This band brings a grubby beauty to a sound imbued with the insidious durability of the Buckingham-Nicks Fleetwood Mac. [Sep 2007, p.105]

It makes for a spiritual and mind-stretching experience one minute, woozy and disorienting the next. [Jan 2013, p.100]

Whatever is behind Sigur Ros's ineffable Nordic magic, it doesn't appear to be powered by electricity. [Dec 2007, p.98]

A future late-night classic. [Jul 2020, p.80]

It might be another album indebted to the '80s, but the sound of discovery has seldom been such fun as is. [Nov 2010, p.107]

An immersive, deeply satisfying work that doubles down on the experimentalism he brought to The Frames. [May 2019, p.93]

Here they sound commanding and convincing as they do on-stage. [Mar 2009, p.111]

He still sings very much from the heart, though, and the result is altogether awesome. [Apr 2013, p.94]

The songs on All These Dreams luxuriate in their arrangements, swept along by gossamer strings, and silky backing vocals. [Apr 2015, p.92]

Hamilton's second album only firms up a reputation for making pastoral, semi-acoustic pop. [Mar 2009, p.107]

In Jessy Lanza's case, disruption has elevated artistic output. [Jul 2020, p.82]

The most fun comes, unsurprisingly, on the funkier first side. [Jul 2018, p.93]

It's almost too strenuous in its attempts to top its predecessors, 20212's Big Inner and 2015's Fresh Blood, but once inside White's all-enveloping world, there's no space to worry too much. [Oct 2021, p.98]

Slick's shuddering electro, 808 handclaps and foundation-bothering Miami bass drops go to work on your endorphin levels and display astute songcraft. [Mar 2010, p.100]

They sound in rude health to me. [Aug 2018, p.96]

Shakedown and Sell Your Soul feel triumphant in a way indie-rock has rarely managed of late, while an intoxicating weirdness drives even their most anthemic moments. [Jun 2014, p.93]

An album that's a steady pleasure from start to finish. [Jul 2012, p.82]

When the storm clouds on final cut Protection finally part,Okumu riffing like The Edge mainlining steroids, it completes as astonishing redemptive arc brighter than any rainbow. [Jul 2012, p.92]

A gem. [Nov 2004, p.98]

It's a vivid glimpse of a phenomenon on the cusp of mega-fame. [Jan 2022, p.100]

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 whole of Open Arms is much larger than the sum of its parts. [Jan 2022, p.89]

Canadian power-poppers celebrate hyper-melodic 20th birthday. [Sept. 2011, p. 94]

With a voice that perfectly balances grit and sugar, Daniel and band tread their indie/rock tightrope with flair. [Mar 2022, p.85]

The Philadelphia quartet's second has a deep warmth emanating from it. [Mar 2022, p.82]

In Waves partly mimics the jostle and heave of a crowded dancefloor. All You Children presses The Avalanches into euphoric service, matched for dynamism by Baddy On The Floor, a bend-and-snap collaboration with DJ Honey Dijon. [Nov 2024, p.85]

Most important is the pure joy of these tracks and how instantly likeable they are. [Nov 2012, p.94]

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

Heavy at heart, but eminently hummable, Sunshine Rock is an affecting, uplifting set. [Mar 2019, p.92]

At 16 tracks Bowler Hat Soup is possibly a little overlong but what is youth for if not indulging a wealth of ideas? [Dec 2013, p.87]

This reissued debut reminds, they were a band better informed--and more thrilling--than most. [Jan 2013, p.106]

It really does seem that a decade-long period of interbal artistic crisis has been resolved, beautifully, even triumphantly. [Apr 2008, p.98]

The short length and minimal production means Untitled Unmastered occasionally lacks the dynamics of Lamar’s previous work, but it remains an enthralling postscript to his masterpiece.

The basic Prinzhorn recipe - extra thick bass-lines and super-primitive stand-up drums, woven together with a lattice of spindly guitar and set off with livid bursts of call-and-response vocal -- remains largely unchanged. [Feb 2012, p.98]

Comprising mostly new material, the performances are frequently breathtaking. [Mar 2013, p.91]

Malone excels himself with the brassy pop of 'Lover's Day' and 'Golden Age.' [Oct 2008, p.112]

This album doesn't have the blinding clarity of proper revelation but, in its febrile examination of survival and redemption, Oh My God is on the side of the angels. [May 2019, p.86]

San Franciscan psych moodists here to reclaim independent music. [Jan. 2011, p. 98]

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

American Classic really shines when the velveteen smoothness takes a backseat to that voice. [Sep 2009, p.90]

The results have the in-the-room intimacy of Lenker's best work. [Apr 2024, p.91]

The most rounded and effervescent of the three [albums]. [May 2015, p.97]

Impressive, beautifully poised stuff. [Jun 2014, p.93]

Ultimately, it's the push and pull between Duncan Bellamy's mantric hang-drums and Jack Wyllie's floating sax lines that ensure these widescreen creations feel so vividly full of life. [Dec 2021, p.89]

The music draws on '70s fusion, post-rock and free jazz, and throughout McCaslin's sax expresses boldness, anger, beauty, joy. [Nov 2016, p.92]

The restless thump of Out For The West stands out. [Oct 2014, p.96]

Brit rapper Rodney Smith takes a big step towards national treasure status on sobering fifth album. [Oct 2011, p.99]

Inspired by dives into recessed memories for a concurrent memoir, these songs are testaments to his experiences – and his expertise as a steadfast syndicate of the great rock song. [Oct 2024, p.88]

Dizzying stuff. [Apr 2026, p.91]

