Buzzing with delicate analogue warmth, the gamelan rhythms, toy-piano chimes and warped guitar loops or Walking Field are lullingly hypnotic and eerily deja entendu. [Jul 2013, p.87]

A gloriously nuanced embellishment of the band's timeless virtue. [Apr 2015, p.91]

This mini-LP ladles grooves on PDS's stripped post-punk. [Jul 2015, p.96]

An electro-edged nerviness also surfaces but, overall, the fresh stylistic excursions result in an album which, fittingly considering its backstory, does not quite hang together. [Feb 2019, p.91]

Tatum adds to the mix tropical pop textures, shimmery synth-pop gloss and twangy guitar solos that could melt hearts. [Oct 2012, p.88]

Highly entertaining, though best consumed a few songs at a time, Quickies is more than a novelty record, though certainly novel. [Jun 2020, p.90]

Last Day Of Summer confirms that White Denim have a broad understanding of music as a whole... Their ability to synthesise this knowledge makes them one of the most thrilling forces in rock music right now. [Jan 2012, p.96]

They've never been subtle, but they're still highly effective. [Mar 2010, p.93]

It's a beautifully rounded affair though--sometimes elegiac, at others uplifting, no matter how dark its heart. [Dec 2008, p.112]

Clever-innocent, it's a bit Cerys Matthews, a bit Bow Wow Wow... minus the tunes and larger-than-life character to get stuck into. [Dec. 2011 pg. 94]

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

Bad Religion see no reason to mess with the formula. [Feb 2013, p.98]

The surface of Another One is pure pleasure; underneath, it's not quite so easy. [Sep 2015, p.90]

It's recognisably the same band, but lower key, less structured, a set of soundscapes rather than songs, and sometimes almost gothic in its mood. [Mar 2003, p.97]

It's perhaps a tad effortful here and there, but it's gloriously impolite. [Apr 2004, p.113]

Death Cab weave together smartly taut guitars with vivid observational lyrics to create perfectly crafted pop songs, stunning in their simplicity and beauty. [Apr 2002, p.96]

The higher production values simply water down R.L.'s natural vigour. [Jan 2001, p. 103]

What this record lacks is a couple of the screamalong anthems at which Muse have become renowned. [Aug 2006, p.88]

[It] burns with pop ambition. [Feb 2007, p.105]

The Jets sound cohesive and settled but losing their saucer-eyed charm can't help but make them a less mesmerising alternative to the competition. [Apr 2008, p.114]

This is spare, emotionally charged piano music which always errs toward the melodic side of melancholy. [Mar 2010, p.99]

Whenever he lays down his licks atop the bed he's made, there's never any doubt that this is a Pat Metheny record. One of his better ones, too. [Mar 2010, p.101]

The sweetness of its sun-kissed textures and playful melodies mark out El Turista as his best work since 2005's near flawless "Nashville." [Apr 2010, p.98]

Hitchcock's attempt to create a "Basement Tapes" vibe churns up a clutch of affable songs but he looks to have saved his best material for the near contempoary "Ole! Tarantula." [Apr 2010, p.103]

Hopscotching from arrhythmic electronica to brutal DJ Shadow-style sonic assault and back again, it's a final demonstration that at last Stateless have arrived somewhere they can happily call home. [Mar 2011, p.98]

With the excellent Roots backing her, she recasts many of the dominant black music sounds of 30 or so years ago on a set of songs which address concerns that are clearly in the here-and-now. [Aug 2012, p.92]

This epic finally reveals his personal vision in all its frenetic glory. [Aug 2012, p.94]

It's as commercial as it gets but works purely because the Quin girls have fashioned with good tunes that come replete with more than enough hooks to keep everyone happy. [Mar 2013, p.88]

Any of these versions would brighten Radio 2's day, but eventually the massed violins and mid-paced tempos begin to pall. [May 2013, p.88]

Razor-sharp production, lazy lolloping dance grooves and a polished, poppy glow lends the debut from Essex producer Tythe more than a hint of anything goes, '80s Balearic sheen. [Sep 2013, p.95]

Not exactly a collection of lullabies, this is still some of the most achingly beautiful music released yet under the Jesu name. [Dec 2013, p.89]

This, their literally titled second, is equally arresting [as their debut]. [Apr 2013, p.94]

Cohen’s sound checks, as lengthy as the shows, where he’d experiment with old songs and try out new ones, were celebrated by insiders, and the three examples here are among the highlights: a remarkable Field Commander Cohen, like a four-and-a-half-minute operetta; a cover of George Jones’ Choices (gorgeous fiddle); and a new Cohen original, up-tempo blues Got A Little Secret.

