Bleak but often gripping stuff. [Oct 2021, p.97]

As a record of one man's love affair with his guitar, it's a solid testament. As the work of one of British music's unshakeable geniuses, however, it's not really worth the name. [Mar 2003, p.98]

Crushing riffs and ancestral memories of hardcore. [Aug 2015, p.98]

Bowness's delivery on the more subdued material tends to revisit similar melodic cadences, but when the musicians inject more energy, as on The Great Electric Teenage Dream and the gorgeous Sing To Me, the music is transported to a different level. [Sep 2015, p.90]

Further evolution is needed to forge an identity from the shadows of their contemporaries. [Feb 2016, p.98]

Mostly it looks like there's a new kid in town. [Dec 2007, p.98]

The rethink has paid dividends. [Nov 2007, p.90]

An enjoyably hook-filled, pulse-quickening dab of squidgy yet soulful colour. [May 2016, p.96]

Gentleman Jack White does his Loretta Lynn production thing for another grand old lady. [Feb. 2011, p. 108]

Emanon is unequivocally a visual treat but in purely musical terms, it's nothing less than stunningly breathtaking. [Oct 2018, p.88]

If all you want to do is throw the same funky shapes you threw a decade ago, this long-awaited outing will more than suffice. Otherwise, it's the same old same old. [Jul 2001, p.114]

Highly agreeable in small doses. [Jul 2006, p.104]

El-P's portentous delivery lacks poetics. [May 2007, p.110]

Ward opens More Rain with the sound of a deluge outside before going on to ponder the vast gulf between the American Dream and its less glamorous reality, but the final glitterbeat stomp of I'm Going Higher he finishes with the sun on his face. [Apr 2016, p.94]

Brodericks' augmentations tend to eclipse Rngle's sometimes evanescent songwriting. [Jan 2008, p.101]

This is the sound of a band making a bold, if not entirely original, creative leap. [Mar 2014, p.92]

Its peaks evoke Jack White's maximalist blues fusion. [Nov 2022, p.94]

As ever, it's best to not to take them too seriously. [Nov 2009, p.90]

Dissolution doesn't break character, but there's a sharper focus to the writing--and more sweeping melodies. [Sep 2018, p.88]

It's a unified listen: it works as an album. [Sep 2012, p.102]

Naturally, it's a disjointed exercise, but consumed at one sitting, 5EPs also makes perfect sense, showcasing how each part contributes to the whole. [Jan 2021, p.83]

[A] mix of old themes and new forms. [Nov 2015, p.96]

Hard-won optimism, as ever, from this troubled heroine. [Oct 2023, p.78]

Mantaray, however, displays a passion and conviction that shows an artist unhappy to rest on her numerous laurels. [Sep 2007, p.102]

The ensuing synthetic pop suite can't disguise a crucial lack of memorable songs. [Mar 2009, p.111]

At their best, the band conjures a delicious mix of slippery funk and soaring horns, a feelgood soundtrack to roaring down the freeway--or pootling to the off-licence. [Jul 2016, p.90]

Even if you take a rain check on that multimedia trip [interactive comic book], there's still much to enjoy. [May 2013, p.94]

It is William's ever-distinctive voice, allied to a line in unfailingly attractive material that provides this release with a patina of timelessness. [Jul 2012, p.82]

Superior crumbs from the captain's table, they will make completists weep. [Aug 2013, p.104]

The cosy and intimate songs, sung in the disarming, high-pitched tenor so admired by Sufjan Stevens, are pleasant enough, but it isn't until the Cajun-tinged shuffle of Ophelia and late-night bar lament You Belong To Heaven that it gels. [Sep 2011, p.95]

Trimming, paring and refocusing has made Frontier Ruckus a far more enticing package, and if Milia isn't quite in the league of similar writers such at The Decemberists' Colin Meloy, he's catching up fast. [Mar 2017, 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]

