A joyously spiky yet danceable debut. [Aug 2019, p.90]

Callahan's cast on Gold Record are notable for their kindness, and for the dignity of their discretion. [Oct 2020, p.85]

An arresting cocktail of post-punk angularity and instinctive pop savy. [Feb 2004, p.102]

A third LP of warm, retro pop jangle. [Oct 2016, p.100]

It's a beauty, intimate songs and poetic lyrics, overdubbed with the Seattle-based Texan's own harmonies. [Jun 2012, p.93]

His first, full-tilt protest record... he comes out swinging, in every respect. [Oct 2004, p.110]

There are effortless covers of Bo Diddley (Dearest Darling) and Slim Harpo (Got Love If You Want It), but mostly it's Childish's own back-catalogue that is mined and re-imagined here. [Jan 2026, p.82]

It's a bona fide Lee Hazlewood classic: Mournful and orchestrated, imbued with a heart-rendering yearning. [Oct 2012, p.102]

The Twilight Sad’s first album since reducing to founding duo James Graham and Andy MacFarlane yields the most powerful version of the band’s cathartic soundworld. [May 2026, p.92]

An unexpected sound-palette of smouldering beauty, often lit up by sumptuous orchestral arrangements from one Sebastian Hoffmann. [Jan 2017, p.101]

Sampha's solo debut sits somewhere between the ghostly avant-soul if Frank Ocean and James Blake's emotionally wrought electronica. [Mar 2017, p.90]

An unusual yet utterly coherent balance of tenderness and euphoria, vulnerability and invention. [Mar 2018, p.96]

Only Pleasant Valley jars--the irony in Elling's voice is ladled on too heavily--but elsewhere marvel at a master at work. [Nov 2012, p.86]

Digi Snacks is pleasingly lean on fillers , and finds RZA again at his peak as a producer, effortlessly balancing the slow burn bangers wirh tracks of soulful uplit. [Sep 2008, p.110]

This edition adds a 1999 concert. .... It's R.E.M. at their sweetest. [Jan 2023, p.99]

Rather than a showcase for their collaborators, however, MOM take the greatest of liberties with these sound sources, fragmenting and processing them into unrecognizable forms, and even occasionally playing them straight. [May 2018, p.

All credit to Knowles, though, whose vision is so cohesive that the 19 short tracks feel like one long, utterly immersive piece. [Jun 2019, p.86]

His slow-burning music ... has serious cross-over potential. [Apr 2012, p.91]

In taming their wilder side, Future Islands' ecstatic melancholy has never sounded quite so free. [Apr 2014, p.96]

Her voice and band discernibly crackle with confidence. [Aug 2020, p.86]

Highlights include an Afrobeat makeover of Curtis Mayfield's Billy Jack and a soul-jazz revamp of Talking Heads' Once In A Lifetime. [Aug 2019, p.90]

What they [Sun Araw & M Geddes Gengras with the Congos] produced is startling and unique. [May 2012, p.89]

The result is ZZ Top's Eliminator meets The Best of Chic. [Jun 2003, p.112]

It's their immersion in multi-layered psychedelia that give Midnight Sun its compellingly ominous underpinning and complete two-sides-of-vinyl feel. [Jun 2014, p.91]

There's alot of her here, and the connections are all her own. [Jun 2014, p.89]

Music is fitful and its charms aren't all immediate, but Madonna is still doing what she does best--giving a lick of pop genius to the unlikely genre of experimental dance music.

A powerful intoxicant rather than just another retro genre exercise. [Sep 2016, p.92]

A multifaceted diamond that moves his gentle vocals between musical dark corners and soaring expanses. [Sep 2016, p.99]

Blood Money makes for an extravagant headphone experience if you're in the right frame of mind. If not, its clatter and blare and nihilism will genuinely jangle your nerves. [Co-Album Of The Month (with 'Alice'), May 2002, p.94]

It's hot, loose, raucous, and retro in an overlapping-era kind of way. [Jun 2012, p.93]

Are Possible grasps the roots of folk tradition and propels them enthusiastically into new terrain. [Sep 2024, p.88]

She counts up her decades on the twinkly Hell-Oh Sixty, ponders the cruel power of good hair on Bangs, and documents love passing its sell-by date on The Farewell Tour, before finding Tom Petty-ish redemption with closing heartbreaker Last Night’s Rainbow. [Oct 2024, p.89]

