Neither the return of the Last Gang In Town, nor the crisp, literate, wonderfully confident pop with which Albarn perfectly crystallised the mid-1990s. Instead, The Good, The Bad & The Queen is a noir-ishly understated suite of songs, further testament to its chief author's need to keep on moving. [Jan 2007, p.98]

To Find Me Gone won't win any awards for wheel reinvention, but it's no sterile exercise in genre classicism. [Jul 2006, p.101]

Those who have stuck with the Glasgow act this far will find much to enjoy here. [Feb 2015, p.90]

The sprawling Montreal ensemble [is] nback at their most spirited, their Weltschmerz poured into wordless music of soaring transcendence and, on occasion, fierce beauty. [Dec 2017, p.91]

It's a joy to hear VDP's mission with the boosted clarity of 21st century production. [Jun 2013, p.87]

The album's soft-haze strings are to die for, and the trad-sounding Trusty And True has admirable reach and dignity. [Dec 2014, p.100]

Songs are wispy but melodies strong. [May 2019, p.96]

By embracing the space between, Taylor has created a meditative, magical record. [Oct 2021, p.91]

A classic work...together [her collaborators] have created a near perfect, and wonderfully paced, stage for the singer. [Oct 2004, p.112]

This is an album that stands up to the touchstone indie classics it references. [May 2011, p.112]

A true treasure from the archives. [Dec 2014, p.109]

What it lacks in vocal grit it makes up for in abundant hooks. [May 2019, p.96]

An experimental and deeply idiosyncratic record. [Oct 2019, p.90]

The most natural sounding album of his career. [Mar 2022, p.83]

Los Angeles already feels like a destination record, Lee, Tolhurst and Budgie putting their decades of world-building expertise to excellent use. If the world they have built is on the brink of collapse, it only adds to the thrill. [Dec 2023, p.85]

Beauty & Ruin--a lean, 12 songs in 37 minutes--finds Mould still monkeying with the formula. [Jul 2014, p.90]

The worst thing you can say about this record is it's low on surprises. [Sep 2010, p.103]

Smoother than last year's Sign, this capricious set also contains some finely crafted instrumental sections. [Mar 2003, p.114]

Mesmerising stuff. [Mar 2003, p.109]

More judicious editing might have rendered this a classic return to form, but there are still enough high spots to keep nostalgic fans happy. [Sep 2001, p.92]

Has more to do with Primal Scream's Evil heat than any arched-eyebrow electro-clashers. [Dec 2002, p.113]

A slightly awkward but ambitious beginning.

An album that can only add to her legend. [May 2007, p.112]

Played with authority and aplomb. [Sep 2013, p.96]

Filled with the restless tension of forever moving on from relationships, situations or cities, her rarefied empathy hits a haunting peak on For The Miner. [Feb 2014, p.89]

The grown-up Ash remain every bit as irresistible as the pop-punk pups. [Jul 2015, p.87]

What lets her down is a pair of English songs--beautifully sung, but the material is unforgivably weak. [May 2017, p.95]

This sounds raw and mighty, but somewhat same-old. [Dec 2019, p.94]

It's a record where everything escalates quickly - proof Snapped Ankles know exactly how to read the room. [May 2025, p.91]

Nursing you back to equilibrium with its sumptuous balm of laid-back growers, Up On High is a near-perfect hangover record. [Nov 2019, p.93]

Wilco (The Album) is as consummate as anything its author has yet delivered. [Aug 2009, p.97]

There are sweet moments on The Demise Of Planet X - not least guest appearances from Aldous Harding (Elitest G.O.A.T.) and Life Without Buildings' Sue Tompkins (No Touch) - and a more delicate musical palette, but the overwhelming mood is one of weariness; with the state of the world and the tedious, endless gotchas. [Feb 2026, p.85]

Wolfmother have a canny knack for a tune. [Jun 2006, p.98]

The animals are well cast as they orbit Magic Town. [Sep 2013, p.91]

