Three decades on, the Mekons are a veritable institution, but as Natural proves they're a still-evolving and effective one. [Sep 2007, p.105]

But from the off, the sounds here always convince. [Oct 2010, p.96]

It could all be so much MOR easy-on-the-earwash but Gardot's silken voice, musicality and knack for a telling lyric exude class. [Jun 2012, p.92]

Some tracks occasionally feel more like fillers--but at its best, Legacy feels like tuning into a magical mid-dial shortwave station, where all the neighbouring broadcasts gave fallen into an exhilarating synchronisation. [Jul 2013, p.88]

More than the sum of its parts, the whole is wonderfully fresh and quite lovely. [Apr 2015, p.89]

Johns and his Black Dogs shine throughout. [Jan 2016, p.90]

Through the overdriven riffage, juggernaut rhythms and starey-eyed James Cox's foghorn yowling, some proper and highly dynamic songcraft does emerge. [Apr 2019, p.93]

A fitting, touching elegy for a bewitching talent. [May 2019, p.87]

Beat-less but involving standouts like Memphis Helena, with its plangent lead line intimately tracked by Nelson's hushed hazy intoning, and elegiac, rippling acoustic guitar-propelled Muriel Spark are as inexorable and immersive as a high summer sunset. [Dec 2019, p.92]

The Sisypheans is measured and reflective. [Dec 2019, p.91]

What we get more of are melodies that stick. [Jul 2021, p.87]

Escapology is frequently, characteristically unsettling. [Sep 2022, p.86]

King fulfils his promise. ... His honey-rich voice and whipsmart guitar playing are the standouts here. [Sep 2022, p.86]

If her 2023 breakthrough Anarchist Gospel was sparse and brooding, haunted by break-ups and deaths in the family, Armageddon In A Summer Dress bristles with Tom petty guitars, skinny-tie keyboards and a hard-won sense that - despite the miserable treatments of the have-nots - humanity might still be worth saving. [Mar 2025, p.87]

High Noon Hymns is possibly the Ryders' most directly activistic LP of all, from the title itself through to the anti-Trump sentiments of Four Winters Away and the T. Rex-powered Stand A Little Further In The Fire. [May 2026, p.87]

Throughout, Starr’s drumming is reliably great, and while he may indeed have travelled a long long road, here he sounds 85 years young. [Jun 2026, p.86]

At times things get wincingly experimental; but mostly, it's claustrophobic and deeply magnetic. [Aug 2017, p.96]

A giddy chaos of fuzz-noise and thundering drums ensures these sclectic experiments still sound like no one else but The dirtbombs. [May 2008, p.114]

An effervescent, ebullient record. [Mar 2014, p.97]

Funky as early-80s Judas Priest, the title track and Trouble's Coming will become era classics in lat-out over-amplified party music. [May 2021, p.82]

Glasgow Eyes' liberal use of electronics is a renewing force, and a kind of homecoming too. .... Glasgow Eyes is a positive twist in the sage of these negaholics synonymous. [Apr 2024, p.86]

This is possibly the most optimistic album about depression ever made. [Mar 2007, p.98]

His newest group find hum as ever ricocheting between rusty rock'n'roll and perfect pop melodicism, the title track to their debut album adding string-adorned country-psych to his CV, while the rest of his contributions finding him on his strongest form. [Mar 2011, p.1010]

While there's a surprisingly low glam quotient, Fudge Sandwich finds odd harmonies between funk and anarcho-punk, plus more predictable psych. [Dec 2018, p.84]

There are great albums that are nose-to-tail singles, but 22 Dreams is not one of them. Settle in for the duration, however, and expect a genuine trip. [June 2008, p.104]

The cumulative effect is effortlessly gorgeous, if a little smoothed out compared to the variety and tension of the last two albums. [Sep 2016, p.96]

Goodnight Oslo could be a ghost story, a slice of stoner paranoia or a song about steam trains, but shows something sleek and ominous still looming in the fog of Hitchcock's imagination. [Mar 2009, p.107]

Less minimal folk this time, the title track and Holograms are particularly fulsome. [Mar 2019, p.99]

