Edgy, operatic, driving and frenetic. .. Restful listening, this is not. [Feb 2020, p.89]

This belated reunion has developed further into thr most affectingly sad, sweet, sepia sound rooted in Marcus's forlorn vocal and delicate ripples of detail--jazzy-to-motorik rhythm and haunting synthetic drones. [JUly 2008, p.102]

Raitt remains a master interpreter of song. [May 2012, p.87]

Michael Lockwood's production occasionally affects a sound akin to a Vonda Sheppard reared on black dreams and Russian literature. [Oct 2002, p.98]

Perhaps not as many musical genres are represented as might have been but it's still a good reminder of just how many styles Holly's music crossed and influenced, if not invented. [Aug. 2011, p. 99]

Gorgeous minimalist songs are punctuated by Prince-like synths and Ware's impressive vocal range. [Nov 2014, p.102]

It's both so clever and so very charming. [Nov 2006, p.114]

As fans of the or two previous albums might expect, there's little on this covers collection that proves Vetiver's love of the three-minute pop format: the mood is instead tuned to the free-festival campfire and the misty morning meditation. [July 2008, p.111]

The Decca set allows insight into King's working methods. [Jul 2012, p.99]

There's country stoicism, sentimentality and sparkling sadness on the songs. [Aug 2012, p.96]

She sings calmly from the heart, flowing beautifully, her simplicity enhanced by his [producer Howe Gelb] delicate downmix touches. [Jul 2013, p.94]

A record of quality, but not of distinction. [Aug 2013, p.86]

In surpassing her debut, Agnes Obel has confirmed hat she is in it for the long haul. [Nov 2013, p.86]

It feels like a big step forward. [Jan 2014, p.101]

Here, solid collaborative vibes in the wake of all that life trauma make for rousing, edge-of-collapse rock action. [Aug 2017, p.89]

Joyful and, at times, unpredictably good fun. [Nov 2019, p.90]

Her fourth album has a gently-assured, incantatory feel. [Jul 2020, p.78]

Mehldau takes the listener on a memorable musical journey. [May 2022, p.92]

On Blue Electric Light, he hasn't lost his touch. [Jul 2024, p.92]

Ritual is enchanting and transportive. [Sep 2024, p.84]

The rough-milled follow-up to 2020’s Down In The Weeds, Where The World Once Was doesn’t suggest time is mellowing him. [Oct 2024, p.86]

For the closing three tracks, the revolving door’s finally still and Marshall himself (AKA Madman Butterfly) keens proceedings to a satisfying, if still unsettling calm. [Sep 2024, p.88]

It's easily Body Count's finest hour. [Jan 2025, p.82]

Pearl Jam sound reborn, vital. [Jul 2006, p.112]

This is diaphanous pop music--perhaps overly flimsy on occasion--but full of sparkle and more variegated than before. [Mar 2016, p.97]

Cavernous drones suggesting messages from a reverberant brutalist cathedral somewhere out in the California desert. [May 2014, p.96]

Standout track by far is La Chiqui where trans artist Sophie and Arca go head to head, like two tall, sonic waveforms. Extraordinary. [Sep 2020, p.83]

Great punk-funk (Faith), but the real triumphs are her alliance of Le Tigre-level sass and superior tunes. [Oct 200, p.94]

Shows just how focused their rock'n'roll attack has become. [May 2006, p.105]

The multifaceted Mr. Patton turns his hand to Italian-language pop songs. [July 2010, p. 95]

Ultimately setting up camp in the middle ground between King Of Limbs-era Radiohead and mid-80s Tears For fears. [May 2019, p.86]

Much of it is unreconstructedly rockist. [Jun 20009, p.102]

Fambly Cat's highpoints... stand with their very best. [Jun 2006, p.102]

Goddess weaves a captivating spell that many are certain to fall under. [Oct 2014, p.87]

Another uniquely alluring Luna landing. [Nov 2004, p.110]

For a studio album it sounds remarkably like a live one. [Mar 2006, p.90]

The Canadian quartet have long proved their sidemen chops, and sound as good on honky tonk, back-porchers or country ballads. [May 2009, p.101]

