The only problem is that her lyrics are sometimes relegated to back-drop status as Jarosz creates an array of enchanting sounds, set against harmonies provided by back-up musicians Jedd Hughes and Luke Reynolds. [Aug 2016, p.92]

More often than not, it's hard to avoid the conclusion that recent Animal Collective albums have loomed large in The Luya's collective subconscious. [May 2011, p.109]

Isn't quite a match for last year's career-topping Broken Stay Open Sky. [Nov 2019, p.86]

The frat-boy humour is wearing a tad thin. [Oct 2011, p.97]

As with FWF, it’s hard to discern any redemptive purpose other than the release of darker energies, but on that score Wither’s Suicide-esque pulse, All The Same’s filthy, Decius-style hi-NRG and Running’s synth-bashing rush best hit FD’s target. [Oct 2024, p.86]

Darkly versatile second LP. [Nov 2024, p.95]

He serves us a telling portion of autobiographical, Nashville-flavoured Americana. [Nov 2014, p.96]

An electro-edged nerviness also surfaces but, overall, the fresh stylistic excursions result in an album which, fittingly considering its backstory, does not quite hang together. [Feb 2019, p.91]

A gentle record that is astonishingly timely from a political perspective. [Apr 2016, p.93]

'Easy Does It' is pleasant and clever rather than emotive and memorable, like so much of this album. [Aug 2008, p.114]

Sometimes it's a bit repetitive or her voice goes trebly, but then you get What's Not Mine's Bjork-style weirdness. [May 2016, p.92]

While Two Suns almost inevitably finds Natasha Khan caught between the rock of artistic muse and the hard place of major label rockability, there's still invention and charisma enough here to keep both leftfield chin-stroker and ingenue fan onside for now. [Apr 2009, p.106]

A record that exudes the glee and relief of emotional recovery. [Aug 2017, p.93]

Brandon Flowers' commercial appeal holds steady on Imploding The Mirage under producers 13 and 14 Shawn Everett and Jonathan Rado, who lather fidgety single Caution and When The Dreams Run Dry in fine '80s studio-wash. [Oct 2020, p.84]

This still requires a certain kind of listener: namely, people who find Michael Cera's movies charming. [May 2011, p.109]

The old fight is there on the unrepentant The New You, but a sense that she's over thinking these songs lingers. [Aug 2014, p.94]

Initial listens may suggest contrived incongruity. Further spins reveal the affectionate smarts behind these acts of desecration. [Jul 2014, p.87]

The winning formula could hold Chvrches back from breaking new ground. [Oct 2015, p.90]

Not all [are] successful, but the extent of her ambition cannot be faulted. [Oct 2015, p.90]

It's no surprise that there isn't the immediate drive of 2011 Daptone debut No Time For Dreaming, it the energy and cohesion of follow-ups Victim Of Love (2013) and Changes (2016). But Black Velvet's appeal grows. [Dec 2018. p.85]

The latter tracks sink into Beck-by-numbers fare. [Nov 2006, p.100]

Sule Skerry is partly programme music, partly good old-fashioned concept album. His approach feel rather literal at times. [Jun 2019, p.95]

While the woozy house piano of Mad World, contained dynamics of Mind's Eye and tension-building twists and turns of Oasis are early highlights, RAkei's crying falsetto and brooding croon often carry far too leisurely songs whose midtempo grooves run the risk of rolling into one. [Jul 2019, p.86]

Seasick's latest is unshakeably him. [Sep 2020, p.91]

Several of the songs on River are, aptly, long and meandering, passing the ears in a liquid, ungraspable way. You can drift away on it. [Jun 2016, p.104]

With six producers and 10 guest stars, Malice N Wonderland sees the ageing gangsta casting an eye over modern hip hop in all its forms, including Pronto's nod to the AutoTune phenomenon featuring the manipulated vocals of singing robot Soulja Boy. [Jan 2010, p. 90]

These are precarious songs, Oberst's voice as fragile as an egg, yet when it comes to songwriting, Bright Eyes remain a safe pair of hands. [Oct 2020, p.84]

Gogol Bordello's passport-abusing, transcontinental musical journeying occasionally feels like being faced with an over-ambitious tapas plate. [Oct 2017, p.96]