It's all as subtle as a flurry of punches in the face, but utterly uplifting. [Dec 2016, p.92]

[MC Taylor's] voice is a gorgeous, low-slung burr, his melodies are fireside-warm, his restless imagination follows the lineage of Southern literary giant Eudora Welty and the collective chops, overseen by long-time studio accomplice Scott Hirsch, are impeccable. [Oct 2014, p.92]

Garvey's poetics have acquired more acuity. [Dec 2015, p.86]

Football Money is breezy and concise--10 songs, 28 minutes--but generously ladled with charm. [Feb 2020, p.86]

Some of the 11 songs have a rich band sound with strings and strong piano, and others a spare contemplative tone. [Nov 2012, p.88]

There's beauty here, but Pine slowly melts away the frosted surface to reveal it's not an uncomplicated joy. [Apr 2026, p.88]

The eight-song concoction is a joyful, lush and fittingly grandiose suite. [Feb 2017, p.93]

An intriguing, funny and inventive listen. [Nov 2006, p.101]

The music, which is characterised by extraordinary switches in style, reflects the diversity of the archive, morphing from bleepy electronic and futuristic R&B to churning garage rock with distorted megaphone vocals. [Oct 2023, p.81]

Song-for-song Damage And Joy is the most rewarding Jesus And Mary Chain album since their prime. [Apr 2017, p.92]

Although only nine tracks, it's a sprawling affair revisiting just about every road he's previously travelled, but somehow tying them all together for the first time. [Dec 2023, p.92]

At times it's all too much, but Christinzio knows how to burn without crashing. [May 2020, p.88]

Bauhaus Staircase shows OMD thriving as much as surviving. [Dec 2023, p.91]

Crafty, insidious creations which gradually accrue substance and emotional heft even as they remain soothing on the ear. [Jul 2021, p.83]

Tke heart and enjoy The Boss's galvanising newie--Mr. Motivator is back. [Mar 2009, p.102]

Sunnier than before, Malamore is a swirl of pounding drums, spoken French, baroque melodies. [May 2016, p.96]

Sardonic, wistful, always finely wrought songs. [Apr 2014, p.98]

Featuring chamber music, operatic art singing, spoken word, drum circles and horns and woodwinds ecstatically blowing--all outside-time examples of the group's motto: "Great Black Music, Ancient too the Future." [Aug 2019, p.95]

It's the brooding dancefloor ordnance which marks Hairless Toys as a career highlight. [Jun 2015, p.88]

The quality of both performances and recordings is exceptional for the time, with elegant versions of Starman and Oh! You Pretty Things affirming the confident new direction of Bowie's pop sensibility, and muscular renditions of Suffragette City, Queen Bitch and Changes.

Given its length, trying to tackle To Be Kind n one sitting might feel like the musical equivalent of scaling Everest, but with so many dizzying peaks along the way the effort is well rewarded. [Jun 2014, p.90]

The emotion flows as true as the music.

An astute writer whose lyrics--frank, observational, brutally self-aware--make her songs feel deceptively simple. [Oct 2016, p.100]

The ’70s resonate within the 10 exquisitely crafted tracks.

An exquisite collection of R&B message songs that have subtly been reframed with a jazz twist to reflect dystopian developments in contemporary American life. [May 2023, p.84]

With Childish producing, they pick up where they left off. [Jan 2026, p.84]

An album of supreme control, Solaris proves that not all Zeitgeist tickling beats are necessarily bound for the coffee table.

There's so much controlled carnage to this double LP that it just flashes by. [Feb 2026, p.90]

A more elemental approach to dance music. [Oct 2014, p.93]

For the most part Migratory is music for reflection and meditation, held together by Fujita’s unique lightness of touch. [Oct 2024, p.84]

Dissonant yet heavenly, Gas Lit is an album that seethes, soothes, liberates and bewitches in equal measures. [Mar 2021, p.83]

Blessed with impeccable musical bone structure, nearly everything suits them. [Nov 2012, p.88]

Less direct than its 2012 predecessor The Shadow Of Heaven, Suicide Songs collects richly arranged reflections which climax with A Cocaine Christmas And An Alcoholic's New Year. [Feb 2016, p.96]