So out gores the vintage, spiritual sound of 1995's nourishing debut Soul Food and in comes a job lot of dizzying electronica, schizoid stylistic shifts, screeching strings, sonorous sub-bass and beats verging on hi-NRG. [Oct 2013, p.90]

A sometimes disturbing, but often breathtakingly lovely record. [Oct 2002, p.98]

Some of the best songs he's written since Heartbreaker. [Jan 2004, p.98]

The flow is smoother, and the whole thing has a more compressed, accessible feel, without compromising the essential psychedelic madness at its heart. [Apr 2004, p.113]

Slaloms round sing-song pop, day-glo punk and Zappa-style tune transformations. [Jun 2004, p.106]

The four tracks on which they collaborate are timely reminders of The Stooges' initial impact and their ongoing influence. [Oct 2003, p.106]

Kissin Time is full with Faithfull's own history: disaster next to glory, next to the overriding feeling that, come what may, she will slide through it all by dint of charisma, wit and, indeed, charm. [Album Of The Month, March 2002, p.98]

Sandman spent two years in his home studio experimenting with the band's dark, often minimalist sound and the result is this lusher, more fully realised album, whose brooding, narcotic Len-Cohen-goes-jazz title track is followed by songs that are variously cool, unsettling, sensual, personal and party-time funky.

Their musicianship--flamboyant but never self-indulgent, focused always on the groove--and their sticky-fingered songwriting charm throughout. [Apr 2016, p.87]

Ekki Mukk is a gossamer-light, if strangely riveting voice in the wilderness, while Varoelder drifts agreeably off into softly chiming waves of yearning desolation. Less stirring are the ambience-flecked, tympani-tickled meanderings that fill out much of the rest of the hour. [Jul 2012, p.90]

The result is a rhapsodic work. [Sep 2020, p.89]

Their albums from this period were a little low on magic, but this is the real deal, an organic sound full of strange, shadowy moods and adventurous and melodic playing. [Nov 2022, p.104]

The new wave veteran's magic touch has left his current charges' blend of plaintive pop and indie-punk edginess a tad shinier but otherwise safely intact. [Apr 2015, p.92]

Springsteen's choice of songs, especially in the deep tracks and left turns, also i=underscores a deeper retrospect and aspiration. [Jan 2023, p.82]

Its sound remains as confrontational and as provocative as its content. [Aug 2006, p.103]

Some artists, such as Beck and Khruangbin with their art-funk overhauls of Fund My Way and Pretty Boys respectively, build traditional, if inventive remixes around Macca's vocals. Other go further and basically cover the songs. [Aug 2021, p.83]

Rosewood Almanac more than transcends its influences. [Jun 2017, p.93]

Those bummed that the proggy leanings of his Jicks have encouraged former Pavement stepper Malkmus to indulge his inner Saxondale will find much to love on their sixth album. [Feb 2014, p.88]

Free Nationals' blissed-out, woozy slow-jams make for a low-key triumph. [Feb 2020, p.90]

There is no doubt that Ditto can command the attention, but these songs don't quite sweeten the deal enough. [Jul 2017, p.89]

Their third album is more highly evolved than what normally constitutes straight up good-time rock. [Feb 2009, p.105]

So much more than the original boy band. [March 2011, p. 106]

A masterful song cycle of raw confessionals, ghostly R&B and gritty stompers, all channelled via intense vocals that razor and soothe. [Nov 2013, p.94]

A few shuffling moments suggest Sunday pub lunch surrounding by Bugaboos, but when Gonzalez hits his meditative stride--Every Age's there-is-a-season stateliness, the post-rock smudges of What Will---he owns the room. [Mar 2014, p.98]

Primitives finds him channeling the celestial overlaid vocals of AnCo, Toro Y Moi's soaring gauzy electronic pop, the live, looping sample techniques of tUnE-yArDs and D.D. Dumbo, and even Steve Reich's shuddering, percussive experiments in repetition--with charming results. [Dec 2016, p.93]

On Reflection swirls, flutters and swoops like leaves on the breeze. [Jan 2018, p.89]

Hands Of Glory is a flamboyant country cousin [to 2012's Break it Yourself]. [Feb 2013, p.92]

Though songs including the shimmering So Now You Know and the Manuel Gottsching-like In And Out Of Sight maintain a stirring balance of shimmying pop appeal and experimentation, elsewhere the momentum is compromised and peaks are obscured. [Jun 2014, p.88]

