New stuff for him every bit, from pain to process, and consequently unprecedented in his previous work is the sweet melancholy measure of his voice. His songwriting, too, emerges liberated, lyrics forged, melodies flowing. [Apr 2013, p.86]

This second album easily stands on its own merits. [Oct 2008, p.102]

What makes this more than a self-indulgence is the mellow melancholy he brings. [Oct 2006, p.103]

The familiarity of The Best day might suggest some treading of water, but for fans of Moore's unmistakeable skronk, there's plenty to devour here. [Dec 2014, p.96]

A first album since 2006 reflects interim activities. [Aug 2018, p96]

It's a beautiful warm bath of a record, but a soporific one too, better suited for wallowing within, rather than getting you moving. [May 2020, p.90]

It sags a little mid-show, during the numerous elongated versions of 45:33, but epic, celebratory readings of Losing My Edge and Yeah (Crass Version) are not to be missed. [Jul 2014, p.90]

It's not the easiest to digest in one sitting, but its languorous, tripy/hippy cocktail is refreshingly unique. [Jul 2017, p.91]

Gravity Stairs is the most Crowded House thing that Crowded House have made in 30 years. [Jul 2024, p.90]

The melodies are sunny, but Red Kite glimpses the brilliant glare of summer through a morning fog which stubbornly refuses to clear. [Aug 2015, p.94]

The music still mainly tilts around their Coil-Anohni Axis. ... As always with Xiu Xiu, though, it's a lot, two heads just as intense as one. [May 2021, p.85]

Big God runs up and down a subtler emotional scale, while the heartfelt Hunger emphasises Welch's admirable desire to connect. Yet High As Hope often feels like The Greatest Showman for people of drinking age, This Is Me for art students--an affirmation, not a challenge. [Aug 2018, p.88]

Ryan's predilection for Wilsonesque harmonies, glokenspiel, etc, erupts into twinkly fairytale pop that's bold and forward-looking in equal measure. [Mar 2008, p.113]

If it's not immediately obvious what such vaunted DJs see in Souleyman, Legowelt's remix of the title track spells out the floor-filling qualities. [Aug 2015, p.91]

[An] underwhelming collection of moderately sweeping, mildly elegant arena pop. [Jun 2006, p.108]

[An] equally engaged, energised follow-up [to 2010's Mshini Wam].[Apr 2012, p.94]

This time out, the melodic knack is as assured and the tumbling songs recognisably hers, but she's found her own path. [May 2012, p.87]

The playing is terrific throughout... [Jan 2001, p.98]

At its best, Pole's new sound is winning. [May 2003, p.98]

A satisfying, and often very moving, body of work. [Dec 2001, p.100]

He is, if anything, singing better than ever. [Dec 2003, p.104]

Two fine records without a duff track between them. [Oct 2009, p.98]

While White Wilderness lacks the edge of Emerald City it's an inspired set of songs decorated by Minna Choi's imaginative orchestrations. [Apr 2011, p.101]

The result is an unexpected throwback to the pop noir of Foxx's 1980 debut Metamatic. [Apr 2011, p.104]

We're on such familiar territory here that Wildfire is as much homage as innovation. [Oct 2011, p.105]

Like Eddi Reader's Sings the Songs Of Robert Burns, this is bard bigging-up of note. [Oct 2011, p.97]

Impressive, entertaining - a new supergroup is born. [Aug. 2011, p. 101]

In 10 crisp, playful songs restores the exalted standards of the band's legend. [Dec. 2011, p.93]

Sweet, shimmering, Swedish alt-pop. [April 2012, p.91]

Their ability to switch up styles at will can prove a little wearing, giving an uneven feel to an otherwise startling debut. [May 2012, p.83]

[The album includes] a stomping version of Elmore James's Rollin' And Tumblin' and a long and not wholly convincing reading of Stevie Wonder's Uptight. [Sep 2012, p.90]

Gardner's sincerity, dexterity and lightness of touch raises this above a simple genre exercise. [May 2013, p.87]

JBM has concocted a glorious half-dream of a third album. [Aug 2013, p.93]

As things are, it's an above-par, straight-ahead roots-revival collection, its full-blown "outernational" arrangements lit up by world-class brass and occasional splashes ofsynth. [Aug 2013, p.86]

It's tempting to surmise that the songwriting has improved since the Smash Hits years, but an extra CD of acoustically played hits--shorn of period production--reminds you that they were always this good. [Jun 2013, p.86]

With Kilo, Vainio returns to sub-bass layers and industrial scree to create a dark minimal techno with strange internal narrative. [May 2013, p.95]

