Writing in a different meter results in parts of Sudden Elevation becoming more linear, less abstract than predecessor Innundir Skinni. [Mar 2013, p.89]

These fine-spun talents are too frequently suffocated by the album;s production, which ignores the songs' subtler details in favour of something more epic. [Apr 2013, p.89]

If anything, she's dreamer, the tempo's a little more down, the mood more twilit. [May 2009, p.101]

The father-and-son combination is satisfyingly unpredictable, with a fresh, non-rock approach to some of the rhythms and unexpected shifts in style. [Jun 2017, p.86]

Occasionally remarkable, American Twilight is a timely reminder of the instinctive songwriting that a certain other, more feted southern gothic Melbournian has sometimes mislaid. [May 2013, p.95]

First album in 16 years for the post-punk maestros. Riveting and robotic. [Feb. 2011, p. 106]

Songs filled with rustic, caught-between-light-and-dark country metaphors. [Sep 2015, p.95]

Boasts duets between Esperanza Spalding ab=nd Q-Tip, Musiq Soulchild and posdnuos and a deep-voiced rap from Meshell Ndegeocello that perfectly marries H.E.R.'s downcast balladeering. Much of the rest, however, is little more than showy, slick and generic R&B, with Glasper becoming virtually untraceable. [Apr 2022, p.89]

Wield[s] both a wistful poignancy and raw emotional undertow. [Aug 2006, p.94]

Spare bayou mirage score for Green's newie. [Nov 2013, p.94]

The instrumental smorgasbord can feel a little claustrophobic, as on the clattering All The Way Live, but overall The Go! Team's relentless party vibe emerges undiminished. [Feb 2018, p.96]

Omega Male doesn't stray too far from the day job(s) [of David Best of Fujiya & Miyagi and Sammy Rubin of Project Jenny, Project Jan]. [Dec 2012, p.94]

Some might find the work's almost wilful-seeming opacity and slight whiff of academia off-putting. Judged on purely musical terms, however, it's a ting of great beauty. [Apr 2017, p.90]

The appealingly titled Oblivion With Bells continues Karl Hyde and Rick Smith's desire to capture the Freon-and-neon static of modern life. [Nov 2007, p.92]

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

Covers include The Four Tops' Loving You Is Sweeter Than Ever cooked into greasy Southern soul, and the title track, where, backed by Derek Trucks on slide guitar, she delivers the hymnal straight. [May 2017, p.96]

A little of these Lee & Nancy-style duets foes a long way. [Feb 2013, p.98]

Unobtrusive producer Tony Hoffer again extracts clarity while adroitly leaving the sense of a happpy mess. [May 2008 p.112]

Ultimately, the thrills on The Silver Cord are intermittent, but you have to admire Gizzard's relentless pursuit of the next high. [Dec 2023, p.87]

Little Honey is, then, a something for everyone offering. And a few will be disappointed. [Nov 2008, p.104]

More akin to their second LP. [May 2013, p.96]

Absolute Truth rights the ship with enough whistling milkman melodies to sink the Titanic. [Sep 2016, p.95]

It is probably Dylan's most distinctive statement. [Oct 2012, p.94]

Dawn's Auto-Tuned vocals push it into Major Lazer territory. Yet the best moments are where restraint wins out. [Jan 2017, p.102]

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

A wonderfully mellifluous, atmospheric affair. [Nov 2013, p.94]

Ghost are soundtracking a fresh, modern hell. [Mar 2007, p.99]

Everywhere, tremolo guitars twang, and slow, compressed drums beat out the rhythm of disquietude. [Dec. 2011 p. 99]

Ambitious but muddled, throughout they veer from awful to the gently compelling. [Apr 2016, p.86]

A mostly instrumental set of spiralling guitars and scalp-prickling grooves. [Apr 2016, p.96]

None The Wiser is as poppy a set as they have made to date. [Feb 2014, p.94]

There are transcendent moments. ... But Atkins tries on so many hackneyed faces during these 11 tracks that the overall effort feels faceless. [Jul 2020, p.82]

White Lies naivety is emphatically brokered by their songs ability to rouse and inspire. [Feb 2009, p.109]

The album works better as [a] vehicle for Williams' fiery, lucid spiels and inventive productions than straight-up narrative. [Jun 2016, p.97]