The album is mainly archetypal Forster. [Oct 2015, p.92]

Collection of angular electro, cavernous soundscapes and delightfully off-kilter rhythms from Depeche Mode's creative hub. [Mar 2021, p.89]

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]

Its dozen tunes about finding love, rejecting losers, and criticising corrupt systems are a patchwork of assorted American pops. [Sep 2023, p.83]

[Moon Duo] channels Velvets fuzz-rock through Spacemen 3 drone on a psychedelic trip, with wah-wah and lethargic vocal drawl. [Dec 2012, p.96]

Only the title track's gently jazzy diversion (Pt 1) and surprise operatics (Pt 2) shatter the wellness-retreat politeness. [Apr 2019, p.96]

An album for banjo/fiddle fans and music history buffs. [May 2025, p.84]

It's the songs on which she distances herself from that occasionally tiresome persona where she really shines. [Aug 2009, p.94]

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]

The emotional honesty and lack of bravado suits him. [Nov 2021, p.87]

The Weighing Of The Heart puts Shott's breathy yet deceptively resilient voice to work in the service of her music with a disciplined playfulness worthy of kindred spirits Juana Molina and Alexander tucker. [Jun 2013, p.94]

If there's a sense that the material has yet to coalesce to its strongest and most consistent point, there's much that bodes well for High Water II, due in 2019. [Sep 2018, p.86]

A zippy half-hour's worth of inspired, unlikely juxtapositions and deftly perverse songcraft. [Oct 2016, p.96]

[Weatherall] indulges in more motorik rhythms, frazzled post-rock and glam rock beats. [Nov 2017, p.103]

Twigs plants words with tenacious deliberation and care, but sometimes the result is over-studied, a gentle industrial emo. [Dec 2019, p.93]

The album is most notable for the man's glorious undiminished tones. [Oct 2011, p.98]

A bruised, heartsore set. [Jan 2017, p.104]

Mostly, it feels like a marriage of Weezer and Superchunk, amid all-pervasive fuzz-pedal abuse. [Feb 2019, p.88]

Despite a few bright spots--a Beach boys-style makeover of I Got Rhythm and a swooning I Loves You Porgy--the album falls short of either artist's legacy. [Sep 2010, p.93]

There's a sense that such modishly retro melancholia might have had its moment, but given that a yearning for what's been lost shades Static so starkly, that notion can only enhance the mood. [Dec 2013, p.85]

They're still at their best on offbeat musings. [May 2009, p.101]

HDBA embrace cyclic faux-Krautrock, robust electronic rhythms, looped vocal phrases and miscellaneous soundtrack atmospheres. [May 2012, p.92]

This highly accomplished album also finds her writing and singing in other registers. [Jul 2015, p.90]

There's an agreeable robustness to proceedings. [Sep 2018, p.91]

While there's a suspicion that the album format isn't their natural habitat - only the melancholic shuffle of (Vi-Vi) Vicious Games veers away from the acid template - the sinewy, skeletal intensity here has a creeping allure. [Oct 2019, p.90]

This second LP moves country into enterprising, occasionally spooked spaces. [Nov 2019, p.96]

At times, her fluency leaves you wishing for a smudge or run that hasn't been place deliberately, but from the Tom Petty love-the-one-you're-with of Apples And Oranges to Cherry Baby's soft-focus disco, Lewis is a smart, fluent builder of her world. [Jul 2023, p.90]

He's never met a supernatural entity he can't pair with thumping darktronica and stalking rock guitar - weeping Ghost, Vampire's Touch, Skeleton - but it's done with a fabulously cold touch. [Mar 2021, p.89]

Not Pet Shop Boys in highest definition, Hotspot still provides a vivid panorama of their world. [Mar 2020, p.86]

The result is a sulky, euphoric blend of Ramones, Runaways and Cheap Trick, with maddening echoes of Iggy Pop, Ash and The Undertones. [Nov 2014, p.96]

If there isn't a great leap forward, there is progression on assorted fronts, so The Best Is Yet To Come embraces all-out rock, but Scared Of Love suggests acoustic ballads could be an alternative way ahead. [Sep 2023, p.88]

[Their] first [album] to sound authentically beaten up. [Jun 2007, p.101]

Forensically constructed, sad-eye pop with bright melodies of a Shins-like stripe. [Dec 2012, p.96]

