This repeat performance from marginally less familiar names might seem like a poor substitute for a new project. Happily, it's not. [Mar 2016, p.97]

The fire is back in his belly. [Apr 2012, p.88]

A titular palindrome for New Yorkers' covers CD. [June 2010, p. 96]

A much grander affair [than his debut]. [Jun 2006, p.103]

Over nine more filmic songs, a quaint magic unfolds. [Aug 2019, p.93]

Retour Au Champs De Mars oscillates malevolently with throaty, Death Star bass synths; like much of Iris, it uses a covert approach to win you over. [Feb 2017, p.95]

Cold yet compulsive. [Jun 2005, p.106]

It turns to a clutch of its founding fathers and allies for its 14th outing. [Feb 2014, p.97]

Clearly the thrill of hearing new songs in their embryonic state could never be replicated, but as rendered in such pristine isolation even the cavalier back catalogue selections (rarely played early classic 1,000,000;one-that-got-away Romance) fell flat. [Dec 2009, p. 95]

What used to work well just doesn't any more, even though Finn still conjures street stories with a rank, raw conversational truth. [May 2014, p.87]

While outstanding musicianship is guaranteed, it doesn't always go hand in hand with great songwriting, but by its judicious mixing of the avant-garde and smart pop, alt rock and low-slung funk, Patience is always engaging. [Aug 2016, p.90]

The sound a minibus of demons might make stuck in a bank holiday A303 tailback. [Aug 2016, p.99]

The twilit fug of Warpaint is hypnotic, exotic, and rewards the close listening its hushed grooves and harmonies invite. [Feb 2014, p.94]

His offbeat personality and refusal to pound the toad most traveled mark out this wildly talented bearded savant as a potential game-changer. [Dec 2013, p.89]

Isn't quite a match for last year's career-topping Broken Stay Open Sky. [Nov 2019, p.86]

Restless, relentless, righteous: this guru of the primeval groove is once more helming an exceptional rock'n'roll band. [July 2008, p.108]

Let It Die's first six tracks find The Shaky Hands joyously rocking it up - like the less self-consciously arty Wilco, pre-Yankee Hotel Foxtrot - while the more reflective mood that settles over the album's second half is a wistful reverie rather than a spiritual malaise. [Feb 2010, p. 102]

It makes for perfect summer listening. [Aug. 2011, p. 101]

Consistently absorbing, as good as any of Foxx's early-'80's benchmarks. [Apr 2012, p.86]

These veterans are already better than The Funkees. [Oct 2012, p.91]

Even for Ron it makes for downbeat listening, but when it really comes together, such as Lost In Thought, his rock-bottom emotions truly reach for the stars. [Mar 2013, p.87]

Harsh but striking. [Dec 2013, p.92]

Bitter-pill catharsis. [Jun 2014, p.89]

It suggest that a future as pullover wearing folkies is theirs for the taking if they fancied it. [Mar 2015, p.94]

Duffy's devotional regard toward his own aesthetic rapture is sometimes cloying, but these are also beautifully mellifluous and impressively composed recordings. [Jun 2015, p.91]

Half Moon Run may still be exploring a road that travels between Django Django's left-field indie pop and the wintry harmonies of Fleet Foxes, but the scenery is damned fine. [Nov 2015, p.89]

A debilitating thrash/death doom speedball. [Jan 2016, p.98]

This joyous, head-spinning dash to beyond the end of the yellow brick road audaciously fuses the chamber chorale, folk, the theatrical and torch song to create an album which could soundtrack a cabaret hosted by the Wizard of Oz himself. [Sep 2016, p.98]

[John Renbourn & Wizz Jones] playing with such joy, skill and passion that unequivocally shows they were both still on to of their game, successfully marrying two contrasting guitar styles. They both sound good vocally, too. [Oct 2016, p.95]

An altogether more positive attempt to commune with nature. [Jun 2017, p.88]

It's a raucous portrait of a well-drilled band on fire. [Jul 2017, p.87]

Throughout Ribbons, you feel Adam's guitars as much as hear them, his use of drones, volume swells and Eastern-flavoured trickery taking us deep into the mystic. [Aug 2017, p.91]

