jul 2022, p.86]

Wolf's sing-speak vocals are arresting. [May 2008, p.112]

Within ominously booming coordinates often evoking Hans Zimmer-style soundtracking, dark-pop miracles reliably happen. [May 2025, p.84]

Ba Power is all about intensity, force and electricity. [May 2015, p.92]

Illuminated, with its wistful wordless vocals, keening melody and swooping strings, is arguably a career peak. [Sep 2009, p.102]

Those of a certain overcoat are assured a Proustian rush: distorted guitars, windswept austerity and Butler's rasp set to Triple Action Strepsil. [Jun 2020, p.95]

While her own solos have a fluent grandeur, Garcia remains as generous a leader as she was a collaborator. [Sep 2020, p.89]

Willfully odd, beautifully hypnotic and with a wonderful lightness of touch: a straw poll of the office drew comparisons to Flaming Lips, Arcade Fire and Take That. [Feb 2010, p. 100]

The palette-widening Northern urban soul colours supplied by The Dap Kings' equally convincing playing and arrangements are evry bit as key to their fourth album's sucess....Never unnecessarily flash, Jones is in tremendous voice from start to finish. [Jun 2010, p.102]

Furthering their Sonic Youth/Television post-punk quests. [Sep 2015, p.95]

Bright, snappy and instantly infectious hooks. [Jun 2012, p.84]

Phil's voice is fierce, Dave is warm and the band masterly. [Oct 2015, p.93]

Even when she blinds her audience wit science, though, Bjork's vision remains remarkable. [Oct 2011, p.97]

In turning inward, back to their own natural successors, Tinariwen have made a fine tenth album befitting of that milestone. [Apr 2026, p.86]

I Inside the Old Year Dying holds itself at the biting point between old and new, re-evaluation and revelation. What lies on the other side, only Polly Harvey knows, but this is a record she was born to make. [Aug 2023, p.76]

Warpaint's finest album so far. [Jun 2022, p.88]

The best Paisley Underground-adjacent, Byrds-infatuated new LP you've heard in a while. [Jun 2026, p.68]

A debilitating thrash/death doom speedball. [Jan 2016, p.98]

Although Overgrown Path is only 30 Minutes long, it nonetheless reveals Chris Cohen as a Man with an individual voice, and its brevity makes it particularly more-ish. [Jan 2013, p.94]

Old Growth has the primeval, fuzzed-out power of the trio's earlier albums, but with a new clarity and groove. [Mar 2008, p.113]

Surface and feeling, Neon Neon dream the life with boundless imagination. [May 2008, p.108]

It's intensely personal. [May 2017, p.88]

There is piquancy in Mogwai's elegiac mix of Super, and the programmed beats heresy of Stephen Morris and Gabe Gurnsey's re-rub of Hallogallo, but the real miracles begin with the LPs proper. [Oct 2022, p.102]

As well as blending linguistic elegance and musical levity, Sparkle Hard affirms Stephen Malkmus's increasingly contemplative approach. [Jun 2018, p.94]

Strip away the noise and you'll realize that the charm of Yuck is rooted in fundamentals of great songwriting. [March 2011, p. 108]