Their big sound has a wide sonic palette, from the spacey keyboards of Honeytrap to the baroque strings and synths of Sunny, but there are some less inspired moments. [Oct 2015, p.91]

If Watneys Red Barrel-flavoured stompers like Roll The Balls, Watch Your Step and Bonehead Waltz are something you'd dig, this is definitely for you. [Feb 2016, p.98]

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

Entertaining, at the very least. [Aug 2016, p.93]

[Manu Chao's] sonic tropes influence more than the three songs he appears on but Rose hasn't been around this long without knowing how to wrest the stage from the men in her music. [Aug 2016, p.94]

An album full of inspired electronic melody and pastoral reflection culminating in the heartsore title track. [Oct 2016, p.100]

An often winning fusion of power-pop, electronics and blue-eyed soul. [Nov 2017, p.103]

Warm and full of feeling, an LP as instinctively cosmic as it is epic. [Feb 2018, p.99]

Everything Is Recorded has its sublime moments, but despite a pervasive post-tricky hip-hop nocturnalism and some loopy-interlude glue sprinkled through, it's just too disparate to cohere into a compelling whole. [Mar 2018, p.92]

It all shines a light on Cash's enduring artistry. [May 2018, p.94]

Parish underscores his composing skills wit these uneasy instrumentals and tight-wound songs. [Jul 2018, p.98]

Elephants On Acid finds Cypress Hill not only recapturing the dynamism and urgency of their early-90s heyday, but also taking that energy somewhere completely new. [Nov 2018, p.84]

It doesn't equal their Back Stabbers/Ship Ahoy period but it comes close. [May 2019, p.90]

A challenging but far from inaccessible work. [Jan 2020, p.91]

Far Enough takes the most exhilarating form of resistance, much more than riot grrrl's DIY aesthetic, akin to a harder-rocking Sleater Kinney with a similarly wailing centrifugal force in singer/guitarist Jenny McKechnie. [Jun 2020, p.90]

A second album of devilishly delicate songs. [Sep 2020, p.82]

Posse-laden re-workings of deathless anthems Public Enemy Number Won and Fight The Power are suitably superfly; rehashing four tracks from 2017's Nothing IS Quick In The Desert less so. A welcome blast if righteous funky wisdom nonetheless. [Dec 2020, p.83]

A sturdy enough vehicle for Young's polemics, Crazy Horse are an even stronger conduit for the metaphysics of their union. ... But when you want it dark, no one does dark like Neil Young and Crazy Horse. [Jan 2022, p.80]

The albums most evoked are the mid'90s brace, Charade and Misère. The Monochrome Set remain unmistakeably themselves. [Apr 2022, p.82]

A multi-faceted and in turns amusing and affecting album. [Jun 2022, p.86]

Tempus is overwhelming serene. [Dec 2022, p.89]

New ground is not broken, but happily, neither are they. [Jan 2024, p.86]

Their talent for maximalism is evident on the jagged, urgent Cinnamon Temple and a wonderfully trippy inversion of Jefferson Airplane's White Rabbit. [Aug 2024, p.90]

What's most remarkable is just how like the old Dolls this new record sounds. [Aug 2006, p.92]

Junip's second album is enchanting enough to sell cluster bombs. [May 2013, p.88]

Passage surges, subsides and enthralls like a Gothic Sigur Ros. [Jun 2012, p.93]

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]

Here are 13 reasons why we don't need another Pixies record. [Apr 2008, p.101]

Early contender for pop album of the year? Definitely. [Apr 2024, p.85]

It's one of those records where less is most definitely more. [Apr 2013, p.90]

This trio's brand of piano-fed luminescence is more traditionally coffee-table. That's no criticism, more acknowledgement of their smooth melodic nous. [Oct 2013, p.87]

Ward opens More Rain with the sound of a deluge outside before going on to ponder the vast gulf between the American Dream and its less glamorous reality, but the final glitterbeat stomp of I'm Going Higher he finishes with the sun on his face. [Apr 2016, p.94]

Inspired by Elena Ferrante's dense domestic dramas, wears its complexity lightly. [Nov 2021, p.94]