Golds is rich with wry psych-pop nuggetry of a kindred humour to Robyn Hitchcock. [Jun 2015, p.92]

It benefits from producer Jim Sclavunos's emphasis on a place-you-in-the-room live approach, bringing the dark to labelmates Temples' light, as Heavenly's neo-psych vanguard marches onwards. [Nov 2016, p.94]

An 11-song set that's melodically insidious and swings like a noose. [Apr 2006, p.90]

Wonderful. [Jul 2014, p.93]

It's unfortunate that the weedy vocals dilute some of its impact, otherwise this would be a triumph. [Apr 2005, p.89]

The coherent Volume 1 sounds like a Midlake-as-such album: a more direct follow-up to 2013's Antiphon. [May 2017, p.89]

An exercise in economy. [Dec 2006, p.120]

Formidable. [Feb 2009, p.109]

This is a musical round-trip calculated to delight anyone who has previously enjoyed Can or Amon Duul's loose-limbed walks on the cod-tribal wild side--and enlighten anyone who hasn't. [Oct 2014, p.93]

Instrumentals pretty much picks up where FSA left off. [Aug 2015, p.95]

It has a gentle, pared-down intimacy, flowing with acid ballads and devotional dream pop. [Jul 2022, p.86]

Another of those Mac DeMarco LPS wherein a deliberately spare palette pays dividends. [oct 2025, p.90]

Circuital sees them negotiating their place in the world with heartening vigour. [July 2011, p. 103]

Alight Of Night is devoid of current context, making for a weird timelessness. A treat. [Mar 2009, p.108]

While the key of Random Desire is mostly subterranean, when the serpentine build of The Tide breaks, the impact is undeniably soulful and powerful. [Mar 2020, p.88]

Two Of Everything is a sure-footed progression from 2009's self-titled debut, thanks to the warm co-production of Dan Auerbach (Black Keys) and the pair's willingness to push the sonic envelope into the outre zone, even embracing bagpipes. [Sept. 2011, p. 96]

A convincing and often quite brilliant restatement of Ubu's early noir-meets-B-movie-sci-fi inclinations. [Feb 2013, p.93]

Recorded, mixed and mastered in just two weeks, Chop Chop oozes zest and focus. [Aug 2013, p. 89]

They are scarcely comparable to the original band versions with electric guitar blazing and in some cases Linda Thompson singing; but there's a certain magic in hearing these classics in such intimate form. [Sep 2014, p.88]

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

Solid and dependable rather than spectacular. [Jun 2022, p.91]

Covers include The Four Tops' Loving You Is Sweeter Than Ever cooked into greasy Southern soul, and the title track, where, backed by Derek Trucks on slide guitar, she delivers the hymnal straight. [May 2017, p.96]

There's undeniable joie de vivre to the airpunching I want To dance but his "doing it for the kids" rhetoric and propensity to wallow in rose-tinted nostalgia gets a little corny. [Jun 2013, p.92]

Expectations are defied by a series of grand, eccentric chamber essays, and only a paucity of Tiersen's killer melodies disappoints. [Nov 2011, p.99]

Even in Beth's comfort zone, her acoustic band, produced by Tucker Martine, enrich some beguiling songs, with not a dud among them. [Nov 2012, p.90]

Spare, simple, languid, often Ens lacks, ironically, is a wildness. In the end, it's just a little too tame. [Jan 2019, p.85]

Sustaining a dreamworld mood throughout, Changephobia is a quiet beauty. [Jul 2021, p.87]

There are some anthemic rockers--the '70s Stones-esque Until Justice Is Real is good, the strident backing vocals not so much--but most of the album's highlights are the midtempo or slower songs. [Sep 2021, p.84]

Of the various sidelines spinning off Vancouver psych-rockers Black Mountains, this is the prettiest. [Sep 2009, p.102]

The beautiful results make it clear that, unlike poor Charlie Brown, he does understand. [Jan 2015, p.92]

As expected, it's perfectly executed. [Apr 2019, p.89]

