Altogether, a brilliant and very welcome return. [Jun 2016, p.88]

Parrots invoke a woozy, enthralling chaos that's imbued with a golden, sun-blushed charm. [Sep 2016, p.99]

[Michael Christmas's] relentlessly goofy and incredulous tales about everyday absurdities crown an unconventional marriage made in alt-rap heaven. [Oct 2016, p.97]

Lyrics with thematic substance are complemented by fine tunes. [Apr 2017, p.93]

European Heartbreak feels wonderfully whole, bound together by De Graaf's sweetly inscrutable voice and the unshowy, languid complexity of her songs. [Nov 2018, p.92]

Field recordings of Alphine birds are used for restraint. ... Yet each of the hour-long album's eight interlinked pieces is a distinct entity, and still a song as such. [Aug 2019, p.92]

A playful digital makeover for some vintage noir vibes. [Oct 2020, p.94]

de Graaf is repositioning herself in a mightily crowded market, but the sometime human rights lawyer triumphs via intense lyrics about coming-of-age awareness, loneliness in the big city, life's unpredictability and, on Water Stains, the old chestnut of time's passing. [Mar 2023, p.87]

Confirm Mumford & Sons are back in business. [Apr 2026, p.85]

Though arriving with less of cacophonous attack, their crush of distortion and Elena Tonra's swooning vocals is rooted in the same psychedelic heartland. [Feb 2016, p.91]

Forensically constructed, sad-eye pop with bright melodies of a Shins-like stripe. [Dec 2012, p.96]

An antidote to pop bands masquerading as punk, this is the real deal--ugly, and utterly English. [Jun 2009, p.98]

Highly polished, rootsy but gentle rocking with some big hooks, even if the quality wavers a little over 15 tracks. [Sep 2021, p.88]

Knowingly nostalgic, it's an album with a very strong sense of itself. [Sep 2017, p.86]

'Lifelong Passion' and 'Don't Stop Running' suggest that there's something inspirational, even cathartic, about making an album under an assumed name (even if the world know it's you). McCartney should do it more often. [Dec 2008, p.111]

The Messthetics is a short set, long on detail. [Jun 2018, p.94]

Echo mostly plays safe, but signs of where Sparke can stands alone include Dog Bark Echo's red-desert heat, Everything Everything's jabbered vocal and dissonant piano, and a particularly devastated Bad Dreams. [Apr 2021, p.81]

You kind of know what to expect from a Kristin Hersh solo album, and that's not necessarily a bad thing. [Mar 2007, p.102]

Throughout, Ranaldo and Nels Cline build up layers of eloquent, electrifying guitar.... Satisfying. [Apr 2012, p.95]

Like all of Numan's greatest work, Savage sounds timeless. [Nov 2017, p.100]

It's not perfect--you want it to shift up a gear occasionally, or to try different approaches, but the songs are all stuffed with daffy musicality and charm. [Apr 2007, p.102]

Grohl can still subvert his own formula: opener Caught In The Echo brilliantly synthesises Ian MacKaye with Paul McCartney, and the needling pulse of Window is superior Josh Homme-age. The wired Child Actor, meanwhile, reveals a conflicted man behind the persona. [Jun 2026, p.86]

Snoop is in surprisingly tender form. [Feb 2014, p.88]

It's been a long journey, but Spiral Stairs has finally found his voice. [Apr 2017, p.90]

An endearingly dog-eared weirdness to their idiosyncratic country rock, a charm to their off-kilter harmonies and a mystery within Curt's songwriting that ensures Dusty Notes is craftmanlike, rather than workmanlike. [Apr 2019, p.91]

The LP does feel monotonous after a while, the tunnel vision metaphor ultimately extending to the listener's experience. Keep the great frames, Agnes, but next time, try the varifocals. [Mar 2020, p.88]

Unsurprisingly, these aren't in the same league as the Sun stdio classics, but these alternate and usually starker versions do allow us intimate seats at the creation of standards. [Jun 2011, p.114]

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]

As a snapshot of Friday night through Monday morning in 36 minutes flat, this is a joy. [Mar 2008, p.106]

On the second listen it sounds like a future classic. [Nov 2008, p.109]

There is less of the soundscaping and eerie atmospherics that made last year's X EP so entertainingly varied. [Jun 2012, p.85]

