Star Wars confirms that Wilco now fully own a unique American noise wherein nothing is wholly traditional or wholly experimental. But if the band’s own sense of self is stalwart, the characters they detail are consistently unmoored.

A gently rambling rumination twinkling with congas, shakers and bird-like flute. [Oct 2019, p.92]

Kamaru's softly spoken words amid Arkives' discomfiting drones drags listeners to unexpected depths, his voice a ghost in a machine of otherworldly chorale, siren-like synths and heaps of static. [Aug 2024, p.87]

Its uvowedly less manic, but uknowhatimsayin¿ still cuts deep. [Nov 2019, p.93]

It's music for dreaming, the keyboard equivalent to shoegaze, reinforced by its song titles and vocals mostly mixed beneath the waves to gorgeously woozy effect. [Sept. 2011, p. 97]

J's mature-era peak continues. [Sep 2014, p.90]

This is a swaggering, unashamedly fun pop record. [May 2005, p.94]

Lustman's been musing on the conflict between the intimate, solo nature of his music making and the shared listening experience of his audience on dancefloors. Lustman's solution is the intimate, expansive Heaven Is for Quitters. [Dec 2016, p.93]

Slow, stark tracks like Kick-Around Johnny sound like a spun-out, confessional Lou Reed, and there's epiphany too: I Came To Tell You In Plain English (I'm Leaving You) is casually devastating. [Jan 2021, p.90]

Murray's voice is a beautiful, dreamy magnet for Hughes's backdrops, which without losing their twang take all sorts of tangents. [Feb 2021, p.85]

There's all kinds of going back on Robbie Fulks' eleventh and maybe finest collection. [Oct 2013, p.95]

The overriding tone recalls Lana Del Rey's gothic torch song elegies, albeit with far more economy and less overacting. [Dec 2015, p.93]

The most focused and exciting White Solo record yet, a precision-tooled digital reconfiguration of his rock bona fides. [May 2022, p.89]

It might have been captured anytime in the past four decades. [Jul 2006, p.114]

It's an irresistibly modern mix. [Dec 2018, p.89]

An album of great beauty and quiet power. [Jan 2016, p.91]

Ambient noise draws the threads of these songs together – distant chatter, the sound of rain – but it’s the night buses and pubs of Wonderlight that best catch The Night’s Victoria Segal muted glimmer. [Feb 2025, p.82]

Forsyth knows exactly how far to let out the line before returning to the earth's atmosphere, leaping forward, bringing it home. [Sep 2022, p.95]

More a shiny recalibration of TVOTR's high-density art rock than a radical restart, especially of their more electronic, funky and pop-facing side. [May 2025, p.90]

A classy and elegant piece of work. [Jun 2017, p.93]

Deceptively simple-sounding, beautifully constructed folk songs. [Jun 2017, p.95]

Both otherworldly and intensely human, it's hard to resist THEESatisfaction's singular charms. [Apr 2015, p.95]

An album of dark beauty and unnerving enchantment. [May 2016, p.93]

Their strong suits are Nathan Nicholson's forlorn warble and the pop hooks that pepper quiet melodramatic, minor-chord rock songs like Locked In The Basement. [Mar 2011, p.98]

There's a weight and scale reminiscent of Ingram Marshall's epic sea-mist tone-paintings. [Apr 2014, p.95]

Occasionally ground down in the past with the sheer weight of sadness, here Songs:Ohia sound defiant, uplifting, and never better. [Apr 2003, p.102]

This a masterful, emphatic stuff, brimful of poignant insights and unforgettable melodies. [Jun 2014, p.92]

Their most corrosive cocktail yet of melodious sunshine pop and blackly comedic lyrics. [Mar 2023, p.85]

Before comedown-closer Morning Star comes the high point of a very high album: Dream Beat, woozy and sexy, with a bassline you could ride on right through the summer. [Jul 2012, p.94]

Jamie is a giant leap forward: a testimony of liberation, creatively uncompromising but just as accessible as Howard's old music. [Oct 2019, p.80]

This transatlantic convergence of innovative, virtuosic minds is a sublime advert for the possibilities of improves post classical composition. [Aug 2012, p.94]

Restored to Johnson;s original running order, it closes with the dissociative dance of Giant, a final defiant gesture on a record that squares up to tomorrow and--against the odds--wins. [Aug 2014, p.102]