The Soul Of The Hour rumbles onward with fearsome nocturnal dread, if paced with sufficient patience this time to allow the odd shaft of illumination to seep in. [May 2014, p.87]

With songs about Slits frontierswoman Ari Up and their inspired use of carnivalesque steel pans and soaring Bollywood-styled strings, it also marches to its own beat. [Jun 2014, p.92]

Deftly delivered and heartfelt, a career high. [Jul 2014, p.95]

Overjoyed suggest not only Half Japanese's own past abut also the pre-Television, Richard Hell-overshadowed Neon Boys. [Oct 2014, p.89]

The problem lies with the unrelentingly downbeat music. [Dec 2014, p.96]

The set includes seven songs left off This Note's, many now sturdier than versions previously issued. [Feb 2016, p.104]

It's a triumph for experimental chemistry: dramatic, deeply felt, dynamically designed. Minor Victories might've been put together at a distance, but it's all there. [Jul 2016, p.92]

Timeless fare presented with panache and enduring love. [Jul 2016, p.97]

The 52-minute suite was mostly recorded live, as Ray vamps, beautifully as always, through shivery glades of country blues, girl-group drama and Link Wray throb: this time around, she dwells at the shadowy end of the street, with less room for levity. [Jul 2016, p.93]

There's more meaty and time-honored blues extractions on the title track and the four-square Zeppelinism of Black Coffee, but somehow, particularly on Fade Out's balladic angular grind, these journeymen lack the emotional oomph to tear your heart out, or, indeed, shake your money maker. [Jul 2016, p.96]

Introspective, often forlorn and frequently mysterious, it's not an easy listen, but the delicate potency of Clarke's exceptional voice is a formidable saving grace. [Nov 2016, p.91]

This ace duets set builds around extant Miller vocals from vintage demos. [Nov 2016, p.96]

From the spooked synth attack of hellish 12-minute opener A Natural Satellite inwards, they do little to dispel those fears, robust drums and dirty organs underscoring the swaggering menace of Grace Jones and The Murder of Maria Marten. [Jan 2017, p.98]

A thing of dark, possessed beauty. [Mar 2017, p.96]

Sanborn's relentless modernism occasionally overwhelms Meath's sumptuous keening vocal and serpentine melodies. [Jun 2017, p.94]

Pulsing, hazy, addictive. [Nov 2017, p.100]

Grant sets aside his personal dramas for more absurd theatrical antics. [Apr 2018, p.92]

Morrison elevates his game on a set weighted equally between blues standards and visits to his own back catalogue. [Jun 2018, p.91]

Dance AM and Triangles carve a deep motorik opener; then rave euphoria and swoony breakdowns trail Lyubov Soloveva's vocals. [Jun 2018, p.97]

Mambo Cosmico is largely a carnival of delights. [May 2018, p.95]

Never quite hits that million-streaming sweet spot. [Sep 2018, p.86]

Stylistically, the album juxtaposes grungy art rock with punk-jazz, electronica, and hip-hop, though it's McCaslin's tenor sax and aesthetic vision that imbues Blow. with a sense of unity and coherence. [Nov 2018, p.95]

An equally intriguing mix of airy, modern indie pop, gauzy, gothic epic and plaintive folk-picking. [Feb 2019, p.93]

Basic themes remain unchanged. [Apr 2019, p.89]

Although the assured songs are beautifully framed by sparkling arrangements, To Each His Own suggests--as BNQT had too--Pulido is sidelining what might be more rewarding for listeners: getting on with Midlake to help realise his musical vision in a less obvious manner. [Apr 2019, p.91]

Inevitably there's a compilation feel, but Marshall's music brings coherence as it eases goth into the 21st century. [Mar 2020, p.92]

Tightly wound but eminently danceable songs with an earnestness that can seem a bit po-faced. [Apr 2020, p.96]

Shaman! strays from predecessor An Angel Fell's dark politics to explore more sprawling, introspective territory. [Oct 2020, p.87]

Some of its best moments, including Savannah's rolling, tumbling Lynard Skynyrd-style grooves, are steeped in '70s Americana. Others, though, are distinctly so-so. [Dec 2020, p.86]

Caravan sound reinvigorated and energised here on their best album in, let's say, quite some time. [Nov 2021, p.93]

He digs deep on guileless rock and soul with bold flourishes, ala Lowell George or Randy Newman. [Feb 2022, p.92]