Soulful, questioning, and the perfect introduction to Smith's unique, illuminative jazz. [Feb 2018, p.99]

An album that welds together sedate ambient techno and grand Radiophonic Workshop-style analogue experimentation. [Jan 2018, p.96]

It's a judicious match-up. [Jun 2018, p.96]

A new buoyancy runs through the album from the sprightly, Eno-esque Italy to the waltz-time drama of Surrounded, and Heal, where the voice of her daughter features. Nonetheless, murk is not far below the surface--in Creep, blossoms are rotting. [Dec 2018, p.92]

Grace For Saints And Ramblers, from 2013's Ghost On host, is delivered with nonchalant Lou Reed rhythm; 2017's About A Bruise displays a freewheeling agility, while The Trapeze Swingers plus right into Beam's storytelling mode. [Jan 2024, p.91]

Those who like their Dave in lane will prefer the recently released, quintessentially post-rocking Aerial M Peel Session Andrew Perry from 1998. Fans of unpredictable Pajo should feast here. [Jan 2025, p.89]

Both in the consummately ominous sonics and EGL's graceful baritone, there's a pervasive end-times mood. [Mar 2025, p.90]

The result is like two rock esotericists in a bunker alchemising to compelling effect. [Sep 2025, p.84]

The music is as sharply observed as the writing. [May 2026, p.84]

All told: a summer soul smash. [Sep 2017, p.93]

It's mostly a success, though its dominant tone of understated, rainy melancholia is unlikely to earn Parish a dressing room with a star on the door. [Oct 2002, p.108]

It's his skill as a bruised, intimate narrator that makes this album such an alluring addition to Doe's swelling canon. [Feb 2003, p.90]

The assured Eating Us proves that distractions aren't necessary. [Jul 2009, p.93]

The best Orbital album since 1994's Snivilisation? Certainly. [May 2012, p.87]

The smooth edges of Mature Themes doesn't mean this music is any easier to grasp. [Sep 2012, p.86]

Several of the songs on River are, aptly, long and meandering, passing the ears in a liquid, ungraspable way. You can drift away on it. [Jun 2016, p.104]

Funny, learned and poignant by turns, Foreverland is a masterfully-arranged, part-chamber-pop record underpinned by Hannon's natural playfulness. [Oct 2016, p.93]

When the title track and poignant closer This House Has No Living Room, open out into bare-wire nocturnal balladry of limitless emotional beauty, Burslem's single-minded mania is vindicated, and the listener's happiness guaranteed. [Mar 2019, p.98]

It's a record that reveals previously hidden depths. [Nov 2011, p.93]

With high-gloss production, shameless retro references and big-thumbed slap bass, Kindness's album is frequently preposterous. Great pop music often is. [Apr 2012, p.89]

For every two triumphs there's a setback like the overwrought glitchy electro Eat Rich, yet it's hard to deny the imagination that fuels these flights of fancy. [Oct 2014, p.90]

What follows in this set is a chaos of experiment and assigned alliances. ... Ironically, the oldest recordings on You're The Man are--that single excepted--among the best Gaye here. [May 2019, p.100]

Its 10 redemptive songs oscillating between Americana, baroque chamber balladry and unabashed pop. [May 2015, p.98]

An enjoyably hook-filled, pulse-quickening dab of squidgy yet soulful colour. [May 2016, p.96]

The better interpretations come from artists who embrace the Dead's improvisational essence. [Jul 2016, p.97]

Although influences aren't hidden ... it's [Pundt's] own voice here. [May 2012, p.82]

An album that, in the best sense of the term, is all over the place. [Jul 2025, p.84]

Lifeline is a classy record that never outstays its welcome. [Sep 2008, p.98]

A missed opportunity, but there's still plenty of time to get back on track. [Sep 2010, p.92]

Mostly, she seems so (understandably) lost inside herself you don't know where to find her. [May 2011, p.111]

Danger et al stamp their authority on the genre, with a collision of claustrophobic lyrics, charm and playful innocence. [Aug 2012, p.90]

His voice is parched, so the songs, many acoustic and trailing brutal honesty, speak clearly enough to grip you in their gnarled fist. [Sep 2016, p.98]