To Bolero-riffed beat-pop, Soul Capturer beautifully exorcises today's digi-overload, while 22-minute Defeat finds hope in an entrancing oceanic ebb-and-flow, with all the child-like discovery of late'90s Mercury Rev. [Nov 2023, p.86]

Sometimes it's more about a blues feeling, encompassing high-lonesome, electric country-blues rock, two-chord garage rock and at its most beautiful on the opening track Promise The World. [Apr 2017, p.94]

Delicate, inventive and deeply, deeply touching. [Mar 2019, p.95]

Things work best when the musical surroundings match their respective vocal style and they create something resembling the cinematic edge of Johnny Jewel's Chromatics. [Oct 2014, p.93]

The Sparks take the nascent country rock of their obvious influence and extraploate every last ounce of plangent guitar chime and yearing vocal polyphony until they ring afresh. [Nov 2001, p.100]

A mature and often profound record. [Dec 2002, p.102]

Picks up where 2002's Impasse left off, with Buckner at large in a dusty, wide-screen landscape of brushed guitars, weeping pedal steel and decorous strings. [Dec 2004, p.114]

Central to Whatever The Westher II is an underlying hum and crackle that offsets its engrossing sound design. [Apr 2024, p.84]

Thanks to the vision of singer/songwriter Traceyanne Campbell, this is a killer record, rather than just a pretty one.[Jul 2006, p.102]

10 seamless melds of indie guitars and electronic pop, stuffed with spry choruses and poetic self-castigation delivered in Toledo's appealingly crushed bleat. [Jun 2020, p.86]

His commitment is palpable, the sequencing deft, and whole wilfully hit-free bombast-fest commendable, if scarcely palatable to anyone apart fro card-carrying Suede-heads. [Oct 2018, p.93]

Anyone seduced by the standout Wounded Rhymes track Sadness Is A blessing will be left winded by the even more sorrow-stricken I Never Learn. [Jun 2014, p.92]

Neither sparkly nor weird enough. [Sep 2008, p.110]

A dizzying tapestry of rave, Chicago footwork, jungle, hip-hop and soulful pop. [Aug. 2011, p. 104]

The Cordon Bleu-trained chef transforming humble ingredients into Michelin-starred delicacies at once melting, tender and sweet. [May 2014, p.93]

Their emotional post-club grooves are the real star. [Mar 2016, p.95]

Twisting the familiar sounds into altogether more challenging forms. [Jul 2020, p.84]

Despite a surfeit of guests and some over-embellished kitchen sink production, the hit rate is remarkably high, reminding just how far Killer Mike's unflinching, candid style has evolved since he debuted on Outkast's Stankonia. [Aug 2023, p.84]

The combination of shimmering sonics and dislocated characters is what makes Hyperspace so holistic, and compelling. [Jan 2020, p.83]

If her murmurous slurring defies full comprehension, her gentle sadness, hesitant beats and melancholic piano settings match the odd clear phrase. [Mar 2004, p.102]

Dawn's Auto-Tuned vocals push it into Major Lazer territory. Yet the best moments are where restraint wins out. [Jan 2017, p.102]

The Shrine deliver a cantering second LP full of heads-down charm. [Jun 2014, p.98]

Beautifully black. [Jul 2022, p.88]

Mid-life crisis rarely sounded so appealing. [Nov 2014, p.90]

Part 2's brittle, somewhat alienating production isn't exactly subtle. ... Foals sound like they are overreaching themselves a little. Two highly ambitious, thematically-linked albums in six months was always a big ask. [Nov 2019, p.86]

Bowerbirds at their least bucolic, both expanding and focusing on a sound that is as timeless as The Band. [Apr 2012, p. 89]

The highs, lows and bitter aftermath are all documented, in some of the classiest electro-pop of the past 20 years. [Aug 2008, p.102]

[Singer MJ's] reverb-drenched vocals keep his lyrics veiled, but the reckless energy of two-chord Spaceman-3 like rock-outs such as Preservation and Away/Towards suggests a most electrifying catharsis is in process. [Apr 2013, p.89]

Think Metronomy, Junior Boys and a (much) chirpier John Grant. [Sep 2013, p.95]

An absorbing, enthralling effort. [Jun 2014, p.91]