Plays like an xx-lite confined to analogue. [Sep 2013, p.96]

In all, a fiery triumph. [Nov 2014, p.100]

The fourth LP is blisteringly confident as the band evolves toward maturity. [May 2015, p.94]

Opening and closing tracks Begin and Oh Men are breezy, playful electro pop, but for the most Gordon creates a variety of grand soundscapes to which the singer adds gentle, disembodied vocals. [Oct 2016, p.99]

A creepy yet danceable debut. [Nov 2016, p.96]

At risk of self-indulgence, but arrangements reward patient listening. [Apr 2019, p.96]

Brutally honest lyrically and deliciously more-ish in its rhythmic, electronic intensity. [Apr 2020, p.94]

Bleak but often gripping stuff. [Oct 2021, p.97]

With its silvery guitar and tentative vision of collective power, the title track also offers a means of escape. It frames an album that, in its own determined way, boldly meets the moment. [Jun 2025, p.83]

Completists will appreciate the three-disc focus on the One To One charity concert from August 30, 1972: one disc apiece for the afternoon and evening sets and a ‘hybrid’ selection of the best of both. But intimate ‘home’ recordings, in fact taped in hotel rooms, are more tantalising. [Dec 2025, p.67]

This is an album restless in its search for the new, the sound of White's reinvention in progress, scorching the Earth in anticipation of what might follow. If it misfires on occasion, it's certainly never dull. And if it never quite reaches its destination, it's still quite a ride. [Apr 2018, p.84]

Although his philosophical ponderings may not be that profound, his seize-the-day positivism and innate command of orchestral tension more than compensate. [Feb 2020, p.89]

Home is as challenging as it is comforting. [Mar 2021, p.85]

Their first album in seven years is a guns-blazing reinforcement of classic tropes, powered by young 'un Daxx. [May 2016, p.88]

Jones actually one-ups the Ventures with a frenetic version of White Christmas you can do the swim to. [Jan 2016, p.88]

Blow by blow, it all adds up to Depeche Mode's best album in years. [Apr 2017, p.95]

Challenging and sometimes extraordinarily beautiful. [Mar 2002, p.108]

The best of The Trouble With Being Myself finds Gray grinning. [Jun 2003, p.98]

Edgy, ear-splitting, bonkers, bizarre and, in parts, astounding. [Mar 2004, p.104]

A collision of Dylanesque surrealism and Bert Janschian finger-picking. [Nov 2004, p.114]

Sure, Spend The Night's pile-up of head-nod riffs and fist-pumping chants gets a little repetitive, but the groove suits The Donnas so well, you can forgive them. [May 2003, p.106]

To dismiss Heroes to Zeroes as a mere exercise in rock homage underestimates The Beta Band's charm. [Apr 2004, p.102]

Their peppy, sensual synth-pop has merit. [Oct 2012, p.95]

25 25's monomaniacal quest for the ultimate groove occasionally leaves the listener behind. [Sep 2016, p.96]

The gift of such unadorned recordings--no attempt to conceal the hoarseness in closer Sky Blue Sky, for instance--is the proximity to the singer and his songs. [Aug 2017, p.93]

Audience delight is palpable. [Aug 2019, p.98]

A cathartic wrestle with identity, Deliverance will sit well with fans of the original Some Bizarre roster. [Sep 2023, p.91]

Antidotes feels like riding a tea-tray down an icy mountainside. [Apr 2008, p.106]

Their second album is a bittersweet indie-punk chaser. [Jun 2015, p.96]

Don't expect a companion to the "Life On Earth" soundtrack though, even the ballads here are highly strung, some made otherworldly by drones, controlled feedback and mallet percussion, other stung by Meiburg's vocals, gear-shifted from choirboy puriety to anguish. [Mar 2010, p.98]

The music's one-dimensional emotional range is the Achilles heels of an otherwise gracefully dextrous affair. [Feb 2013, p.90]

[Arto Lindsay's] languorous delivery and oblique lyrics feature on three songs--with balmy results on mooching, drum-machine-propelled opener Many Descriptions and languid, art-pop essay Classify, and in markedly meditate contrast to the ominous synthscape of Longest Escalator In The World. [Aug 2014, p.89]