While it lacks the hostility of its role model or its strident central voice, there's intrigue aplenty. [May 2023, p.84]

This is the sound of a big new beginning. [Sep 2014, p.92]

Suffice to say, they've kept their edge. [Dec 2015, p.93]

In total, the rejuvenated, rockier Numan's finest hour. [Nov 2013, p.86]

For all its intimations of rootless drift, The Suburbs finds Arcade Fire back home, and so much happier for it. [Sep 20110, p.90]

An album rich in melancholia, softened with orchestral arrangements and enriched by female voices, at turns wistful, as others paranoid. [Feb 2019, p.89]

Because Of The Times burns with all the invention and ambition that seemed to have been sucked out of its predecessor. [May 2007, p.108]

The music... still has the from-odd-angles of Smog records, but now there's exquisite light amid the shade. [Jun 2007, p.114]

Tomita-worthy retro electronica that justifies another stab at White Christmas, and rehabilitates lesser-known carols such as Midnight Clear and Sleep Quietly. [Jan 2014, p.97]

Fresh Blood’s 10 tracks span an impressive spread of moods.

The restraint, especially from the horn section, is astonishing; the overall effect absorbing to the point of transcendence. [Apr 2019, p.93]

With its 10 tracks and 24-minute running time, this unexpected sequel--its sleeve nodding playfully to Dr Dre's 2001-might look like a small-scale musical property, but once inside, it's a mansion. [Sep 2021, p.84]

All in all, less immediate and traditionally melodic than A Light…, Wall Of Eyes is one for the heads, revealing its many charms and details only upon repeated listens. [Mar 2024, p.83]

Where Ribot's electric guitar commands attention on other records, this acoustic picking is languid and warm, lending the album the intimate intensity of a midnight conversation. [Jul 2025, p.78]

Amid the aggro, Taylor's intense stack-heeled charisma dominates: whether raging or romancing, she's the queen of this glorious chunder from Down Under. [Jun 2019, p.88]

It's a classic soul album, its strength lying in Fields' gift for storytelling and his extraordinary delivery. [Apr 2012, p. 86]

It sounds wonderful. [Apr 2014, p.96]

Another stirring record. [Feb 2003, p.88]

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

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 material is, if anything, stronger than its predecessor and at times exquisitely beautiful. [Aug 2015, p.93]

It's the way these sessions are gracefully processed into digitalia that makes the whole thing so cohesive. [Dec 2021 p.87]

This new nine-track album catches the duo performing together in Europe during 2011 and clearly shows that despite their infrequent collaborations, they create a special telepathic musical synergy in each other's company. [Oct 2016, p.97]

This record [is] near the top of the band's bejewelled catalogue. [Sep 2014, p.92]

When Fuller and Turner sing together (try Happiness or Cherry) it’s truly spectacular, two of a kind becoming one. [Oct 2024, p.90]

The working drafts may have comprised a more direct, accessible album. But this monument to Clark's troubled masterpiece shows how deep and far he was willing to go to capture--and share--the salvation in a song. [Dec 2019, p.107]

They draw from a practiced old hand's bag of tricks yet feel delightfully fresh. [Dec 2015, p.93]

Strange and lovely. [Jan 2016, p.98]

An ambitious and unclassifiable album. [Feb 2018, p.88]

From the cascading choruses of See In The Dark to the title track's stylish chimes, and in What Do I Know she may have found Deep Sea Diver's key to crossover. [Apr 2025, p.83]

Inc. have taken pop-R'n'B out of the cynical genre tourism and into somewhere far more interesting. [Mar 2013, p.94]

Are You Serious is goosebump thrilling and deeply moving. It's also warm and funny, even in its darkest moments. [May 2016, p.93]

In catharsis lies energy, and this, ultimately, is a very joyful, uplifting album. [Nov 2008, p.108]

This fourth album's a gas. [Apr 2015, p.86]

Brilliantly executed with Shirley Bassey-like surety in an arresting, always distinctive, lyrical voice. [Mar 2024, p.89]

Lyricwise everything is simple, ready for sing-along consumption and sometimes you can almost visualise that bouncing ball heading a long the bottom of some YouTube screen. [Feb 2010, p. 95]

Three albums in, and King is still full of surprises. [May 2024, p.82]

