God Help The Girl has real class. [Jul 2009, p.99]

Freed from that angst, the group sound more savage, more inspired and, crucially, more fun than they have for a quarter of a century. [Dec 2016, p.88]

Sound Mirror is far more than an exercise of indulgence. [Jul 2014, p.94]

A workout for both mind and soul. [Jun 2005, p.97]

Backed by an ace band... he's back in familiar territory. [May 2005, p.109]

This is a fine record, a real grower, but it also sees a group comfortably adrift. [Sep 2005, p.89]

James Jackson Toth aka Wooden Wand is at home on Michael Gira's label. [Jan. 2011, p. 94]

Caracal is nothing less than one of the best pop albums of the year. [Oct 2015, p.90]

Not yet a strength, lyrics probe the border between naive and trite. [Feb 2012, p.94]

180 is filled with such a sense of unyielding joie de vivre and spirit that you can't help but be seduced by its unfettered feel. [Apr 2013, p.88]

A swaggering, intoxicating tight-but-loose debut. [Jun 2004, p.107]

JRW's third has enough honky-tonk brio to merit comparison with Kings Of Leon. [Apr 2014, p.98]

Cameron Neal earths this plangent guitar-rock with his anxious cris de coeur and admits to a teen Smiths crush, which helps explain the metropolitan jitters and Marr-like cadences that feed into Fear In Bliss. [May 2014, p.91]

The result is adventurous and totally mesmerising. [Jun 2012, p.84]

Another electrifying statement of unrest from the underground. [Nov 2006, p.118]

This record easily beats its predecessor. [Feb 2007, p.105]

Vol. 1 here is mellow, introspective and rootsy. [Nov 2017, p.103]

TKO raps over vignettes with sonic left turns. His style sneaks in social comment. [Oct 2022, p.92]

A tad less confrontational than previous Pita releases but no less powerful. [Aug 2016, p.97]

Amid all these tribulations, Toro Y Moi still quarries a few gems. [Aug 2017, p.89]

There's a succinctness to Some Like It Hot. .... But pleasingly, they've not junked their angsty edge amid this pop-oriented realignment. [Nov 2025, p.88]

As ever, easy melodies pour from him. [Oct 2006, p.104]

Get past the geriatric sniggering of It's All Going To Pot, here's a beautiful album of covers and new material. [Jul 2015, p.89]

Their second with this new line up comes up trumps again. [Jun 2009, p.104]

There are certainly treasures here if you sift through Guv's prolific unburdening. [Dec 2019, p. 94]

It's confusing, with flaky endings and mood swings, and an utterly compelling mix of not caring at all and desperately caring. [Apr 2016, p.87]

Acquaint yourself with this successor to 2009's Notes From The Treehouse and it doesn't take long to see what Bella Union honcho Simon Raymonde saw Laurent-Marke. [May 2011, p.112]

It wanders and drifts moodily now and then, but there also some strong songs. [Feb 2012, p.99]

A mightily approachable and sometimes even fun album. [Nov 2015, p.88]

Only two original members remain--David Thomas, also of Pere Ubu, and bass guitarist Craig Bell--and their approach feels oddly inconsistent. [Dec 2015, p.90]

The album lags in some of its quieter moments, but still stands as a fine successor in the righteous roots line that includes The Band and The Staples Singers. [Oct 2018, p.93]

Allways showcase a band reconfigured as a kind of hippy Meters. It's an unlikely transformation, but an appealing one. [Dec 2018, p.93]

This is a slick, polished, self-penned set. ... Sometimes it's hard to tell the frenzied guitar stranglers apart. [Mar 2019, p.96]

Hard Rain's warm, overriding lo-fi aesthetic is a neat contrast to the no-nonsense virtuosity of his group outings. [Jul 2019, p.89]

Indie-pop sung in French and English; Interrailing-inspired The Foreigner is full of Greek, Finnish and Italian. [Apr 2021, p.88]

The gigantic lokombe (slit drum) and buzz drums no longer shock in the way they used to, although the synths suggest one route forward, and the guitars and harmonies look to South Africa for inspiration. [Jul 2021, p.88]

Audiobooks' adoption of absurdity continues to confound in the most delightful ways. [Nov 2021, p.91]

