This is undeniably beautiful in its minimalist repetitions but could do with a little more dirt in the weave. [Apr 2012, p.95]

In between strong original songs are arresting covers versions. [Mar 2012, p.92]

Gigantic of sound and vision, grandly poetic of pronouncement, the Millennium Stadium surely beckons. [Sep 2012, p.97]

Slightly frustratingly, similar changeability [as 2018's Lala Belu] prevails here. [May 2020, p.86]

McKenzie is so focused on craft ahead of melody that an album this determined to be without jokes might have actually benefited from a couple. [Sep 2022, p.93]

Signs of life: abundant. [Aug 2023, p.82]

The set includes some tender spots, but dire wins the day. Thankfully, it's on occasion leavened. [Feb 2018, p.94]

This is the sound of a big new beginning. [Sep 2014, p.92]

There's a beguiling musicality at play that puts pleasing melody at the centre of even the most outre detour. [Dec 2005, p.102]

Spalding's improvised ensemble pieces put pay to the tittle-tattle about jazz being dead. It is very much alive. [Apr 2012, p.90]

Proves again what an unnerving space the interior of his head must be. [Aug 2006, p.104]

With her co-producers, they fashion some perfectly weighted, tastefully adorned grroves but her voice, an idiosyncratic mix of Lucinda Williams and Dolores O'Riordan inflections, sometimes jars. [Apr 2008, p.100]

Its first side pelts past in 12 minutes, melding the brittle charms of Modern Lovers and Wire with a muscular garage rock dynamism: the joyous hurtle of Down On Loving makes like a more savage Strokes, while the caustic Answer To Yourself draws the fuzzy '60s classicism of the The Black Lips into tighter focus, a Nuggets-worthy anthem. [Feb 2010, p. 95]

Although darkness suffuses Narrow, the rising peaks of its songs and the dramatic arrangements Plaschg frames them in, its intimacy affects. [Apr 2012, p.95]

Introspective, electic brain-groove of the month. [Dec 2012, p.86]

Only Pleasant Valley jars--the irony in Elling's voice is ladled on too heavily--but elsewhere marvel at a master at work. [Nov 2012, p.86]

Steer is an astringent, droll, sometimes touching narrator; it's easy to hear why Cocker was so bewitched. [Feb 2013, p.91]

It's a more downbeat affair than their 2009 debut and best envinced by the stuttering tech soul of Gita. [Sep 2013, p.95]

The hefty production complements a moody selection of songs about bullying, Italian Soccer and1960s London. [Jul 2014, p.93]

With Telegram's Krautrock, psychedelic Pink Floyd and glam rock influences, it packs a remarkable punch. [Apr 2016, p.91]

The album features psychedelic guitar, heavy percussion, priests, deep gumbo and the main man's peerless drumming. [Nov 2016, p.93]

There's no difficult second album syndrome for laconi-pop crew Hooton Tennis Club. [Nov 2016, p.78]

Despite the recruitment drive, it's another curious case of history repeating itself: N.E.R.D setting their phasers to stun, but only intermittently finding the target. [Feb 2018, p.91]

Once again Tucker demonstrates his knack of creating simple, incantatory, almost folky vocal lines, which pivot around a few telling chord changes and lodge in the memory long after the music stops. [Sep 2019, p.91]

This album works best when it gives its ideas and sounds space. [Feb 2021, p.86]

A melancholic air pervades Mist's untutored playing and soul-searching raps. [Jun 2021, p.90]

Allowing Talk Talk, The Chameleons and David Sylvian to swell the ranks of recognisable names and the odd mystifying entry too - on what planet is The Wake's English rain ethereal, dream pop or showgaze? [May 2023, p.98]

A beguiling sigh in itself. [Aug 2023, p.81]

Short it may be, but Happenings is full of ideas. [Aug 2024, p.83]

It’s a truly gorgeous record, capturing the grand contrarian at his happiest, living in the present and reworking the past. [Nov 2024, p.89]

Allison is as vocally ethereal as [Kendra] Smith and Newcombe as filmic and adventurous as [David] Roback. [Mar 2025, p.92]