Whether melodic and mellow or blown out and busy, this exhilarating ride through rock's back pages offers irrefutable proof that these Nordic giants are currently operating at the peak of their powers. [Jun 2014, p.94]

Bella Hardy takes a bold leap of faith on her third album, devoted entirely to a rich songwriting talent only hinted at on her previous two. [Jun 2011, p.103]

Hook-packed mini-album, direct first-person narratives are sung with knowing sweetness over sunny guitar classicism. [Sep 2017, p.96]

This crisp, Rick Rubin-produced outing packs away a machine that was well-oiled to the last. [Jan. 2001, p.107]

Universal Truths is not as raw overall as GBV's earliest efforts, but it seems much closer to their wonderfully chaotic live sound than the last couple of records have. [July 2002, p.104]

These are his silkiest arrangements yet, but shadowy undercurrents ensure the tension never lets up. [Jun 2011, p.104]

[The Selecter] haven't sounded so energised since their 1979 debut, Too Much Pressure. [Nov 2017, p.100]

It could all be too cute for its own good but some inspired darker moments elevate the whole to the level of a Raymond Carver short story collection set to music by Joan Of Arc-era OMD. [Nov 2018, p.90]

A poetic, typically untethered set within bouzouki pecks and mellotron complement Roy's latest voyage into open-tuned land. [Oct 2013, p.90]

[Illuminates] Nash's own cosmic poetry, crunching guitars and swooning pedal steel. [Dec 2015, p.94]

Like a wonderous and very clever piece of musical brain onomatopoeia. [Aug 2023, p.84]

A messy, eccentric triumph. [Aug 2006, p.98]

An engaging, rewarding whole [that] speaks volumes about the breadth of both of his imagination and compositional agility. [Nov 2013, p.86]

Dawson’s command of the nuances of northern English speech and empathy for small, vulnerable things of all ages shines through with all-seeing light. [Mar 2025, p.92]

Drummer Ulysses Owens Jr displays the kind of tidy time and delirious brushwork you might have thought went out with Ed Thigpen, while McBride drives the whole with a mighty, old-school righteousness. [Dec 2013, p.87]

This promises to be a hard one to beat for fire and fury. Fela would be very proud. [Apr 2018, p.92]

Its music delivered with an understated, glacial splendour. [Jan 2014, p.97]

It took the reformation of Three Hypnotics, his first band, to get his groove back. It's fully maintained on this second RM album, in gale force determination, resolution and incision. [Apr 2019, p.95]

While autumnal gems like Rabbit chime with recent months' universal experience of isolation and inertia, Earth Trip also mirrors the salvation many have found in nature, its gentle, J.J. Cale-esque country-rock tempos evocative of restorative rustic rambling. [Jun 2021, p.82]

Despite their meticulous craft, these songs don't feel like curated artefacts--they feel raw, unquiet, still moving. Vulnicura might tell an old story, but it still feels new. [Apr 2015, p.87]

Lovely vocals from both Mitchell and Johnson and a mellow, timeless mood. [Nov 2022, p.87]

Geographic's signature--naive oreintal pop meets introverted occidental indie--is bewitchingly realised here in 12 gossamer songs. [Nov 2009, p.101]

Where Dizzee Rascal's deliberately diverse third album "Maths & English" found him flirting with more mainstream pop styles, this leaner, punchier fourth record comsummates that union to entirely gratisfying effect. [Oct 2009, p.96]

However distinguished the guests, though, there's no doubt who the commanding presence is. [May 2012, p.82]

Visionary, exhausting, Dusk To Dawn is an extraordinary experience. [Jun 2019, p.95]

Longstreth still doesn't make it easy on the listener with his frenetic arrangements. But, this time around, the sense of plainly expressed emotions is strong. [Aug 2018, p.91]

Sets a high bar. But she clears it, with soulful, oddball, Jersey-girl-in-Nashville aplomb. [Sep 2017, p.96]

Seven Dials reminds us of the joy Frame finds in craft, its grateful rallentando endings, plum chord-voicing and exquisitely sung choruses elevating a work that seems part break-up album, part understated redemption story. [Jun 2014, p.94]

Even playing it straight, Houck produces songs that skitter round your peripheral vision, hide in the back of your mind, their outlaw mental state playing hide-and-seek behind the classic rock curtains. [June 2010, p. 90]