The quintet's first bona fide album in five years, perhaps acknowledges the baton passing, as does an absence of post-rock tropes. [Jul 2009, p.97]

Tracks like Half Angel Half Light suggest the passion remains fully intact. [May 2013, p.96]

This set stands out as Cleaves' most engaging release since "Broke Down" back in 2000. [Aug 2009, p.104]

Strictly for fans of "difficult." [Dec 2021, p.92]

Satriani, a Hendrix obsessive, is brilliant throughout. But above all, it's the quality of their songs that makes Chickenfoot more than just a rich rock star's hobby. [Jan 2012, p.100]

The skinny is it's more reminiscent of Led Zeppelin III and late-period Black Crowes. [Nov 2015, p.86]

It takes several listens to mentally sync wit its wonky, lurching rhythms. [Jan 2020, p.91]

There are some great moments. [Nov 2006, p.101]

Howver uncool, these la's will have loads more hits in '08. [July 2008, p.104]

Miraculously, the whole thing is given a neat completness by John Congleton's slick, electro-rock production. [Jun 2017, p.92]

[A] ragged rock 'n' roll debut with vigorous grit, while Robbie Crowell's drawled, anecdotal lyrics add dive-bar sleaze. [May 2013, p.96]

The good news, however, is that admirers of the later albums such as Bone Mahcine, the Black Rider and Real Gone are very well served. [Jan 2010, p. 91]

The earth doesn't move, but sands shift seductively. [Sep 2009, p.102]

When he slows for a stroll through You Ain't Going Nowhere and offers up the obscure Abandoned Lover as a wonderfully interpreted finale, you're hit by the realisation that Willie has actually pulled off what is unquestionably a daunting challenge. [Sep 2017, p.94]

Her eerie, seductive first solo outing takes your brain to a new plane. [Sep 2019, p.93]

With a couple more new songs, this could have been a great second album rather than a stop-gap release. [Jan 2002, p.90]

The scale of the latter achievements suggest Kasabian and 48:13 will get by nicely with their existing fanbase. Whether this means many new converts is less certain. [Jul 2014, p.87]

They are scarcely comparable to the original band versions with electric guitar blazing and in some cases Linda Thompson singing; but there's a certain magic in hearing these classics in such intimate form. [Sep 2014, p.88]

Camp art-pop songs matching Kassie Carlson's surreal lyrics with burbling synths and booming basses, it might snag GT the audience they crave. [May 2022, p.96]

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]

Dig Out Your Soul might not be the sound of envelopes being pushed, but its mix of kitchen-sink production and too many vague songs mark a deviation from business as usual that ultimately fails to deliver. [Nov 2008, p.105]

For every throughly relised composition, there is a meandering fragment, great only as far as it goes. [Nov 2009, p.90]

Tread lightly past the handclaps and keyboard quacks to find a collection of uncomfortably honest damaged-goods love songs set in the cold hours of the a.m. [Dec 2004, p.102]

Hollow Meadows carries his usual stamp of songwriting quality, but rather than further develop these new sonics and dynamics it feels more like a retrenchment. [Oct 2015, p.88]

Dodge And Burn is at the very least a solid offering with some dramatic and exhilarating rock'n'roll moments, but overall it's more a consolidation than a staking out of new ground. [Nov 2015, p.87]

He [Scott Mogan] references Phillip Glass, anti-humanist literature and aerial photos of industrial pollution. [Jan 2017, p.104]

Despite its bleak outlook, this is a record big on nagging choruses and arm-punching emo punk that--more often than not--aims for the mainstream artery. [Dec 2006, p.110]

It's impeccably stylish, idiosyncratic stuff, as ever, but is a little more heart too much to ask for? [Apr 2007, p.108]

Myth Of A Man doesn't feel like the whole story yet, but it's getting there. [Feb 2019, p.92]

Gently is how Carey does it, and he does it well. {Sep 2010, p.102]

While they fight shy of radical "Kid A"-style reinvention, hats should be doffed to Coldplay for at least having artistic cojones to mess with a winning formula. [July 2008, p.101]

Overall Tron: Legacy is but faint clanging, drowned out by rent-a-string-section romanticism; like sad robots banging on a sound-stage door. [Jan. 2011, p. 95]

[Apr 2012, p.88]