Crush is a thrilling, giddy conflagration of hot and cold currents. [Oct. 2010, p. 97]

Occasionally infuriating when great ideas are cast aside indiscriminately, Wolf's vision remains undimmed. [May 2017, p.92]

At its best, as on 'Heartbreaker,' the singing has the deadpan charm of Talking Heads or Kraftwerk, adding to the likeability of men who know its better to be a robot than a hippy. [Oct 2008, p.108]

The answers Wallumrod seeks may be out of reach but in the process of searching she has produced an album of disquieting power. [May 2016, p.90]

Whether this leaves you head-scratching or dancing like an electrified monkey, it certainly won't bore you. [Jul 2003, p.109]

Though the Vivs pride themselves on DIY charm, they're becoming scarily cogent. [May 2011, p.110]

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

The first half of this double album follow-up picks up Badlands' wayward trail.... As the set wears on, Hungati's soundtrack-composer instincts take over. [Jul 2013, p.84]

Heavy on reggae, with strong funk and grooves. [Aug 2015, p.98]

An experimental and deeply idiosyncratic record. [Oct 2019, p.90]

It all thumps along agreeably with a brio seldom found in rock today by artists a quarter of his age. [Dec 2019, p.92]

An equally intriguing mix of airy, modern indie pop, gauzy, gothic epic and plaintive folk-picking. [Feb 2019, p.93]

It might sound like a stunt, but results in a deeply felt and surprisingly enjoyable exploration of American Vernacular music. [Sep 2010, p.93]

What lets her down is a pair of English songs--beautifully sung, but the material is unforgivably weak. [May 2017, p.95]

It's darker and starker, more 4am despair than midnight rendezvous. [Feb 2014, p.97]

It's an exploration of the end that assets it's not over. [May 2017, p.88]

A somewhat arid listening experience. [Jul 2018, p.104]

With more hits than misses, Shadow is back in the frame. [Aug 2016, p.95]

For the most part it works,Moody, Standard And Poor is a fine exercise in pre-punk '60s garage energy given added zest from the dynamic interplay between his and former Edsel man Sohrab Habibion's dueling guitars. [May 2011, p.110]

The tone is wistful and serene more than sad and heavy, but principal singer Nona Marie Invie still sounds like a femme fatale, with a coiled, spectral charm that suits the band's name. [Jun 2011, p.104]

It's not so much that the most singularly talented and important soul singer of now has let us down, more she's tried too hard to please. [Sep 2003, p.105]

Alas, when their feisty glam racket starts to repeat itself towards the end, the joke wears a little thin. [Nov 2005, p.112]

Nearly a decade later, their new album attempts to recapture the moment of dancefloor serendipity and only occasionally do they succeed. [Oct 2011, p.99]

On the minus side, The False Foundation lacks an overarching character, so plays out like a soundtrack or compilation. [Nov 2016, p.89]

Belle Starr and... Red Staggerwing finds [Knopfler] reaching for a goodtime clambake feel that ends up sounding kinda grating and twee. [Jun 2006, p.98]

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

Wen It Comes is a mood piece on which Gavanski appears to chronicle living through a waking dream. [Jun 2022, p.89]

A strand of misanthropy and musical bloody-mindedness makes for an uneven listen and feels like a band in transition. [Nov 2014, p.98]

Inevitably flawed yet fascinating, it's respectful without being reverent, less myth-making tribute, more robust embrace. [Aug 2023, p.81]

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

The odd head-snapping moodswing, a la Nick Cave, can jar. [May 2017, p.98]

Johnson recorded 30 songs between 1927 and 1930, and 11 are covered here by a curious, though often great, selection of artists. [Apr 2016, p.89]

The debut's sinister clouds are replaced by spry digital funk and studio sheen. [Mar 2014, p.96]

Tobacco is more appealing when playing it straight. [Aug 2009, p.108]

A little under-sung in mumbling modern folk shorthand for emotion, but lovely. [Jun 2017, p.95]

Choral folk pop reveries and soft rock tease out the cosmic everyday. [Jun 2016, p.97]

Asher steers The Secret Of Life toward familiar traditional-pop territory. The Placid setting brings out the politeness in Streisand's guests. [Aug 2025, p.76]