Tricky's 14th long-player somehow matches anything in his catalogue. [Oct 2020, p.91]

Repeat plays lay bare a record of rare ambition and thematic complexity. [Feb 2023, p.84]

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]

Not ideal for newcomers, perhaps, but a recumbent feast for fans. [Jul 2024, p.101]

Blind Date Party is intriguing enough to be more than a one-night thing. [Jan 2022, p.82]

They conjure contemplative moods (A Cowboy Without Cows; Night Library) without rogue textures, no instrument or showy motif photo-bombing the arrangements. [Jan 2026, p.90]

As a rough cut solo exercise, Rhys has delivered a blinder. [Feb 2005, p.102]

With her gravel’n’smoke voice, ability to be both cheeky and heartbreaking, and a dirt-kicking live band, her rise and rise is inevitable. [Sep 2024, p.91]

Even as she turns 73, Williams sounds present, ready to mix it, and therefore as good a hope as we have. [Mar 2026, p.83]

A delightful album. [Apr 2023, p.82]

In reconnecting with the guileless, tribal chaos of their roots, Animal Collective have made another delirious and ecstatic step forward. [Oct 2012, p.87]

Goddess weaves a captivating spell that many are certain to fall under. [Oct 2014, p.87]

The clarity of Eçevit's tenor, the quality production values maintained throughout and the contrasting styles make for a thoroughly enjoyable ride. [Apr 2026, p.85]

A new depth to her prickly but previously sometimes brattish lyrics, a grown-up album by a real grown-up who knows how to sugar-coat a pill for mass consumption. [Oct 2013, p.95]

A hugely sensual work. [Apr 2006, p.88]

With enough disco detonators aboard for three Top 5 albums, here's the feel-good hit album of 2022. [May 2022, p.95]

A much grander affair [than his debut]. [Jun 2006, p.103]

Instead of meeting fire with ire, there's an attempt to provide calm, clarity, a space to contemplate what really matters. [Feb 2020, p.93]

’60s Mod club faves including thrilling takes on The First Cut Is The Deepest and Angel Of The Morning. [Dec 2024, p.94]

The vocals are spot-on and so is the musicianship. [Apr 2021, p.82]

An almost perfect Sunday-morning album that's hard not to praise with only the faintest of damns. [Dec 2012, p.94]

This album is as artistically varied as can be. Best of the faithful versions are Margo Price's rousing Stranger In A Strange Land and Monica Martin's intimate A Song For You. [Oct 2023, p.83]

Impermanence resonates like a lullaby, or a prayer. [Mar 2017, p.90]

A majorly impressive debut. [Aug. 2011, p. 100]

An album in glorious hock to improvisation, rhythm and texture. [Mar 2016, p.95]

There's even hit-single potential--'Feathers' is unabashed radio-rock--that could make this weird bunch into the biggest cult band in the world. [Dec 2007, p.109]

Defiance, anger and desire fire his second set, a soul-dancefloor hybrid that soars past debut Brave Confusions' meld of influences. [Apr 2019, p.93]

Predictably, there's a big hello-hurray for bold re-imaginings of The Jam's Private Hell and Boy About Town, but it's the big-orch performance of his solo jazz-psych-folk highlights that transport and intrigue. [Apr 2019, p.86]

She draws in appropriate songs by Merle Haggard, Patty Griffin and Jack Wesley Routh, but excels them all with her own 'Not Enough.' [July 2008, p.104]

This is top-drawer pop, ambitious and thrillingly contemporary. [Feb 2012, p.94

The information exchange attains a near perfect equilibrium between sanctified melody and distress signals. [Oct 2021, p.91]

A pulse-racing revolt into style. [Jul 2019, p.96]

Sangare's voice is pushed to the fore. ... It's deeper and throatier now, and wise enough not to overpower the strings--but you can still hear the youthful street singer having fun on Kamelemba and Mogoya. [Aug 2020, p.84]

A late-night drift into the abyss. [May 2014, p.96]