The going is initially uncertain, but by 'Turn It On,' space and size begin to shift and singer Alex Kapranos shimmers in and out of the mix. [Jul 2009, p.106]

While impressive in their cinematic scope they can feel a touch superfluous. .[May 2013, p.96]

The themes are familiar, yet still captivating, as rock's most misanthropic man sings about a world of emotional retardation and alienation. [Dec 2009, p.111]

But judicious daubs of strings, piano, female backing vocals and even a band (on Roll On, a surprise boisterous finale) reach out and the lyrics follow suit - venturing out into snow is a metaphor for change. [Jan 2010, p. 104]

Each piece worms in and stays there. Brice has enhanced the voices of others for too long. Now, her own needs to be heard. [Jul 2016, p.91]

An intriguing companion to DM's Songs of Faith and Devotion, heady with the lexicon of addiction and redemption. [Jun 2003, p.110]

The trio are at their most effective when meshing from-the-streets comment with clanging guitars and harmonies in the vein of early-period Who, see the wry poke at tabloid celebrity, "Keep Your Eyes On Me." It's only when they descend into the Kinks pastiche of "Mr. Grey" that the bar is lowered. [Mar 2010, p.96]

Mann's voice remains exquisite, her lyrics cinematically vivid, often painfully so, but the album possesses a chimerical looseness, a fuzzy aimless drift that is simultaneously haunting and somniferous. [Dec 2021, p.87]

An uneven yet entertaining debut. [Jun 2012, p.85]

There remains a mood off unease here, as if these transportive pop chants were also magic spells designed to awaken something ancient and terrible. [Sep 2014, p.90]

Although the quality dips dramatically on Samir & Abboud's bland, overworked Games and Gharbi Sadock & George Garzia's sickly slap-bass odyssey Lala Tibiki, both prove rare exceptions. [Jan 2018, p.102]

It builds a new stoic eloquence into her vulnerability, even if the stark, birdsong-imbued Darkish drips with Radiohead-like ennui. [Jun 2022, p.84]

LaVette says thank you to the British Invasion for bringing soul back home. [July 2010, p. 103]

At their best melodically, Artificial lopes on Pornography-era Cure beats to a rousing Interpol angst chorus. Further on through, the various '82-91 moves become too familiar and the mood of despond too oppressive. [Apr 2018, p.95]

We get tracks like Old De Spain and Driving After You, bare-bones blues whose satisfying menace echoes To Bring You My Love. In between, we're back to hillbilly hoots, jigs and Corrs-style ballads. [Apr 2015, p.96]

Another left-field guest-fest. [Jun 2016, p.96]

[The album] sees the reunited Grand "Daddy G" Marshalll abnd Robert "3D" Del Naja proving they can still corner the market in atmospheric glooom, even if their era-defining days have passed. [Mar 2010, p.90]

Sleepy, certainly, but never tired. [Aug 2004, p.89]

Kid A is intriguing, eccentric, obviously a grower, but by Radiohead's standards it can't help but disappoint.

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]

Wald is a continued move in more playful directions. [Oct 2015, p.95]

It's no instant hit, but some cracking songs like Moths In The Gas Light and Dancing In The Ruin rise to the top and a brilliantly vivid production keeps you riveted. [Dec 2017, p.90]

Any ad creatives hoping for mobile phone campaign music will be disappointed. [Oct 2005, p.102]

BP retain a youthful fixation with personal drama, biting lyrics and angular guitars, laced with keyboards. [Jun 2022, p.94]

Indie-folk lifers tackle the Prairie Home Companion canon, also bringing their ethereal close harmonies to Kanye West. [Apr 2020, p.96]

Only a droll stab at Dueling Banjos shades into the hokeyness that could've cursed the entire project. [Jun 2020, p.95]

A dash more melodic brio wouldn't have gone amis, but its muted charms gather cumulatively nonetheless. [May 2008, p.109]

An unusual 35 minutes, then, but Confection makes the perfect background for an evening of sophisticated seduction. [Feb 2014, p.95]

The Stones' I'd Much Rather Be With The Girls, written with her in mind in '65. best captures the 72-year-old. [Jun 2016, p.96]

Krell sounds like ha has taken a step back, seemingly trading his experimentalism for a more traditional blue-eyed soul route. [Jul 2014, p.91]

The Wallflowers make some of the best radio-friendly hooks and melodies around. [Mar 2003, p.112]