This collection [is] an artful, sweat-free take on eclectic rhythm that heads straight for the dance floor. [Jan 2012, p.93]

Blue-eyed soul with a gritty bite. [Jul 2014, p.96]

Too many superfluous guest vocalists distract but the result are bright and bold. [Jan 2015, p.96]

Clapton hasn't sounded quite so inspired in years. [Jun 2016, p.88]

The results are highly accomplished and consistently gorgeous. [Jul 2016, p.92]

Peaks on Joy Division-ish New Structures and the helter-skelter title track. [Oct 2016, p.100]

A bleak and occasionally beautiful debut. [Oct 2009,p.102]

Pollack's velvety, diction-rich voice shines on the syncopated, a cappella intro of "The Loop," and her idiosyncratic, mostly cryptic lyrics can be striking. [Apr 2010, p.104]

The whole album suggests the assured songwriting will in time be matched by the sloughing-off of any nods to the familiar. One to keep a beady eye on. [Aug 2019, p.96]

Julian Casablancas emerges with this engagingly odd collection of songs. [Nov 2009, p.92]

His near facsimile approach to fond memory demands a revitalising new element and he hasn't got it. [May 2008, p.112]

Luminous Night reflects the yin-yang duality of a player whose axework has feulled Both Comets On Fire's freakout euphoria and the post-apocaltptic spok of Current 93. [Oct 2009, p.101]

I'm Having Fun Now is a musical meeting of minds, sure, but more significantly it's continuing evidence of Lewis's rapid artistic evolution. [Dec 2010, p.98]

After all this time, Eric Clapton finally sounds at peace with himself; secure even. [Oct. 2010, p. 88]

It's a reversal of the usual wild and weird direction of extra-curricular albums: it's more commercial than Room On Fire! [Nov 2006, p.112]

[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]

The result is a trifle confusing. [Dec 2012, p.85]

Her lyrics draw you in, as she explores the chemistry of attraction on the title track to an appropriately sexy descending chord sequence, while a fly-by-night lover gets his comeuppance on Easy Street. [Oct 2018, p.84]

Editors have hatched a perturbed and maximalist affair whose thundering algorithms target the darkest, least inhibited corners of the dancefloor. [Oct 2022, p.90]

A move to their own label sees them lose the plot entirely, sliding into the stodgy AOR navel gazing of From A Window Seat and listless choogling. [Sep 2013, p.90]

Doherty's songwriting rises to the occasion. [Apr 2024, p.88]

An overwhelming record that bends and blusters with grand passions, bittersweet beauty and no small hint of desperation. [Apr 2005, p.98]

[It] delivers a pop-art contrast to the prog-opaque sprawl of its underrated predecessor. [Nov 2006, p.106]

While Inspiral Carpet's Clint Boon will surely applaud Monroe's retro organ flair, much of the magic here stems from Like linchpin and Nabokov fan Z Berg, whose literate lyrics and carefully hatched melodies continue to wring intrigue from that hardy perennial, boy trouble. [Sep 2010, p.96]

A mixed bag all round. [Apr 2018, p.91]

Not even Cat Power can turn an album of cover versions into anything more than a facinating detour from the main journey, but Jukebox is a precious waste of time nonetheless. [Jan 2008, p.98]

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

He's a master of umbral moods, and in this respect at least, In Our Nature is a worthy successor to the phenomenal "Veneer." [Oct 2007, p102]

There's a bit of power ballad journeying but taut pop hooks aplenty too. [May 2017, p.98]

Inventions contains enough streamlined electronic uplift to force your emotions into an altered state of ecstatic euphoria. [Jul 2014, p.88]

It's a messy, vibrant record, and if his palette occasionally blurs into muddiness, at least he's still trying for a rainbow. [Nov 2017, p.102]

As feisty good-time rock goes, the Stones get good and gone and its worth every penny for the duet with Buddy Guy on Muddy Waters' 'Champagne and Reffer' alone. [May 2008, p.103]

Tasseomancy's third album moves with a deceptively breezy sway. [Jan 2017, p.94]

