The quartet's grandeur evokes Maiden and Priest with a hint of Thin Lizzy, yet they avoid European power metal's widdly overkill. [May 2008, p.109]

Stirring stuff, but a little goes a long way. [Jun 2019, p.96]

Secret Sisters ably court both the family market and those who haunt Past Times stores in search something new. [Mar 2011, p.108]

White's devastation lends poignancy to tracks ... that skip with country celebration even as he chokes on the words. [Apr 2012, p.95]

Five albums in, his music finally sounds as threadbare as his chosen eulogy, dropping any evidence of the richer--if still ragged--arrangements that launched his deeply affecting six-track debut. [Jul 2009, p.107

The incomplete tape of his concert. ... Some of the best moments on the 11 surviving songs from this University of Tuscaloosa show with Jack Nitzsche, Ben Keith, Tim Drummond and Kenny Buttrey are the mellow, almost hymn-like After The Goldrush and the edgy Alabama. [Jul 2019, p.107]

Amid the thoughts of ultimate demise, the creative juices never cease to flow.[May 2012, p.88]

The songs remain sweet and sad, delicately picked folk foregrounding a serene voice. [Aug 2017, p.97]

There is much to love here, just as much to hate, and nothing to be indifferent about. [Mar 2010, p.99]

Beauty & Ruin--a lean, 12 songs in 37 minutes--finds Mould still monkeying with the formula. [Jul 2014, p.90]

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

Gist Is feels like an urgent conversation,a record driven by compulsion; fortunately, tuning in to its internal dialogue is a pleasure. [Sep 2014, p.93]

It's frustrating to hear them bringing so much to material that doesn't quite coalesce, it's something like listening to holograms of actual songs. [Jan 2020, p.85]

Cloying, ultimately fascinating. [Feb 2018, p.99]

A tightly zipped, anxious, often menacing trawl through personal challenges, offset by Caribbean vocals and rhythms and collaborations. [Mar 2020, p.96]

Guitar thrashes, mystic excursions, slabs of heavy blues and silvers of electronica. [Sep 2013, p.90]

Although there are lengthy passes of mellifluous flute playing, the largely instrumental composition is lacking in focus. But there is much to enjoy ere in the more concise songs. [May 2025, p.92]

A giddy, unpredictable pop record that put new spins on every cliche it touches, while Benson;s innately McCartneyesque melodic gift successfully sells every occasionally saccharine lyric. [Jun 2020, p.88]

Irma and producer Scott Billington have devised the perfect setting. [Sep 2008, p.1000]

Upbeat episodes are outweighed by melancholic drama. [Jun 2018, p.88]

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

Pierce's lyrics remain largely opaque, and the atypically lumpen Warm Hand In Narnia sounds unsettlingly like Snow Patrol, but to cavil feels churlish when elsewhere such vivacious invention pervades. [May 2013, p.86]

Like much of UNKLE's work, the album feels a little bloated and too serious by half, but there are gems among the rubble. [June 2010, p. 97]

A stopgap isn't quite what The Hold Steady need right now, but as a holding exercise it's hard to fault. [Sep 2019, p.89]

Sure, there is a handful of magic that could cause significant flame damage to a dancefloor somewhere, but, beyond that, Jessica 6's toil to sculpt killer from filler is an endeavour that only occasionally pays off.

Negro Swan is more consolidation than the ext great leap forwards. [Oct 2018, p.91]

As with all such improvised projects, Gong Splat is as much about the journey as the destination, but there's little meandering to Dwyer's questing. [Feb 2022, p.87]

The pleasantly chaotic backdrop is heavy on analogue synths and vintage space echo, and though far from the reggae idiom, Perry is at home warbling his curses and magic spells in multi-tracked triplicate. [Nov 2016, p.93]

Charming and cherishable. [Sep 2014, p.94]

By track two... he has slipped back into the familiarity of sinuous guitar lines, fidgety beats and the cheesy language of international disco. [Jul 2005, p.110]

An album hitting some dead ends, as other avenues open up. [Jan 2020, p.88]

Here's a concept Tori: less is more. [Jun 2007, p.108]

It's full-bodied baroque. [Oct 2008, p.109]

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

Urstan find Roberts'signature whistling-kettle delivery ... framed with guitars, fiddles, drums and brass. A peaty, heathery authenticity pervades - to compelling effect. [May 2012, p.88]

Chopper blades and police sirens pepper the album; indeed, shorn of this angsty hum, the by turns pastoral and metallic instrumental tracks pale. [Apr 2004, p.106]