The opening Witness introduces philosophical detachment which anchors Oliver's sceptical worldview throughout as he hovers between the sanguine and the sly on rousing yet playful anthems like the title track or the funky The Trick.[Sep 2025, p.84]

A steely-eyed desperation to succeed is transparent all through Hard-Fi's debut. [Aug 2005, p.112]

Producers Mike Elizondo and Rob Cavallo smooth away many of the rough edges, and it's the tracks that escape the industry sander that are great. [Mar 2013, p.87]

A richly downcast experience, his deft arrangements recalling the powerful, orchestrated cloudbursts of Curtis Mayfield's solo debut. [Feb 2022, p.82]

Her jazzy instincts and surreal lyrics perfectly offset the music's mosaic minimalism. [Sep 2009, p.92]

It finds Glasper trying to maintain the interest of his new audience by putting a trio spin on neo-soul material as well as songs by Joni Mitchell and Radiohead. [Aug 2015, p.91]

[Body/Erase's] opening six minutes resemble an accidental recording made inside an overcoat pocket before mediated snatches of feedback further hint towards this maverick tape manipulator's dark art. [Jan 2022, p.82]

With a voice now dry and shaky, Friedman nonetheless revels in his novelist knack for tall tales. [Dec 2015, p.86]

Devoid of da funk it may be, but the scale and scope here are impressive. [May 2023, p.86]

Tight Knit is a beautiful, lazy album of befogged West Coast dreams. [Apr 2009, p.107]

A sprinkling of more angular, dissonant tracks, like the clanging Eastern Stack, may sail a little too close to his soi-disant "jazz that nobody asked for" for some tastes. [Jan 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]

Consider this a Zen disc: sit with it awhile, and it will come to you. [Nov 2002, p.105]

Bowie's best album for 20 years. [Oct 2003, p.104]

Mostly it's just business as usual with Van in reasonably good form. [Jun 2005, p.95]

There are a couple of songs hidden away in the backwaters of their patchy debut which hint at something much better. [Apr 2006, p.88]

Beyond the singles-"Melody A.M." lapsed into a latterday jazz-funk. This album sometimes tends the same way, but interest is reignited by Royksopp Forever--ELO with dancebeats--and the tracks where Lykke Li and The Knife's Karin Dreijer-Andersson approach Robyn's unhinged lager-umlaut Europop berserkersim. [May 2009, p.104]

Jonny's debut is splendid, user-friendly stuff. [Mar 2011, p.97]

Hard blues, soul and R&B take a back seat to pop tunes with a elegant turn. [Oct 2016, p.92]

Always a unique voice, Phillipps is as refreshingly conciliatory as he is arrow straight. It may be nothing particularly new, but it's the way he tells 'em. [Oct 2018, p.90]

These 10 duets/duels can be pretty gnarly, but there are beautiful epiphanies, too. [Jul 2020, p.82]

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

The thrill lies in eavesdropping on experiments-in-progress, ad as much in the quest itself as in the flashes of genius that occasionally arise. [May 2022, p.106]

With Klausener diving headlong again into elemental metaphors, No Ghost could easily become Garvey's album of 2010. [Jul 2010, p.94]

Heart-melting second album from Icelandic folk minstrel. [Oct. 2010, p. 92]

A joy. [Sep 2020, p.84]

Lyrically it's one of Cohen's least ambiguous albums... Musically it's melodic and memorable. [Nov 2004, p.96]

Listen closely and you'll probably detect the likes of Wire, XTC and New Order but like contemporaries Hot Hot Heat and Ted Leo's Pharmacists, French Kicks are rocking their own joyfully addictive sound. [Jun 2003, p.101]

Like Sleater Kinney reimagined for synth-pop teens. [Feb 2014, p.98]

Imagine a math-rock XTC fronted by Elliott Smith, illuminating the quiet corners of life. [Mar 2007, p.94]

Folk roots meet soundtrack clips and contemporary perspective. [Aug 2013, p.98]

It's a tense, grace and often euphoric listening experience that simultaneously lacks the grit, drama and disquiet of their finest work. [Oct 2018, p.91]

Every song puts a tap in your toe, a worm in your ear and a smile on your face. [Oct 2018, p.85]