Peaks on Witchcraft, a perfect Bikini Kill-Pendle Witch coven induction song. [Apr 2018, p.96]

While it's sometimes hard to shake the feeling one is listening to the soundtrack to some twee mobile commercial, it's harder still to deny the seductive charms of tracks like the twilit Ilsa Drown, the haunting Triangulated Heart, and the album's deftly magical closing song, Loom. [Mar 2014, p.94]

Temples aren't stuck in the past, they've glimpsed the future. [Apr 2017, p.94]

All BRMC really have in common with The Strokes is hype and haircuts, but their music lives up to both. [Feb 2002, p.92]

A clumsily executed, ghoulishly self-regarding mess. [Mar 2006, p.94]

Top-down pop that sparkles like a lifeguard's teeth. [Jul 2003, p.109]

1960s-obsessed power-poppers discover the '70s. Time travel indeed. [July 2010, p. 102]

They write about what they know. Once that was dashed hopes and broken hearts, now its families and what sounds like pages from a diary. [Apr 2011, p.104]

Lazy vocals, euphoric hooks and volleys of digital drums. [Aug 2013, p.98]

This potent return affirms Finn heeds his own advice. [Mar 2014, p.90]

Heroic in its scope and shifting moods, it's more performance piece than repeated listen. [May 2025, p.93]

Instead of warm colours they work with a more monochromatic palette. There's darkness, rain, a chill in the air, remoteness, a sense of nature--and more of than not, a very British remoteness and sense of nature. [Feb 2010, p.90]

The Wiltshire-raised, London-based trio respons with an album that feels utterly vital, but--show no desire to climb out of their own particular furrow. [Apr 2010, p.95]

Affirms that Boris can bench-press myriad weighty sub-genres in their sleep. [Aug. 2011, p. 92]

His fourth album isn't quite as rich a powerpop confection as 2002's "Lapalco" but it still shows off songs as sweet and sharp as peanut brittle. [Sep 2009, p.104]

Slaraffenland are a complete surprise. Unfettered yet poptuneful, they harmonize constantly--with a melodic cool, more churchy than surfy--but plough those vocal lines into dense, dynamic texture with fierce drums marching as to war. [Jun 2010, p.103]

Burgess always wanted to be a country soul man, on this album he has done it. [Oct 2012, p.87]

It's chugging, stoner rock riff solace to those bored by the cod therapy of Some Kind Of Monster. [Oct 2013, p.98]

His [Chris Collingwood] Kermit-does-Carole King voice can be too sugary for some, but not for high-spec pop fans. [Sep 2016, p.99]

In sterling voice throughout. [Apr 2021, p.84]

A pleasant way to pass time in transit, but not a destination itself. [Oct 2022, p.82]

It's another good one. [Jul 2006, p.100]

Out on its own, Here We Go Magic demands attention. [Aug 2009, p.108]

The tunes are all there but the mood is woozy, the arrangements spare and programmed to hypnotize. [Oct 2011, p.98]

After the initial shock, the pair's songwriting smarts cuts through persuasively, alongside strong messaging about acknowledging your needs and vulnerabilities. [Feb 2024, p.88]

Brilliantly produced and performed, rather than astoundingly well written. [Jun 2004, p.112]

The concept here by Mac and co-producer/trombonist Sarah Morrow is terrific. [Sep 2014, p.88]

X&Y is awash with cliches, non-sequiturs, and cheap existentialism; at times it all becomes nigh on unbearable. [Jul 2005, p.97]

Overall Ghettoville feels unsettlingly cold; a stubborn statement of retirement in the form of a half-finished work. [Feb 2014, p.97]

Benefiting from a stable line-up throughout, Song of the Pearl manages to sound brighter and more dynamic while retaining its predecessor's visionary essence. [Apr 2009, p.107]

There was mmuch to anticipate, but it falls short of the promise. [May 2011, p.114]

The wait has been worth it. [Oct 2011, p.98]

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]

Simple, homespun arrangements shift between folk pop and folk rock with an emphasis on bittersweet. [Sep 2020, p.85]

It's his best original work by some yards. [Aug 2021, p.84]

Assured and challenging. Unlikely to convert the uninitiated, it will thrill the Volta Nation. [May 2012, p.92]

Every time you think you've got Idlewild figured out, it zips off in a totally unexpected new direction. [Oct 2006, p.97]

The Errant Charm lacks the edge needed to be more than a counter-cultural accessory. [July 2011, p. 102]

Aficionados will hear a master ambient craftsman in his element. [Dec. 2010, p. 95]

There’s joyous invention at work here, along with nagging hooks which bury themselves deeper with every play.