Parrots invoke a woozy, enthralling chaos that's imbued with a golden, sun-blushed charm. [Sep 2016, p.99]

There are nods to Scissor Sisters with some honky-tonk disco and references to the demi-monde. But there are also extraordinary tracks of looped beats and grainy heartbreak. [Oct 2018, p.84]

Like a very fine wine, after 25 years The Bats are only really just coming on song. [Jan 2012, p.96]

Even without explicit elegies, there's a sense Morby is permanently watching something sink into the horizon, suspending what's left in beautiful songwriting amber. [Nov 2020, p.80]

It struts with confidence. [Nov 2025, p.85]

Exotic, deep, unique. [Oct 2002, p.110]

What could have easily sounded like an extended theme tune for Blackadder proves a classy and durable listen. [Jun 2012, p.88]

Miraculously, it succeeds as a rambunctious, unruly grenade of largely unmitigated spleen, a hail of words set to music. [Sep 2002, p.96]

While Mollestad is at her most formal, this album's power and deep cultural roots bring a resonance akin to that of the work of Nordheim. [Jan 2022, p.88]

In less accomplished hands it could have spiraled into pastiche. Instead, by being so dedicated to the past, Wilson has shaped a delicious future. [Aug 2011]

An agreeably bittersweet album. [Mar 2005, p.101]

On first listen, warm Chris is les obviously immediate than Designer, though the songs don't take long t worm their way into the mind. [Apr 2022, p.78]

Goat shapes up as one of 2024's most enjoyable albums so far. [Nov 2024, p.89]

Flea proves to be a nice rather than barnstorming trumpeter, allbeit a subtly ambitious sone: witness his Chet Bakerish take on Funkadelic's Maggot Brain. But ultimately, he respects the collectivist energies of the LA scene he's infiltrated. [May 2026, p.84]

The good news is that Have We Met shares melodic strengths with his previous high-water marks. [Mar 2020, p.88]

Nourishing batch of beat collages. [May 2021, p.88]

The sound might be spacier and more panoramic, but there's still some grit in the mix. [May 2007, p.110]

This one is a real keeper. [Mar 2020, p.86]

An album of quite magnificent mardiness. [Mar 2018, p.94]

Challengers ultimately proves to be the group's finest hour. [Sep 2007, p.112]

This is real person-to-person music. [Jan 2013, p.95]

It's a unique kind of unhappy listening, too toxic on the universal scale to be bled out. But it leaves you galvanised, purged and recharged for the unending war against mediocrity. [Mar 2019, p.90]

This primarily acoustic reimagining brings the artistry of the Niger-based quartet to the fore with aplomb. [Apr 2025, p.86]

The singles--'Fruit Machine,' 'Great DJ' amd the electro Krautrock of 'That's Not My Name'--are supported by the equally impressive 'Shut Up and Let Me Go' and closing title track, all bouncing beats, shiny samples and an invigorating knack for a pop tune. {june 2008, p.109]

Plenty of young pups are revising the pop-smart bludgeon of, say, pre-goldrush Nirvana, but only Pissed Jeans deliver with such panache. [Mar 2013, p.91]

Unlikely to soundtrack your next dinner party, but it's hard not to marvel at Matmos's cut-and-paste mastery. [Jan 2023, p.93]

Beyond the dirty talk, this is a beautifully balanced record. [Sep 2009, p.94]

Impressive as it all is, a genuine follow-up to Illinois feels overdue. [Dec 2009, p. 92]

This album is brazenly in hock to the shoulder pad decade. Its telegraphed choruses will not be denied. [Jun 2015, p.88]

She has found a new confidence in her sound. [Feb 2023, p.92]

The result is brooding, often humorous musing on life, joy, occasionally death. ... But it's tender love song Mary, with its meandering sax, that stops you. [Feb 2023, p.92]

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]

Orbital remain a comforting presence, and still have plenty to say. [Mar 2023, p.85]

Smith leads one of the best and sturdiest bands in rock... and their intricately scored psychedelia is a running high in Mosaic, the title stomp, with its yowling-wolf lick and Nine, an extended beguiling jam that suggests Smith fronting her own Doors. [Jul 2012, p.89]