Imagine a 'luded-out Eagles fronted by a dying hillbilly and you'll only be mildly disappointed. [Jun 2005, p.105]

Three years ago, Africa For Africa felt like a career highlight: this isn't far behind. [Aug 2013, p.96]

Like a turbo industrial Tears For Fears. [Mar 2016, p.98]

It's beautiful throughout, but more ice or fire is sometimes required. [Mar 2018, p.91]

It's still raining in Ray's heart, but this is radiant stuff. [Jul 2018, p.92]

Daft and serious, catchy and strange. [Dec 2018, p.93]

Future Politics' galvanised vision takes myriad forms. [Feb 2017, p.95]

This record is looser and more organic, and a different sonic palette for Hynde. [Jul 2009, p.106]

DOOM is in the form of his life here. [Jun 2012, p.85]

The album is loaded with plenty of sonic winks and nods for record collector types. [Nov 2009, p.94]

Over 24 songs they constantly tremble on the brink of collapse yet they also manage to turn in such laser-guided songs as You Can Stay But You Gotta Go and Double Deuce. [Oct 2013, p.96]

An album whose drawn-out grooves spiral seductively like dandelion clocks in the breeze. [May 2018, p.93]

It's deliciously hauntingly odd. [May 2018, p.93]

Smith often finds herself stuck in a musical straitjacket of tired R&B tropes, rarely able to break out of a narrow comfort zone. [Nov 2023, p.88]

Though the ingenuity of the project occasionally outguns the quality of the songwriting, Darnielle's spadework has resulted in a zesty, spontaneous-sounding record. [Sep 2022, p.95]

An unexpectedly weird bolt from the blue, an ultimately outstanding crack at brokering an accord between spiky noo wave and fuzzy '70s stoner rock. [Nov 2004, p.116]

This is an adventurous, joyful album from a major talent. [Aug 2009, p.98]

The US albums is a fascinating document of American music industry practice in the mid '60s. [Mar 2014, p.103]

This follow-up is more considered, though occasionally suffers from one too many mid-paced hard rock standards. [Feb 2017, p.90]

Nau's adept handle on lachrymose soft-rock, meanwhile means even when treading water, the album charms with its soft-focus ambience. [Sep 21018, p.90]

While her David Lynch qualities remain, there's also something of the masochistic Lars Von Trier heroine in the resigned drowse of these songs. [Sep 2014, p.92]

Exercises is elegant, welcoming, if somewhat melancholic. [Oct 2012, p.95]

A cache of hissy, vivid, occasionally creepy but mostly sweetly touching brain pop that stands proudly alongside GBV's ragged former glories. [Feb 2012, p.97]

The Nebraskans' second LP strikes a meaty accord between classic rock swagger and the pumped up, get-in-the-van intensity of hardcore. [Apr 2009, p.107]

The grammatically doubtful One Less Heartless To Fear finds the quartet in more punishing mode. [Feb 2011, p.101]

[Leithauser] revels in letting his talent run free, outwith trad rock arrangements. [Jun 2014, p.92]

It's an LP of insight and empathy. [Mar 2024, p.82]

Plunges him back to the old soundworld of heavily Auto-Tuned ballads (of the 12 tracks here, only Bread Believer is pacey) and a voice that sounds like it’s on the verge of tears, even if the lyrics sound more disorientated than tragic. .... But Maine’s nagging melodies hold up, and Shirt still feels convincingly real. [Oct 2024, p.84]

The deep soulfulness that always set The Afghan Whigs apart from the pack was no mirage, and on Do To The Beast, it has matured with grace and power. [May 2014, p.86]

Russell sings with heartfelt authority, while Calexico's cool elegance balances the emotional ticket. [Oct 2009, p.106]

It's not a great album but it is good, bar a slapdash feel to some songs and too much squealing, dated guitar. [Apr 2008, p.100]

Oh My smacks less of a one-off project, more of the opening chapter in a narrative which could dominate its participant's future. [Mar 2018, p.94]

Delivers on the melodic promise of 2001's Rock Action, teetering between art-bruised fragility during its slower, gentler moments and flashes of stereo-buckling metal. [Mar 2006, p.93]

A single-minded, yet ultimately baffling experience. [Apr 2014, p.95]