Paint A Room’s hooks work in unassuming ways, carrying mid-’80s Creation vibes à la Weather Prophets or Westlake. [Sep 2024, p.86]

Mavis tries to stamp authority on songs written by ward's musician pals.... They're not all great though--neither the Charity Rose or Nick Cave contributions hit the spot. [Mar 2016, p.99]

The mangled, jangled garage-pop of Rushing The Acid Frat or Ocean Of revenge's dexterous fable-spinning remain at one with his cosmic professor MO, though, proof that Malkmus can vibrate beyond his usual frequency without losing himself or his listeners. [Apr 2019, p.89]

The music and mood's emotional connection makes the Furnaces a band to love at last. [Sep 2009, p.95]

Sam Beam has made a commercial record by the simple expedient of making a beautiful one. [May 2013, p.84]

The overall mood is one of muted, minor-key sadness, Sakamoto's clear, simple piano lines eroded and blurred by the melancholy atmospherics of Fennesz. [Feb 2012, p.97

[Black Women is] the key cut on a third album that shows he's maturing impressively. [Apr 2014, p.97]

Hidden Fields finds Lawrie drifting back to his black-denim roots with five tracks of distortion heavy, song-based sedation.[Sep 2015, p.92]

Stitched together with a number of spoken word excerpts from the likes of neo-shaman Terence McKenna, it's music rooted in the early UK rave scene. [May 2016, p.91]

At odds with the folk-pop quirk of her 2012 debut Yours Truly, Cellophane Nose and the angular, raw and rocky approach of albums two and three. [Jun 2021, p.85]

Via radio hiss and cut-glass samples of the long dead, worlds beyond are accessed. [Oct 2023, p.89]

Cosmic roots reassert themselves; best on New History and the Mercury rev-ish Waves, Breaking. [Oct 2018, p.94]

The band use trad tools... and trad tricks... But there's nothing trad about their cock-your-head tunings and lose-your-balance rhythms. [Dec 2005, p.100]

New Puritans sound best when living up to that Fall-derived name. [Feb 2008, p.113]

If beauty and ambition be the defining values of that album title concept, they're served up here in spades.

Surprisingly much more accessible than the idea first sounds. [May 2003, p.106]

A stripped-back stroll through the summer of the '80s. [Jun 2004, p.106]

This 20-song set delivers high octane versions of their greatest hits. [Nov 2013, p.85]

Vessel creates a sense of immersion and collapsing boundaries. [Jan 2018, p.89]

An album of intelligent genre hopping. [Mar 2014, p.95]

Who Is The Sender? is effectively a set of moving, funeral-paced closing tracks addressing familiar themes--political disillusionment, morality and spiritual wonder. [Jun 2015, p.92]

It's no double-set, however, its sprawl contained within 10 tracks and 42 minutes. [Dec 2017, p.91]

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

A more nuanced approach than generally prevails on his records with The Hold Steady. [Oct 2015, p.90]

If You Asked For A Picture is a zig-zagging combination of gentle (the opening Thumbtack is acoustic guitar plus reverb-y, quivering vocals before muffled drums kick in halfway through) and tempestuous. [Jul 2025, p.79]

There's a punkish, uncompromising bravery to tracks like Raging Earths--piledriving beats and a gathering storm of swelling synths--that's strangely compelling. [Jun 2019, p.95]

With standards so consistently high, picking further peaks is a tough call but the surging wah squel of 'Over It' and 'I Don't Wanna Go There's' stellar guitar squall also score way up at the top of the scale. [Jul 2009, p.105]

This third disc, to be blunt, pisses over the competition. [Apr 2009, p.106]

A convincing musical narrative for young life in the UK today. [May 2011, p.104]

Emotional yet chilled, this is an album to see you through winter's darkest, coldest days. [Mar 2012, p.99]

His songs are simple and instantly seductive. [Mar 2012, p.99]

Snaith's upward trajectory shows little evidence of slowing. [Nov 2012, p.87]

Something of a disappointment after 2008's Pot Of Gold. [Apr 2013, p.98]