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

The title track is a thunderous grower with a tribal, kick-ass epiphany. And then...it's one mediocre ballad after another. [Jul 2014, p.91]

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

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

Joplin's long, devastating plea for salvation once mirrored the big story--that the surprise star of '68 had outgrown her rough diamonds. The 30 tracks here, several in multiple versions, don't necessarily change that. But wart'n'all, Big Brother were the best foil Janus had. [Jan 2018, p.101]

Their initial torrid confluence of My Bloody Valentine and Joy Division here shapeshifts more towards "synth-assisted stadium nu-gaze," with odd Kraut-y hints of early Simple Minds, and frequent echoes of their new found patron: fune-real The Arbor is pure Disintegration, while shimmering Keep It All To Yourself has Kiss Me! Kiss Me! Kiss Me!'s hi-tech dazzle. [Feb 2019, p.88]

The result are suitably soothing. [Mar 2016, p.95]

Any of these versions would brighten Radio 2's day, but eventually the massed violins and mid-paced tempos begin to pall. [May 2013, p.88]

Musically this is the most satisfying Deftones album in a decade, welding their patented post-hardcore crunch with their noted love of twisted, Cure-styled melody. [June 2010, p. 92]

New Adventures In Hi-Fi holds up well now. ... CD2 consists of all previously released material. Fun of you've never hears R.E.M. saunter through Wichita Lineman, but completists will see this one as a massive opportunity missed. [Dec 2021, p.98]

We're not talking SFA psychonautry but Gorky's Zygotic Mynci's verdant valley of romantic pop innocence. [Aug 2014, p.92]

In no way startling, but elegantly put-together all the same. [Jul 2014, p.92]

[A] blissful orchestral new age soundscapes, to suggest lapping waves on late summer beaches with just the occasional cloud of gloomy dissonance to add to that authentic 2016 holiday experience. [Nov 2016, p.91]

Gibb's voice might be audibly timeworn in parts and the production is a bit vanilla, but there's no denying the poignancy here. [Nov 2016, p.86]

Triplicate lacks the revelatory impact of Shadows In The Night. And you always wish there was more light, inside these pocket-size arrangements. ... But this kind of immersion--in folk, blues or Sinatra--has always been serious business and rejuvenation to him: looking for answers and a way forward in a pasture of plenty. [May 2017, p.90]

The resulting oestrogen charge--an operatic Tori Amos with a dab of Jane Siberry--is terrific when Worden reins in the "hello trees, hello sky" imagery, wincingly precious when she fails. [July 2008, p.110]

None of these songs sound like they took too long to write or record, but her appeal lies in how, despite her off-the-cuff vibe, she often hits the bullseye or happens upon something enamouring. [Jun 2016, p.93]

The Wild Swan echoes both John Hiatt's gnarled, R&B-rooted wit and Van Morrison's lyrical-mystic flights while developing Vance's own romantic voice. [Jun 2016, p.90]

It's a bloodless, disembodied album, rarely flushed with human warmth. [May 2013, p.94]

Kicks is an up-and-down affair but Rickie Lee Jones remains pleasingly unpredictable. [Jul 2019, p.88]

Certainly, Live On I-5 proves Soundgarden weren't covered by grand stadium stages. [May 2011, p.125]

Easy chemistry. ... Glasper and Washington fans may rue their idols merely playing in the back. [Oct 2020, p.94]

The wall-to-wall cyber-vox distract from his bountiful gifts. [Oct 2018, p.92]

[Producers Joe Goddard and Al Doyle] bring a fitting smoothness to the cheesy exotica groove of Wild Flowers, and a swinging clarity to Fatso's '80s P-Funk electro-grind. Elsewhere, At The Hotspot can be too hectic for wider recommendation. [May 2022, p.90]

If it doesn't reach the sustained invention of John Coltrane's odyssey in E, Africa/Brass, Youngs' talent for wringing emotion from base materials remain undimmed. [Jan 2017, p.102]

At it's best Interiors is alien and magical.... thought, it can also slip into a rather inaccessible coolness too. [Nov 2013, p.107]

Enjoyable, though less revelatory, Arcade Fire's Games Without Frontiers, Joseph Arthur's agonised Shock The Monkey and Lou Reed's Jokily grindscaping Solsbury Hill contrast with Paul Simon's restrained Biko. [Nov 2013, p.91]

The melodies and fire return in Baby I'm Coming Home, but held up against their past triumphs, Dropout Boogie often sounds half-cooked. [Jun 2022, p.84]