Boasts duets between Esperanza Spalding ab=nd Q-Tip, Musiq Soulchild and posdnuos and a deep-voiced rap from Meshell Ndegeocello that perfectly marries H.E.R.'s downcast balladeering. Much of the rest, however, is little more than showy, slick and generic R&B, with Glasper becoming virtually untraceable. [Apr 2022, p.89]

There's little commerciality, although It came back gallops along cheerily, but there is the sense of a man doing as he pleases and guessing - correctly - he'll take his audience with him. [Apr 2022, p.85]

Up-tempo and poppy, Simple Minds' energy remains undiminished on Direction Of The Heart. [Nov 2022, p.90]

It's utterly convincing and frequently ace. [Nov 2022, p.87]

Spectral Lines tries to come at hurt, loss and destiny afresh, with Ritter's dexterity with universal themes often paying dividends. [Jun 2023, p.86]

Supernatural Thing makes a strong case for keeping that odd flame alive. [Aug 2023, p.82]

Lovely though these songs are, it’s hard not to feel they demand a similar attention, your mind fighting to impose structure on their swathes of classic rock signifiers, their lyrical opacity. Izenberg might be getting closer to his music, but he’s still oddly far away. [Sep 2024, p.84]

The album’s overriding mood is captured by the title track’s gospel choir sample: “daylight, sunshine, dance, embrace.” [Aug 2024, p.82]

There are tender moments, too, such as Lianne La Havas’s guest-spot on sodium-lit ballad Body Shock, but this is largely a record of brash textures from a band relishing the margins. [Jan 2025, p.83]

Downstate's a more focused listen. [Mar 2025, p.93]

Funny, thoughtful, pragmatic and whimsical, We're Only Human is a perfect alt-country album [Sep 2025, p.84]

Light but ultimately sunblinding, things really get going in the second half. [Apr 2026, p.93]

This is a musically assured, soulful descent into life's messy middle. [Mar 2026, p.81]

Thoughtful, tuneful, exquisitely melancholy, ever slightly off centre-- [Silencio] is, indeed, a welcome haven. [Sep 2012, p.86]

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

What if Lou Reed and Moe Tucker joined forces with the Danielson Family? [Mar 2007, p.104]

The first half of this double album follow-up picks up Badlands' wayward trail.... As the set wears on, Hungati's soundtrack-composer instincts take over. [Jul 2013, p.84]

McGuire's guitar and tape loop examination of his own psycho-dynamics. [Mar 2014, p.96]

The mood is all of a piece, the songs are stronger, and nobody suggests lightening the atmosphere with a high-energy single. [Sep 2013, p.84]

Ducking and diving between ivories and six-string, his reedy-voice makes for a Syd Barrett attempting Todd Rundgren's Something/Anything? record, full of compulsive tunes, but ever off-centre. [Feb 2019, p.91]

There's more hope to be found in the sound Deerhoof assemble into single songs that play like a hallucinating DJ's set. Any element sounds perfectly straight by itself, but layered together, they feel imported from the multiverse. [Jul 2020, p.87]

Deerhoof being Deerhoof, the arty, poppy, proggy noise is jagged, cathartic, and occasionally grand. [Nov 2021, p.88]

The melding of the Bristolian mixmasters' complementary styles is a low-end treat. [Apr 2015, p.95]

With self-awareness and personal catharsis equally high on the agenda, everybody's favourite nerdcore veterans may not have grown up just yet, but they've certainly become better at acting their age. [Sep 2016, p.98]

Each of them [psalms] is spoken word, less than two minutes long, and set to music that's ominous, ambient, spectral and spiritual. That's side one; side two is taken up with a 12-minute instrumental - a ruminative play of dark on dark, with a deep drone and synthesized choir of ghosts that's quite lovely. [Aug 2022, p.96]

The Cribs of 2009 sound bold, fully-realised, their anthems polished and radio-ready, without sacrificing the acerbic edge that's powered them this far. [Sep 2009, p.88]

This is his first tentative experimentation with some big band backing. [Jun 2015, p.96]

The punk grooves of 'Laugh Track' or 'Seeing Hands' and the near-perfect Phnom Pehn pop of 'Mr. Orange' or "Monsoon Of Perfume' bookend a set that grows in strength with each play. [Feb 2008, p.110]

Both the rabbit hole ride of Comanche Moon and reverb-laden panic attack Death March--two highlights--could have been released at any point in the last half century. [May 2017, p.89]

An intense, trip-hoppy and orchestral examination of love in all its forms. [Dec 2020, p.88]

La Havas sets herself apart from the coffee shop set with a rough-hewn edge. [Aug 2012, p.92]