Even introspection is realised on a gargantuan scale, with the climatic rock symphony Exogenesis. Over the top? For Matt Bellamy and Muse it's the only way to go. [Oct 2009]

The mood is meditative, a West Coast dope-smoker's take on Neu!'s unvarying grooves; the songs are mostly named after ancient villages dotted around Somerset. [Dec 2009, p. 93]

Glazed soul music that's both lucid and ambiguous, that chimes simultaneously with Donna Summer, John Barry and Suicide, beautifully schizophrenic and poised on the edge of ruin. [May 2003, p.91]

As this crackles with youthful brio and subtlety, we can start speculating what this band may go on to achieve. [Aug 2009, p.98]

It's still high camp stuff, but Wolf's world suddenly seems like a more welcoming place. [Jun 2011, p.97]

A diverting, stoner-friendly 39 minutes. [Dec 2014, p.89]

There are moments when things don't quite work as they should. But the Blind Boys, left to their own devices on the funky Jesus, Hold My Hand, do what they do best. [Jun 2011, p.104]

He's boosted by a heart-and-soul R&B ensemble, but every hard-earned wrinkle on that still fierce visage remains in working order. [May 2013, p.90]

A remarkable, wonderful calling card. [Jan 2014, p.100]

Promise of Love's cyclical episodes unravel at an amenable mid-pace, each one allowed just enough time to establish a mood bfore halting as over-familiarity threatens. [Jul 2003, p.101]

Although [Future Songs] reveals no radical reinvention, it does see them stretching their creative legs. [Jul 2001, p.96]

Adult. add unflinching aggression to the razor-sharp beats and vaguely sinister lyrics first mapped out on 2001's Resuscitation. [May 2003, p.104]

Pushes the trio's grandiose delusions onto new levels of interpretative-dancing, mirror-cracking excess. [Oct 2003, p.107]

An album of joyful, desperate and messy songs, as honest and delicious as any on Pavement's 1992 classic, Slanted And Enchanted. [Sep 2001, p.92]

Relative to her potential, she remains an underachiever, straitjacketed by Nashville craftsmanship in writing and arrangement. [Oct 2002, p.104]

Rather than being derivative, this album is a perfect pop balance of cliche and rawness, with mythic ambition and songs that make you a three-minute hero. [Feb 2014, p.95]

Despite its promising title, Lust Lust Lust is mighty forlorn. Or, optimistically, transitional. [Dec 2007, p.100]

Aside from the occasional mistep this is a finely balanced collection. [Nov 2007, p.92]

Bosnian Rainbows is no less powerful for its focus, segueing from fractured futuristic funk rock, to thorny melodic pop, to resonant power balladry with a fire and confidence confirming the Bosnian Rainbows as no mere "project," but indeed a whole new direction. [Jul 2013, p.86]

Though a very beautiful whole, the mid-tempo Picture You is samey and only breaks its mood on Fryshusfunk. [Mar 2014, p.98]

Some 18 years after his astonishing debut album Maxinquaye, Tricky has come close to making Maxinquaye II. [Jul 2013, p.88]

Jungle skillfully replicate the sexy patinas of their varied influence. [Sep 2014, p.94]

While The Gate is not as persuasive as 2007's Nightmoves, the good stuff more than makes up for comparatively effortful takes on Stevie Wonder and EW&F material. [Jun 2011, p.105

This is a unified album. [Oct 2012, p.91]

Luck is more satisfying than Leisure Seizure, but it's still not throwing sixes all the way. [Jul 2014, p.90]