[The album] has no one style, no favoured musical template. [Mar 2016, p.92]

Feed The Fire takes Lana Del Rey to a spacey summit meeting with Lee Hazlewood of Summer Wine after a conference call with Sweden's own Concretes. [Mar 2016, p.99]

It's a grand gesture of a record, though, and if at times it's a little too much, that's entirely in character. [Jun 2016, p.94]

Sewn Together is as winningly tuneful as it is raggedly charming. [Jul 2009, p.95]

Beautiful, minimal and bewitching, it is both another reason to hate Peter Broderick and another reason to admire him. [Aug 2009, p.102]

It's only the too-glib wordplay that thwarts a more whole hearted endorsement. [Nov 2009, p.94]

For much of the album's remainder, Carthy sticks with the melting pot approach that he and Greater Mancunian peers like Rae & Christian helped codify over a decade ago. [Jun 2014, p.93]

Instrumentals pretty much picks up where FSA left off. [Aug 2015, p.95]

Ian Devaney's tremulous tones and Michael Sue-Poi's melodic bass lines cutting deep on heartbroken ballads. [Dec 2021, p.94]

While the boisterousness that made 2006 single Chelsea Dagger so welcome on the terraces of Stamford Bridge is successfully repurposed on Baby Don't You Lie To Me! and Too Much Wine, and Thief motors like Lady Madonna on Stevie's Higher Ground, other fruits of this reunion with producer Tony Hoffer--see the mellotron-mangled Rosanna--soon sour. [Sep 2015, p.94]

She still meanders between electronic-infused pop, Eastern-tinged R&B and AOR balladry, but crisp production and Spektor's pliant, atypically measured vocals keep things focused. [Nov 2016, p.89]

There are moments when Tom and Ed no longer sound like the baton is theirs to pass. [Feb 2005, p.101]

If her murmurous slurring defies full comprehension, her gentle sadness, hesitant beats and melancholic piano settings match the odd clear phrase. [Mar 2004, p.102]

What, on the face of it, is an understated and straightforward folk fringe album, is actually, thanks to the guile of Flynn and long-time collaborator Adam Beach, an extremely clever and nuanced record. [Nov 2013, p.84]

Their forte remains unashamed headbanger action. [Nov 2006, p.114]

For a rapper who has excelled in redefining the artform, The Life Of Pablo is a sprawling, uneven and curiously unfinished sounding affair with a dearth of recognisable bangers. Much less than the sum of its parts when stacked against the grandiloquent orchestral sweep of 2010’s My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy or pared-back abrasive aural sculpture of predecessor Yeezus, it suggests West is merely human after all.

'Beautiful Summer's' spectral chamber rock and a take on Fleetwood Mac's 'Over & Over' prove there's life in the franchise just yet. [Aug 2008, p.103]

If Diana Krall's Goodby and Norah Jones's Ill Wind are strikingly vulnerable, intimate performances of classics, it's perhaps the obscurer selections that stand out. [Feb 2011, p.107]

Move, a blistering collision of heavy rock and Latin pop. The remainder of the album ranges from percussive jazz-rock and bouncy Latin Techno to febrile thrash metal. [Dec 2021, p.87]

Her queasy, pitch-shifting sound aligns with labelmate Flying Lotus's high-end head music. [Sep 2019, p.96]

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

Ultimately guided by voices, it peaks on cypher session S Bento MC5, an affectionate homage to A Tribe Called Quest's Scenario. [Jan 2017, p.99]

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]

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

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

Not quite up to par with the last three indie label releases, but he set the bar high. [Oct 2021, p.93]

If Kate Bush backed by MGMT appeals, Maguire's your woman. [Apr 2011, p.105]

Bid renders the album's picaresque litany of devious noblemen, murdered knights and debauched bishops with typically knowing aplomb. [Oct 2019, p.89]

Produced with Dave Fridmann and Joe Chiccarelli, the album benefits from the former's spacey soundscapes and the latter's commercial sensibility. [Sep 2014, p.96]

Beach Music is stylistically disjointed. [Nov 2015, p.94]

Pollard's lyrics are characteristically oblique, but persistence pokes through as a theme. [Jan 2020, p.90]

A mixed bag, then, but rarely short of mood-elevating. [Jan 2017, p.100]

Stunning in parts. [Nov 2013, p.94]

Over time, however, it can feel like Clarke has excised the excitement along with the Extraneous matter, his balefully lovelorn tenor, now right out front without distracting clutter, often too reedy to carry the show. [Sep 2023, p.84]