What's certainly clear is that this spin-the-bottle project has legs, its relaxed meeting of minds a mellifluous triple-threat. [May 2025, p.84]

Middle Cyclone never lets go enough to take flight; nor does it too quickly wear out its welcome. [Apr 2009, p.110]

When the quality is this high, Perkins can sing the pain away for as long as he needs. [May 2009, p.101]

Focusing in the songwriting, at its best the album recalls Gene Clark (Outsmarted), folksy Led Zeppelin (All God Did and Make You Happy) and even the very best of his father (the title track). [Aug 2025, p.77]

As this crackles with youthful brio and subtlety, we can start speculating what this band may go on to achieve. [Aug 2009, p.98]

For all the heartache, Blu Wav is surprisingly uplifting, transcendent, even.[Feb 2024, p.85]

Tripp is a complicated, slow-burning wonder that matches Cerulean Salt for fuzzy, bed-headed zingers but adds several layers of regret and self doubt and is all the more rewarding for that. [May 2015, p.95]

The album rocks, its symphonic depth and stratosphere-surfing melodies more affecting with each subsequent listen. [Jan 2003, p.98]

Heavy though it is, the songwriting remains remarkably light and agile. [Mar 2024, p.88]

The pop and alt-country arrangements shine throughout, with all concerned inspired and on point. [Dec 2022, p.85]

Among many highlights, the best and brightest is the Guided By Voices-do-Status Quo elation of Box Batteries, an elegy for youth designed to live forever. [Jun 2015, p.88]

A combination of fierce electro-clash, stabbing rock riffs, and the rudest raps on the planet. [Oct 2003, p.118]

An adult pleasure. [Jun 2014, p.90]

Regular producer Dan Austin teases atmosphere, buries mysterious sampled speech and navigates the piano-led title track bank into Hacienda territory. What kept them? [Oct 2020, p.90]

This time [COF] have tempered their voluminous superfuzz with scenic bliss. [Oct 2004, p.101]

The unreleased material sustains earlier standards. [Jun 2012, p.100]

Urban Turban is another irresistible Cornershop mash-up. [Aug 2012, p.86]

[Bonnie Bloomgarden's] brings formidable, shamanic energy to California Mountain Shake, Magic Powers and Sunday, her untamed vocals on the latter conjuring a young Maria Mckee. [Apr 2023, p.88]

What Matters Most is near faultless; a whole semester of song-craft in 40 minutes. [Jul 2023, p.90]

Although the second half of the album doesn't quite match up to the front, there's no sense it's dragging, either. [Dec 2015, p.88]

There is a confidence and intensity at UCLA that explains why that concert was an under-the-counter favourite. [Jun 2022, p.96]

It is simultaneously comforting and haunting, an emotional closeness that is both playful an unsettling. [Jun 2026, p.93]

Tom Petty's turned his attention to a resume of his life so far -- 15 crunching, clever, moving tracks that make his earlier point far better, indicting the rest by breezy example. [July 2010, p. 96]

While Linkous’s tendencies to smudge and collapse his songs are apparent – not least the atmospheric disturbance of antique hymn O Child – so too is his generosity of songwriting spirit, positioning the bleakest sentiments in dynamic, questioning music.

Eventually capturing both the sickly magenta beauty and unnatural creeping dread of Lovecraft's alien world. [May 2020, p.90]

The themes - anxiety, longing and dislocation - are familiar, but here Blonde redhead address their potent heartaches with renewed grace and strength. [Nov 2023, p.93]

Sim's painful journey also feels like catharsis, and packs a vivid statement of musical intent. [Oct 2022, p.87]

This follow-up is stronger [than his debut]. [Apr 2009, p.109]

Allen turned 98 this year, yet the fire still burns brightly - his otherworldly creations keeping faith with his Afrofuturist mentor's grand design. [Nov 2022, p.91]

It's not a giant leap but Elbow haven't been embraced to be wreckers of civilization. [Apr 2014, p.88]

On In Circles, with its plangent, Yan Tiersen-style piano, something wonderful happens--a feeling of limitlessness opening up. [Jun 2015, p.89]

The Parisian has lost his cool, let rip, taken his metaphorical shirt off, and it sounds liberating.

In the end it seems that the clearing of the elliptical fog has produced the quartet's most cohesive and rewarding album. [Jun 2014, p.90]