Whatever ‘flow’ is, she has it, Koalas and Charlie Potato shimmering like hot tarmac mirages, and trippy closer Surround coming on like Parks and key collaborator Ruari Meehan’s nod to The Orb’s Little Fluffy Clouds. Repeat listens focus the kaleidoscope. [Dec 2024, p.87]

Beach House's second album in three months underlines just how precision-stylised their frosty, often glacially-slow dream-pop has become. [Jan 2016, p.88]

Little Fictions is more upbeat in tempo and outlook an sounds like a band given a jolting shot of B12. [Mar 2017, p.88]

It's all tinged with, real communicable melancholy. [Nov 2012, p.85]

A sobering adventure close o something like home. [Oct 2023, p.86]

This is Wilson's most potent release to date, its title referencing a subtle fudging of classic country tropes with more modern textures. [Apr 2020, p.93]

The pervading mood of Dedication is oppressive and borderline paranoid, but it makes for wonderfully innovative, state-of-the-art urban electronica. [Aug. 2011, p. 104]

The arrangements within are more ebullient and wide-ranging. ... His subjects - all character sketches of friends or chance meetings - are also multifaceted. [May 2020, p.89]

A psych-folk bent for harmonic discord and atmospheric dread finds something forever sinister lodged at the album's heart: the kind of beauty that makes sailors run aground. [Dec 2008, p.102]

The LP is a treat, like listening to an oracle from the depths of a digital cave. [Feb 2024, p.86]

Three Demons is yet wilder, more alien and untidy, swerving trad rockabilly's regulation grooves and crescendos in search of an often sinister and cactus-trippy otherness. [Jun 2019, p.94]

Nelson has impeccable taste in cover versions. [May 2013, p.87]

The Chieftains lay a vibrant carpet of colour but veering between joyous and heartbreaking, the fiery Mexican element is what makes it so compelling. [Apr 2010, p.105]

The piano's push into poignancy is occasionally too much, but Yawny Yawn largely feels like new information, a clear-sighted re-vision of a tremendous set of songs. [Sep 2019, p.86]

At Asiatisch's heart is bass, gargantuan and window rattling, around which she builds an elaborate framework of complex rhythms and melodies using analogue hardware. [Jun 2014, p.93]

A sweet yet spiky soundtrack for our march into oblivion. [Jun 2014, p.89]

Simultaneously beautiful and uncanny. [May 2012, p.89]

The formula still works a treat. [Dec 2021, p.86]

There are a few other naff moments, but Gallagher's voice carries everything, sounding fantastic, high and bright in the mix. [Oct 2019, p.82]

A collaboration where each sulphurous element perfectly complements the others. [Jan 2022, p.90]

The new sound of young Scotland. [Dec 2025, p.82]

Not only the bravest record she's ever made, it's also one of the strangest and most uncompromising by a major artist to get a commercial release. [Sep 2004, p.93]

A striking mix of rock and electronics on Philadelphia group's second record. [Sept. 2011, p. 94]

The trio's vocal harmonies have lost none of their warm-blooded magic. [Nov 2018, p.96]

More than just a decent nu-folk album, Babel is a great pop album. [Oct 2012, p.82]

The immediacy and bare-wire fizz suit his lyrical candour. [Oct 2014, p.96]

bdrmm's murky spider play tugs at the listener's emotions in unanticipated ways. [Aug 2023, p.87]

Persuasive R&B with strident lyrics and sharp sonics. [Jan 2016, p.98]

The snotty attitude of MIA's incendiary globalist skipping rhymes has never been better balanced with first-rate pop hooks. [Jan 2014, p.96]

It's the same PSB sound--huge electronic hooks wed to archly recited lyrics. The only difference is almost every track here is a potential hit. [Apr 2009, p.100]

The overall effect is more inline with how Townes made his early albums. [Jun 2009, p.96]

The Stylistics would've killed for a song like Paradise, and I'm not sure they'd have performed it better. [Aug 2025, p.82]

The results make for a chilling and captivating experience, with the unexpected musical flourishes in stop-start songs. [Sep 2009, p.104]

Truly, a glorious noise. [Nov 2003, p.128]

Tim Gane and Laetitia Sadier's prettiest songs since '95's Music For The Amorphous Body Study Center. [Oct 2001, p.116]

How To Live is more of a creative evolution than a total break from Cooper's previous music. [Sep 2019, p.88]

Carolina's use of a talk box a la Frampton stuck in this listener's craw, but elsewhere the urgency and uncensored filth of Slash's playing is a joy. [Jul 2012, p.82]

He has created a wooded lattice of crackling guitar and dusky electronica. [Jun 2012, p.87]

A beautiful, comforting lament. [Nov 2019, p.95]

It’s a non-stop cavalcade of chá-chá-chá (including flute worthy of Orquesta Aragón) and mambo that should bring any dancer out of their shell. [Sep 2024, p.92]

Almond has certainly never sounded better as a singer than on this, largely a collection of covers of often obscure source material. [Nov 2017, p.102]

It's a mellow, meditative and mid-paced work... TIB is still a strong record, which fans will grow to enjoy immensely. [Jul 2001, p.94]

Fab follow-up to 2009's Tomorrow Is Alright from the San Franciscan collective. [Sept. 2011, p. 95]

This is a terrific ride. [Apr 2005, p.88]

Kurt Vile's slacker star continues to rise on Bottle It In. [Nov 2018, p.89]

James Brooks conjures the motorik rhythm and magnificent vistas. [Oct 2014, p.96]

Witty, touching, adored by everyone from Bjork to to Jon Snow; the wait is over. [Oct 2011, p.100]

Highlights are many. [Jan 2017, p.100]

Sonically ambitious it may be, but it's consistently accessible. [Nov 2012, p.94]