Part 1 veers from the abrasive, Stooges-style rock that characterised much of 2015's What Went Down. [Apr 2019, p.86]

That bravery and those haunting songs make for an album that, while not the very best Oberst has made, buttresses his growing reputation as the best songwriter working today. [Sep 2008, p.102]

Kidjo is in scintillating form. [Mar 2014, p.93]

Occasionally it feels a little too theatrical--as on Willie O' Winsbury--but its roots are in the right place. [Aug 2017, p.95]

Clearly not a point of entry for the uninitiated, but all serious Wire-ologists need this. [Sep 2014, p.107]

The Shaggs couldn't play, they could barely sing and their songs are rudimentary, but you won't hear many records with such heartfelt authenticity of feeling. [Oct 2016, p.107]

The Posies [are] now a surprisingly politicised act. [Aug 2005, p.104]

Handsomely subversive. [Nov 2015, p.89]

When the jokes stop... the relentless cantering pace and slightly predictable pedal steel accoutrements that characterise the bulk of the material here can struggle to hold your attention. [Mar 2006, p.92]

It's Flynn's warmest outing so far. [Apr 2017, p.98]

A crash, bang, wallop delivery, plus an organic fuzz, like stubble against a microphone, colour 'Headshock' and 'Le Ruse,' but smart arrangements and Josh Grier's slackjawed, cryptic confessionals tap into something beyond blokey bluster. [June 2008, p.106]

Those who have stuck with the Glasgow act this far will find much to enjoy here. [Feb 2015, p.90]

Brion's 3/4 step-step micro-cues--for Greta Gerwig's perfect comedy drama--come with the necessary sprinkling of inexplicable sadness. [Apr 2018, p.89]

A brace of curiously tuneful, bluesy-psych pop songs. [Apr 2013, p.98]

The Rifles perservered, and if originality is not a strong point, their skill for crafting simple but immediate pop choruses makes uo foir it. [Nov 2008, p.109]

As an album it's uneven, but tantalisingly the harmony-driven 'Hang Them All' sounds like "Tim"-era Replacements and hints at even bigger things to come. [Sep 2009, p.92]

This eco-themed, sci-fi clad concept album bristles with electro-pop sounds (Light Years, the OMD-ish title track) yet retains Gab's furrowed-brow lyricism and singular approach as he forges his own space within this changing landscape. [Feb 2010, p. 105]

For the most part, this is another absorbing chapter in Schott's one-woman sonic odyssey, and where her protean creative compass will take her next is intriguing. [Nov 2017, p.99]

The Making Of is a decent debut. [Nov 2015, p.87]

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

It's to their credit, though, that this album's uncertain focus works with them, thickening the plot, rather than losing it. [Apr 2018, p.89]

Woodwind, thumb piano, ocarina and analogue synths uncannily evokes the funny, sad fairytale world of Sniff, Toft, Moominpappa and gang. [Apr 2017, p.93]

It's a beautifully rounded affair though--sometimes elegiac, at others uplifting, no matter how dark its heart. [Dec 2008, p.112]

There's no white-hot creative explosion, just a gentle simmer. [May 2016, p.88]

Cheeky, but delightful. [Apr 2009, p.106]

Earth-shattering breakbeats take a backseat to slicker, smoother, jazzier efforts and broad-brush over-emoting for much of its ponderous second half. [Jul 2017, p.91]

Canadian indie-songsmith producer, illustrator comes blinking into the sunlight. [July 2011, p. 108]

The more gothic the song (Girl In Amber; Red Right Hand) the better the interpretation. [Feb 2022, p.92]

The overall effect is usually on the right side of too much, the listener lifted up by Castle's wings. [Jan 2021, p.87]

The spartan structure makes for an intimate if one-paced experience and Potter's singing us more spoken in Marianne Faithfull style, with a hint of Weimar, but she's a beguiling storyteller. [Sep 2023, p.83]