A further refinement of their liquid improv vibe, the Thrill Jockey debut finds the quintet sitting on a mountain looking at the sun, high on Popol Vuh and who knows what else. [Apr 2011, p.97]

The wig-out-in-wonderland title track has a poppy, Donovan approach before its unsettling phased climax. [Apr 2017, p.99]

If the near Herculean task of sustaining enchantment through 12 instrumentals just occasionally tests Los Bitchos, it's easily forgivable. [Sep 2024, p.92]

Rattle That Lock escapes the weight of legacy and operates in the here and now in a serene triumphant manner. [Oct 2015, p.88]

There is quiet drama here--especially on the gothic crawl of Spiders or Home's extended inner-space walk--but sometimes The Soft Cavalry struggle to project it beyond their own moody boundaries, or to find that extra charge. [Aug 2019, p.92]

Students of the 19080s Brit synth-pop and Gallic cold wave will find Austra a contemporary champion. [Jun 2011, p.97]

As you hit repeat to hear Horehound for the umpteenth time, what's remarkable is that these 11 tunes, with their sonic curveballs and causl vim, suggest that a second Dead Weather LP would be almost as welcome as the White Stripes' seventh. [Jul 2009, p.90]

They've surpassed the Nancy Sinatra/Lee Hazelwoood comparisons to create an intense, fluid sound that's uniquely their own. [Sep 2010, p.96]

Too much of My Soft Machine is too smooth by half. [Jun 2023, p.95]

Throughout, she oozes charisma, sophistication and soul. [Jul 2018, p.92]

While the woozy house piano of Mad World, contained dynamics of Mind's Eye and tension-building twists and turns of Oasis are early highlights, RAkei's crying falsetto and brooding croon often carry far too leisurely songs whose midtempo grooves run the risk of rolling into one. [Jul 2019, p.86]

A rare sustained tension between sex and spirituality bristles throughout. [Jan 2021, p.88]

Bonkers idea. ... Stranger still, the whole thing works a treat. [Nov 2021, p.87]

On Requiem, they invert proportions, taking a variety of folk and world sounds as base ingredients and embellishing those with rock noise. Whether that's a more intriguing approach depends on if you prefer relentless musical phrases delivered on pan flute or distorted guitar. [Nov 2016, p.91]

Some of its finest moments are its most intimate and least arranged. [May 2006, p.99]

An understated treat. [Nov 2011, p.103]

Just like her collaborator Bon Iver, Lia Ices seems to instinctively know that less is delectably more. [Mar 2011, p.p94]

Reflective but brimming with aching melody. [Nov 2016, p.88]

Dodge And Burn is at the very least a solid offering with some dramatic and exhilarating rock'n'roll moments, but overall it's more a consolidation than a staking out of new ground. [Nov 2015, p.87]

Hersh's voice is measured, husky, and quietly defiant, the sound of the [Throwing] Muses' ambient alter ego. [Apr 2003, p.97]

Folds' songwriting continues to impress. [Oct 2001, p.130]

A transformation beyond all recognition. [Sep 2001, p.114]

Medicine At Midnight is strangely impersonal, with little to declare beyond its maker skill at the form. The lyrics, meanwhile, are often undercooked. [Mar 2021, p.82]

A fuzzed-up Pixies-worthy melodic high. [Jun 2017, p.95]

The understated widescreen desolation of their eponymous second album marked a breakthrough for Warpaint, their artfully washed-out funk-punk making more sense than ever. The follow-up, Heads Up balances that downbeat vibe with more upbeat, poppy elements, creating a tension that's electric. [Nov 2016, p.91]

Ain't nothing original, but it feels--and sounds--mighty fine. [Mar 2014, p.98]

This covers set is a fine entry-point. [Jul 2009, p.97]

If Diana Krall's Goodby and Norah Jones's Ill Wind are strikingly vulnerable, intimate performances of classics, it's perhaps the obscurer selections that stand out. [Feb 2011, p.107]

They stick to their winning formula. [Sep 2012, p.88]

A smattering of era-appropriate scene-setting standards sit surprisingly snugly amid the bespoke symphonic esoterica--all further testament to greenwood's deep, intrinsic musicality. [Dec 2012, p.88]

Their most accessible outing yet. [Jul 2016, p.91]

If Perpetual Surrender had elements of woozy, chillwave, Familiar Touch is full-scale yacht-rock sophistication, with honed chorus hooks and silken arrangements rippling with precision curves. [Jan 2017, p.94]