A second set of tuneful snark. [Oct 2019, p.92]

Highly listenable and equally danceable, a kind of Pet Shop Boys meet Gary Numan at the gates of Georgio Moroder. (Sep 2000, p.95)

If their creative missteps in the past two decades have generally been caused by their twin determinations to keep up with modern pop and relentlessly pursue music that works in stadia, then here they’ve cut themselves free from all of that. Ultimately, it may be a watershed moment. By stripping it all back down, in some ways, they’re bigger. [Apr 2023, p.84]

Scales new heights of bong-loaded majesty. [May 2005, p.108]

These songs are consistently fantastic: from Brand New’s harmony-laden prayer for rebirth, to The Letters, Etc’s wry, country-steeped moment of clarity, whispering “how strange to be strangers after what we was”. [Sep 2024, p.89]

FLOTUS is highly processed, highly textured--and yet for the most part, it sounds surprisingly natural and unforced. [Dec 2016, p.86]

There are diversions into pop and hardcore dancehall but overall it's a strongly enticing release. [Dec 2017, p.91]

Delivers a top-grade high. [Jun 2006, p.104]

The result is 12 exquisitely dreamlike, personal songs that also work as Krgovich's coming out album. [Nov 2018, p.89]

Possibly it's the glorious touch of melodic grandiosity forming the heart of Don't Mess With Latexas that supplies the most climatic moment to remember amid this remarkable, kaleidoscopic offering. [Nov 2012, p.84]

At their most effortlessly eclectic. [May 2021, p.82]

What matters is that Harding remains a fascinating songwriting provocateur, preternaturally discipline, but able to trip emotional wires you might not even know you had. [Jun 2026, p.82]

The high point is a take on Diane Warren's Sunlight To My soul featuring The Soweto Gospel Choir. [Jul 2026, p.91]

In all, a cherishable tribute to the vitality of the right-on gospel group whose strides into soul still echo today. [Mar 2020, p.103]

more ambitious and more accessible than the sonic paranoia of 2005's "Burner." [Dec 2007, p.109]

Their musicianship--flamboyant but never self-indulgent, focused always on the groove--and their sticky-fingered songwriting charm throughout. [Apr 2016, p.87]

Believe it or not, there's room in the desert for yet another serious contender. [May 2019, p.91]

From the lurking threat of 'Street Walkin'' to the pretty sadness of closer 'Goin' Home,' this is outsider's music. Therein lie its real strength. [Mar 2009, p.110]

By turns acoustic intimate and theatrical-loud, this spellbinding work peaks and soars with all the warmth and wonder of some great romantic adventure, demanding and rewarding total immersion in its magical narrative. [May 2009, p.110]

Overall, it’s a robust, if somewhat exhausting, showing.

This collaboration was always going to produce something sonically elegant. Accordingly, this six-song cycle is built around a drone, its individual tracks manifesting as if in curls of smoke. [Jul 2018, p.93]

Kala is where the album explodes into life. [Jun 2015, p.93]

Clarietta is no routine homage, more a gripping twist on a timeless classic. [Jun 2013, p.88]

A splendid corollary to Mercury Rev's 1998 pastoral masterpiece, Deserter's Songs. [Jan 2005, p.94]

Stripped back and raw, his mesmerising guitar front and centre, this is gritty old-style blues with a laser-sharp modern focus. [Dec 2021. p.86]

His songwriting has rarely sounded so acute. [Apr 2004, p.109]

It's accompanied with a swing and a fingerclick all Waterhouse's own and could turn out to be the soul album of 2012. [Jun 2012, p.88]

Theirs remain an abstract, liminal brand of pop, with Prekop's vocals as delightfully gossamer, and his lyrics as intriguingly impressionistic as ever. [Oct 2012, p.88]

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]

Their eighth long-player feels leaner, nastier, equally impressive [as 2014's Time to Die]. [Dec 2017, p.91]