Here, he notes the dying of the light show with autumnal retreads of key songs from his annus mirabilis, including A Whiter Shade Of Pale, See Emily Play, A Day In The Life and – maybe toughest of all – Traffic’s No Face, No Name, No Number. [Oct 2024, p.82]

The cover of P.J. Harvey's 'The Desperate Kingdon Of Love' encapsulates the album--restful, intoxicating, sounding gorgeous. [Oct 2008, p.102]

Though the bleak, froideur-laden Going Wrong and Milky Blau also impress, here are moments when W reneges on Doorway's great promise. [Jun 2011, p.105]

There's a dark, delicious humour and true heartbreak in the NY trio's frank yet delicate confessionals. [Apr 2016, p.96]

These enigmatic narratives work well--the themes can be unearthed at one's leisure, immersed in music that's both poignant and delightful. [Feb 2020, p.88]

There's no doubt these are expertly constructed songs, but it feels as if the emotional wiring h as been botched. ... Let's Rock lacks the connection to be truly electrifying. [Aug 2019, p.89]

The best songs... sound as if singer Gary Lightbody spends a lot of time sitting in the dark pretending to be Lou Barlow. [Sep 2003, p.108]

Neptunes' grooves and collaborators score an impressive hit rate. [Sep 2003, p.111]

A feverish set that borders on near-delirium. [Nov 2006, p.100]

Although Overgrown Path is only 30 Minutes long, it nonetheless reveals Chris Cohen as a Man with an individual voice, and its brevity makes it particularly more-ish. [Jan 2013, p.94]

It's a slight concept (and a short album), which may be to the singer's benefit: in the past she could be off-puttingly clever in a very French way. OUI seems to be saying to us: "Yes, I'm simply a singer. Just Come and enjoy the music.". [Jul 2017, p.93]

Akron/Family's seventh album proffers 10 diversely arranged slabs of leftfield clamour, all of them shot through with a contrasting pop-classicist melodic sensibility. [May 2013, p.90]

It lacks the crisp modernity of old but it's knee-deep in lush curvature and angular salvos, and new favourites keep emerging. [Sep 2012, p.94]

Sessions and collaborations abound, finally collected here. [Feb 2016, p. 104]

A funny, funky and gloriously eccentric stew. [Oct 2006, p.100]

Guest vocalists save giddy, sampling sextet from "more of the same old" charges. [Feb. 2011, p. 97]

[A] gorgeously appointed escape from rock'n'roll's habitual savagery. [Jun 2014, p.89]

There's undoubted musicianship on display but killer tunes are rarer. [Dec 2018, p.87]

It feels like Palace's first significant work. [Feb 2021, p.85]

It's early days, but given everything is self-played, and the guitars are as deftly layered as they are swiftly shedding, Baldi might rise to something magnificent once the hormones have been expunged. [Feb 2011, p.107

A winner from top to bottom. [Jan 2014, p.100]

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

With its children's choir,s its nods to Tears For Fears circa Songs From The Big Chair, and its Kanye and Kendrick Lamar-inspired production tics, the rest of Ellipsis also brings a fresh twist to Biffy's rampant stop-start riffage. [Aug 2016, p.98]

[A] confident follow-up. [Jul 2006, p.106]

Wintery designs warmed by the likes of Bitchin' Bajas layering instruments, voices and electronics. [Feb 2017, p.99]

[Dave Gahan's] trademark delivery brings the gravitas to Machin's creeping strings-swaddled, Morricone-like mood. [Jun 2012, p.87]

The sound of a band re-energised, La Futura is possibly the hard rock album of the year. [Nov 2012, p.88]

An affecting release, it demands repeated plays, emerging as canorous, sly and bewitching. [Aug 2013, p.90]

Henley's discourses on ageing and feeling adrift in the modern world are poignant, and, on A Younger Man, painfully well observed. [Dec 2015, p.93]

Braxton ventures far from the strictures of traditional rock. Indeed, he's cleared passport control and stepped into the realms of modern classical music. [Oct 2009, p.103]

This is warm, analogue-smudged R&B that blossoms with repeated plays. [Jun 2019, p.95]

WE is Arcade fire's best album since 2010's The Suburbs. By circling back, they've once again moving forward. [Jun 2022, p.86]