A collection of judiciously orchestrated, densely textured tracks that often demand accompanying visuals. [Nov 2017, p.94]

It is simply beautiful. [May 2009, p.96]

This album is bravely beautiful, and one of her best. [Jul 2024, p.84]

It's ecentric, then, but charmingly so. [Apr 2010, p.102]

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

Bold emotional directness supplanting gobby perpetual-teen 'tude on a set of soulful urban pop. [Jul 2018, p.98]

It's guitarist Kaye Woodward who remains the band's covert star: her fuzzy solo on 'Crimson Enemy, limpid precision on 'Satellites'a dncrystalline backing vocals throughout represent thefairy dust on a record full of highs. [Jul 2009, p.97]

It's easily their best work. [Nov 2016, p.94]

At ease with the mellower cuts... the more aggressive Learnign The Lie and the stop-start instrumental Heji feel more contrived. [Oct 2006, p.112]

The album is most notable for the man's glorious undiminished tones. [Oct 2011, p.98]

Crush is a thrilling, giddy conflagration of hot and cold currents. [Oct. 2010, p. 97]

These old dogs have plenty new tricks left. [Dec 2014, p.92]

An unshamedly fun album. [Sep 2009, p.104]

Clark has incubated this elegant, eclectic collection that shuttles between haunting modern classical and folktronica, complex sound design, brutal beats and scabrous noise. [Aug 2019, p.93]

Tyler and band lean deeper into kosmische country rock. [Jul 2023, p.92]

There is nothing brash or student bout these subtle, layered songs: her vocals remain hushed, confiding, blurry, a distant cousin of Justin Vernon's abstract exhalations. [Jun 2026, p.84]

As Is Now may be his finest and most consistent record since 1993's Wild Wood; possibly even since the days of The Jam. [Nov 2005, p.100]

If Lerche lack Beck's nous, he makes up for it with a cavalier freedom. [Oct 2014, p.92]

The only problem is that her lyrics are sometimes relegated to back-drop status as Jarosz creates an array of enchanting sounds, set against harmonies provided by back-up musicians Jedd Hughes and Luke Reynolds. [Aug 2016, p.92]

Aqueous groove Up tackles mid-romance feelings of inadequacy, while coldwave-y Begging You Now infers a darker supplication. Ever-infectious, however, and rarely short of good fun, this one should substantially further the threesome's upward trajectory. [Sep 2023, p.91]

Mostly, it works. [Aug 2005, p.102]

While still connected to soul's sacred wellspring, frames his artisanal songcraft in more modernist settings. [Jun 2018, p.95]

The polished arrangements of Heretic Pride do Darnielle's songwriting no favours. [Mar 2008, p.106]

Such is its weight and accomplishment that it could easily be the work of Gavin Bryars or Arvo Part. [Dec 2014, p.92]

Everybody ultimately suffers from a dearth of catchy melodies. [Jun 2007, p.112]

At this temporal distance from the shock of their new, the post-millennial Pop Group are engaging, galvanizing, and far from unlistenable in its ongoing fusions of Afrobeat, funk and dub.

Whether this leaves you head-scratching or dancing like an electrified monkey, it certainly won't bore you. [Jul 2003, p.109]

When on their game -- about two-thirds of this to-the-point-set -- Hot Hot Heat are too breathlessly enjoyable to refuse. [Apr 2003, p.98]

It's similar to the debut.... But there's a more vivid light-and-shade to the textures and a craft and depth to the compositions that represent a welcome distillation of Jones' art. [Mar 2004, p.92]

Unfortunately, on Soft Spot [Eef Barzelay] strays too often into the pleasantly nondescript. [Jul 2003, p.112]

High Society [proves] Schmersal capable of a good, straight-forward pop song. [July 2002, p.100]

With greater degrees of deliberate construction than Mers De Noms, Thirteenth Step is more cohesive band effort, less ad hoc side project. [Nov 2003, p.132]

If the formula is simple, it delivers brutish thrills a-plenty. [Feb 2015, p.89]

When Bills, Aches & Blues works -and it nearly always does - it's more complex, though, pulling together the threads of an enduring artistic legacy to intriguing effect. [Jun 2021, p.85]