The songs effortlessly stand alone. [Jul 2014, p.86]

At its best, a healthily camp, good-spirited fusion on Abba and Blondie. [Sep 2014, p.98]

The sum total is unmistakably, and welcomingly, Interpol. [Oct 2014, p.89]

A challenging move from such a young artist who deserves to have his fans take a leap of faith. [Dec 2014, p.94]

Neville is in wonderful vocal forms ranging through lovely balladry, gospel, doo wop and funk. [Sep 2016, p.95]

She's clearly not afraid to prolong the exquisite agony and, selfishly, you hope Macve never cheers up. [Apr 2017, p.98]

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]

Just occasionally the jangles get repetitive; sometimes, good things do go on too long. [Oct 2017, p.96]

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

Miranda's unwieldy new album comes across as showcasing unreconciled viewpoints. [Apr 2018, p.94]

Disc four's unreleased assortment holds little for Wobble-Levene obsessives. More noteworthy: a disturbingly atonal Banging The Door, two abstract thumpathons from '81-83's "lost" fourth album, some speculative Album demos, and a n instrumental stab at Led Zep's Kashmir. [Aug 2018, p.102]

At its core, this is pop music of a rare assurance. [Oct 2018, p.91]

This album has everything and it works. [Feb 2019, p.89]

His wistful songs impart wisdom quietly, but on All In My Sleep gloriously lets rip. [Nov 2020, p.90]

A classic rock record, in all senses. [Nov 2021, p.84]

Bruland has build her formative P.J. Harvey influences with a blurrier, chillier mix of guitars and electronics, landing somewhere bewitching between Broadcast, My Bloody Valentine and Lush. [Jan 2022, p.87]

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]

Yet it all still swings, rocks and rolls like a galleon in a squall, the Stones live remaining the luxury you can't do without. [Mar 2023, p.102]

It’s their most expansive LP so far. [Nov 2024, p.92]

Three singular voices, one might murmuration. [May 2026, p.90]

As trad indie goes, The World Is Not Good Enough is concise, fluid beauty, just 229 minutes of plangent songwriting that explores Solomon's alarming lack of cope mechanisms. [Jun 2026, p.86]

Foals consolidate their position here by continuing to do what they do best, namely expressing big emotions loudly through fizzing rock anger or unbridled, danceable joy.

It all amounts to Primal Scream's most satisfying album since Screamadelica, with something akin to maturity joining the still-vital urge to make transcendent noise. [Jun 2013, p.82]

Its dense analogue assault envelopes you like a pea-souper. [Oct 2018, p.87]

In all, a gloriously imperfect storm. [Aug 2025, p.79]

A pleasantly surprising step in the right direction. [May 2002, p.104]

A frontier bliss-out. [Dec 2019, p.96]

They only operate in one gear but it;s a sound that's full of passion, piss and vinegar. [Jul 2011, p.115]

An album of straight-up, dazzlingly well-realised British pop. [May 2004 p.92]

Four albums in and their metronomic nursery rhymes are still capable of delivering pop thrills. [June 2010, p. 104]

The arrival of his first child and Trumpism, shadowed by a friend's death, have filled Brighter Wounds with heightened bliss and anxiety. [Mar 2018, p.94]

A solo debut with am encyclopaedic range. [Mar 2016, p.96]

Rather than gaining urgency Tomboy instead feels rhythmically constrained and sonically muted. [May 2011, p.100]

If all of this sounds heavy gong, the soul and country moves and comparative lightness of the music throughout help to illuminate the darkness. [Nov 2020, p.78]

Unessential, yes, but hardly uninteresting. [Feb 2004, p.101]

While it still whispers, this third endeavour works its way into your soul.

No great surprises, then, but as aurally seductive as ever. [Mar 2004, p.101]

Songs like the Breeders-worthy single Doubt reveal serious song-writing smarts. [Nov 2023, p.94]

Great to have back that little razor edge that Lytle loses when he steps away from his bandmates, but this might be the last time he gets away with it without a major rethink. [Apr 2017, p.96]

Angels Of Destruction continues a rich tradition forged in the bars of their hometowns. [Feb 2008, p.105]