The concept is a bit arch and it's easy to get overly trainspotterish with this kind of venture.... apart frim some obviously recognisable moments it sounded like a quality Yo La Tengo album. [Sep 2015, p.88]

Highway Companion abounds with Dylanesque first-, second- and third-person stories of rolling stones with no direction home, and how wear and tear is grinding them to a halt. [Sep 2006, p.90]

Pure gonzo blues-rock boogie. [Mar 2006, p.94]

Black Lips conjure not only the riffs of the early garage squallers, but their very spirit. [Dec 2007, p.108]

Te brushed drums, vintage electronics and hushed vocals on Memory Of a Cut Off Head play like they were recorded in a bunker under siege. [Dec 2017, p.94]

Esteemed Cologne unit corrals a trans-global selection of the dancefloor's most revered. [Sep 2015, p.95]

Stewart sets about pushing up the earth under these delicate folk orchestrations and prog madrigals with subversive skill. [Dec 2022, p.91]

This is a shape-shifting beast, its classic pop sensibilities leavened with occasional samples or stretched into epic, groove-based jams. [Apr 2007, p.96]

Oneida may well be evil geniuses in the midst of creating a classic, multi-album masterpiece. [Aug 2009, p.103]

Cute, but tiring over a whole LP. [Apr 2018, p.96]

It's the sound of a band on a roll. [Jun 2006, p.110]

[Pinback's] blend of warm and wistful is almost impossible to resist. [Jan 2005, p.104]

It finds the group's estimable strengths consolidated as never before. [Jun 2005, p.112]

From Mason Dixon's struttin' Southern boogie and the title track's exhilarating echo of the Stones' Soul Survivor, through to the adorably vulnerable Quiet Person--what a hoot. [Jun 2011, p.92]

II offers a litany of brief, mellifluous, vaguely jazzy mood sketches, fluidly mapping a terrain both playful and emotionally resonant like the missing link between Eric Satie's Gymnopedies and Everybody Digs Bill Evans. [Sep 2012, p.88]

Literate, thoughtful and rhythmic, and with Sullivan unveiling a rich baritone croon, Between Dog And Wolf marks something of a late-in-the-day career high. [Sep 2013, p.88]

The injection of vintage jewels that worked so well in-concert doesn't necessarily make for a coherent listen here. [Dec 2015, p.90]

The result is a funk-filled bundle of fun populated by a polyphony of farcical political figures, where anger is tempered by something more potent: satire. [Sep 2019, p.88]

There's a Paul Simon acuity to Up With The Jones, a look at living beyond your means, going bust and being free. Wisdom Of The World steps right out of line, a feedbacky Hendrix-style howl that resolves into mellow catharsis. [Nov 2020, p.89]

Pale Blue Eyes' debut album deftly executes a type of electro-inclined pop which initially surfaced as the edges of post-punk softened to embrace melody over angularity. [Sep 2022, p.94]

It's impressive stuff, full of craft and invention, but there are moments when there could be more mellow - and a touch less pyrotechnic indie-rock Roman candle. [Sep 2024, p.91]

Each song feels handmade, having the precise airiness or density it requires. [Jan 2007, p.112]

This time around, the Gizz's experiments have resulted in a compelling macrame of blues, rock, electronica, country and more besides. [Jun 2019, p.90]

The immediately obvious aspect of Magic is there hasn't been such a musically dramatic Springsteen album since "Born In The USA;" and like that album, this is a State of the Union address disguised as a pop record. [Nov 2007, p.88]

The devil's in the details, be it the drum machine patterns that propel Church or the lush pedal-augmented textures of Medieval, while the instrumentals that open and close the album aren't simple throwaways but highlights. [Sep 2015, p.86]

The techno seedlings that before poked through the soil sporadically now burst into full bloom. [Sep 2015, p.93]

Halfway through, 39-year-old Jose James undergoes an astonishing transformation via the infectiously funky, Pharrell-esque, dance cuts Live Your Life, and Ladies Man, where he convincingly morphs onto a get-down disco dude. [Mar 2017, p.92]

Smooth soul or hip hop tropes being largely the order of the day here. [Jul 2016, p.95]

The first half of their fifth studio album racing by, a blur of nimble fingers and frills. The second half, a 19-minute exploration of Pink Floyd's Echoes, will divide audiences along prog and classical lines. [May 2019, p.91]