It's their fourth album in six years, but quality hasn't wavered. [Oct 2015, p.94]

There is much here to enjoy. [May 2012, p.93]

Pieces... delivers greater consistency. [Oct 2006, p.104]

Mostly she's clever, soulful, sexy, and only a gram of venturesomeness short of her early best. [Apr 2014, p.90]

The remarkably unhurried, hermetic vibe of her intimate chamber-folk remains unchanged. [Jan 2022, p.89]

Intimate, ambitious and just occasionally misfiring. [Oct 2023, p.82]

Mozzer [is] in excellent voice. [May 2005, p.96]

So, was Tony Bennett exaggerating when he called lang, "the best singer of her generation"? Yes, but on this form only a little. [May 2011, p.114]

Another Day, another faff-free, one-session-apiece exercise in succinctness, for a sixth long-player which presents Fucked Up as a more highly evolved version of their old selves – dense, intense and to-the-point. [Sep 2024, p.88]

Fabulous. [Jun 2009, p.98]

There's a layer of gloss and artfulness here that makes Carry On more appealing than whiskery ideas of authenticity. [Jan 2013, p.88]

Some of Herbert's most engaging work since 2001's Bodily Functions. [Jul 2015, p.91]

Concise, understated alt rock with cryptic, literate lyrics. [Mar 2016, p.100]

Discs two and three mostly consist of unedited or alternate takes of material on the main disc. A full-length Transylvania Boogie, previously released in edited form, turns out to have been mostly a long, meandering shuffle with a drum solo. Hitherto undocumented titles Halos And Arrows and Moldred turn out to be, respectively, an exploratory guitar overdub piece (all that’s missing is Joni Mitchell at the mike) and a brief Tommy/Vincent composite with added bass. [Aug 2023, p.90]

His most honest, touching album yet. [Dec 2006, p.118]

Remorselessly absorbing debut from stars in waiting on dub-step's Def Jam. [Dec. 2010, p. 107]

[It's Alright Between Us as It Is] finds the Stavanger native matching more vocals to his grandiose productions. [Nov 2017, p.99]

The result is a dreamlike state of unease and wonder, in which you don't know where you are, or what's coming next. [Aug 2018, p.94]

A worthy, determined salvo. [Jul 2006, p.102]

A piquant appetizer for the impending movie re-boot then, and a balm to those who still wake up screaming because of Stallone's 1995 film. [Jun 2012, p.82]

Far from the title's implied despair, Wit's End sounds more like home, sweet home. [May 2011, p.111]

The Jeff Buckleyesque epic 'Larkspur' and the desolately pretty 'It Hits Deeper' raise the bar for sensitive creatives everywhere. [May 2009, p.103]

This colourful fruit ain't rotting yet. [May 2013, p.90]

It's the breadth of styles subsumed within and the impressively high quality-control throughout that makes The Child Of Lov such an assured and rewarding debut. [Jun 2013, p.84]

Bare acoustic tracks with fuller band on upbeat tunes all sung in pleasing, husky tones. [Oct 2013, p.98]

Perversely, however, amid the overbearing production values, it's that grizzled, needling voice that keeps matters connected to the street, where Little Steven's heart truly belongs. [Aug 2017, p.95]

A debut solo album of such synth-streaked electronic sleaze and shimmer that it kicks Goldfrapp and Gary Numan into the bleachers. [Jan 2018, p.90]

Hubbert's ornate acoustic fingerpicking and flamenco flourishes are an ideal foil for Moffat's un-showy storytelling skills. [Jan 2019, p.92]

Not the pinnacle of his varied career, maybe, but not a low, either [Feb 2023, p.82]

A release that impresses throughout. [Nov 2011, p.99]

Face Tat is less free-form than Astrological Straits, 2008's exhilarating, exhausting debut, but it's still a full 15 rounds of aural boxing. [Feb 2011, p.100]

Just when it seems it's an invitation to drift away, Kazuashita sags the attention, demands vigilance; a record of the world, rather than out of it. [Jul 2018, p.95]

There's real creative confidence on display here. [Jul 2022, p.92]

Shine is an intriguing portrait of a civilised chap in turmoil. [Apr 2003, p.110]

There's enough happening here to perk up demanding ears. [June 2002, p.106]