The upshot shocks with unexpected new ground. [Feb 2015, p.93]

There is no nostalgia about Living Proof. [Dec 2010, p.96]

The intervening nine songs jump between genres with varied success, with a fee whimsical tracks sticking out like sore thumbs. [Oct 2018, p.88]

Lightburn continues to enthral though, his heartfelt, inventive arrangements testament to many questing hours in the studio. [Dec 2008, p.112]

Silver Eye shows mo loss of conviction, a dense, meditative collection that explores cosmic mysteries and natural wonders without any wispiness. [May 2017, p.92]

She's neither a soft seducer nor a lapel-grabber, but her eye for detail combined with that degree of vocal detachment quietly commands attention. [Mar 2009, p.109]

Isaak, whose singing voice is naturally full and resonant, is most at home with the Presley tunes... but the Lewis and Perkins homages don't quite add up. [Jan 2012, p.91]

Hard, hearty and at home amid the grooves set out by the venerable likes of the Hodges brothers. [Feb 2014, p.96]

Choral folk pop reveries and soft rock tease out the cosmic everyday. [Jun 2016, p.97]

A Broke Moon Rises sheds a gentle but persistent light in the darkness. [Sep 2018, p.86]

The best record of her life. [Jan 2019, p.85]

On paper it might sound like a filler - nine songs, none of them original, some newly recorded, some not - but to listen to it's wonderful. [May 2022, p.94]

It's arguable that Morrison and his smooth, jazzy pards skew a tad too good-natured - more of OG '50s skiffle's rough bite would not have gone amiss. [Apr 2023, p.82]

Despite no huge leaps forward sonically, there are some fantastic scenes set to song. [Nov 2020, p.83]

How she continues to turn apparent whimsy into profundity borders on the miraculous. [Jun 2018, p.92]

While The London Sessions takes her in fresh new directions, Blige's own identity remains the dominant flavour. [Jan 2015, p.98]

The Last Hero captures them approaching the peak of their powers. [Nov 2016, p.94]

Powerful and anthemic, the trio's driving, Goth-forsaken rock can also be overwhelming and cloying. [Sep 2003, p.99]

An audacious, X-rated treat. [Aug 2006, p.90]

It's the songs--funny, literate, doomed--which get under your skin. [Apr 2009, p.100]

Blanket Of Leaves oozes rueful, autumnal soulfulness; you can almost feel the sea fret during the minimally arranged Ships In The Rain; only A Kingdom, with busy snare drums, hoedown fiddles and raindrop guitars, approaches anything like vigour, offering a welcome change to the mood of wistful languor. [Oct 2011, p.105]

[If You're Dreaming] has a strong vintage feel. [May 2020, p.88]

The overall sense is of a spirited and inventive band truly coming into their own. [Sep 2015, p.87]

In a way, Trampin' is to this decade what Horses was to the '70s: a repudiation of its time, and the promise of a way forward. [Apr 2004, p.98]

Keeps an unsteady path between fine altered-state atmospherica and irritating cosmic twittering. [Feb 2004, p.100]

What they achieve here is hard to get right: lush, summery music-for-pleasure that sounds effortless. [Album of the Month, Sep. 2002, p.92]

Nothing here will change your life, but rest assured that there's also little in the way of filler. (Oct 2000, p.104)

A rich, compelling album. [Jun 2003, p.93]

This is passionate music, delivered with verve. [Mar 2011, p.104]

For the most part it works,Moody, Standard And Poor is a fine exercise in pre-punk '60s garage energy given added zest from the dynamic interplay between his and former Edsel man Sohrab Habibion's dueling guitars. [May 2011, p.110]

[It results] in bubblegum thrash paeans to laziness and forgetfulness, multiple blasts of fiery milquetoast defiance stuffed with beguiling observations on the minor tragedies of everyday life. [Jun 20111, p.104]

Finely etched narratives telltales of aging wunderkinds and tragic figures, the deeds of those famed and flawed, while the music moves in manifold directions, from powerpop to scuzz rock to alt country. [Jun 2011, p.106]

Unabashedly weird, surprising wise, A Turn In The Dream-Songs is Lewis at his most accessible and affecting. [Nov 2011, p.95]