With much of Harrison's early solo output slammed upon original release, these remasters allow us time to search for the diamonds in the dirt. [Nov 2014, p.109]

Closer listening finds thin-voiced New Yorker Andrew Wyatt undercutting the Swedish Britney Spears producers' sleek earworms with sing-along melancholy. [Apr 2016, p.96]

Girl At The End Of The World lacks the hooky brilliance to be James' best, but it's a Top 3 contender. [Apr 2016, p.90]

Jones's fans with long memories will certainly want to hear the first four tracks, but the robustness, of sound, modernity of arrangement and cool, hard, clarity of distinctive delivery that once suggested her style would always sound fresh just fades away. [Nov 2008, p.110]

Le Voyage is best when it sets the controls for the tribal prog of Sonic Armada or the ritual beats of Astronomic Club. [Mar 2012, p.92]

It feels like a reaction to the concise, clear-headed It's Blitz; wild-eyed hoopla, in that spontaneous, occasionally brilliant, occasionally patchy kind of way. [May 2013, p.90]

Overall it's pleasurable, audacious even, but hardly world changing. [Sep 2009, p.102]

Its follow-up features a batch of songs Jones has lived with and reworked over 20-plus years, and the material radiates with a well-worn intimacy. [Dec 2009, p.90]

Just occasionally the jangles get repetitive; sometimes, good things do go on too long. [Oct 2017, p.96]

As the Crow Flies feels like a more personal work. Both a soundtrack to dreamlike childhood summers and an imagined government guide to the cycles of the seasons, complete with liner notes by historian and folklorist Ronald Hutton. [Sep 2011, p.101]

The overall feeling of lab-hygienic utility is clearly intended, but a pretty wistfulness also whistles down these wires. [Feb 2025, p.87]

Household Name is their Cannonball moment, supercharged pop that also acknowledges Smashing Pumpkins and Veruca Salt. Momma wear it well; celebrating, not denying, their inspiration. [Aug 2022, p.91]

It's like watching people chuck matches into a box of fireworks: sparks everywhere, but - excitingly, frustratingly - you're never sure where they're going to land. [Aug 2021, p.80]

There's more down the line, heart-on-the-sleeve songcraft secreted, near-guiltily, in the album's latter half. [Mar 2012, p.99]

This time, the division between uninspired, joyless Gang Starr pastiches like Don't Say Nuthin and the polymorphous likes of Stay Cool or Outro has never sounded so glaringly obvious. [Aug 2004, p.92]

If the forward-looking, ever exploratory production just occasionally outguns the songwriting, Daft Punk-ish floor-filler The Last Dance is unimpeachable, a defiant shimmy toward the apocalypse. [Mar 2022, p.82]

Alex Menne's Dolores O'Riordan-ish yodel still dominates and can overwhelm the songs, but Big Thief fans should take note. [Dec 2019, p.96]

At its best--Northern Blues' soulful echo--a bit of Southern grit's rubbed off on the Canadian. [Nov 2015, p.96]

She stands sonically naked, palettes limited and claustrophobic in their unrelenting mono-focus, in this fascinating but demanding debut. [Feb 2019, p.91]

Alluring, if more cold brewed latte than electric kool aid. [Mar 2016, p.100]

The best moments come when the duo break out of their languid comfort zone, as on the breezy Feel Your Weight and dynamic Phoenix. [Mar 2018, p.90]

The best songs here--the loose, Blaxploitation soul groove Bones; the Cat Stevens-like Deeper And Deeper--are those on which Harper sounds most relaxed and contemplative. [May 2016, p.86]

Four decades and eight albums in, however, their own status as much cherished melody makers seems perfectly secure. [Jul 2016, p.93]

Has lingering '80s elements, with some pompous lyrics, laborious arrangements and long, drawn-out vowel sounds, yet it is also fresher and less strenuous than before. [Apr 2004, p.114]

The music that wraps around the concept is never boring and much of it is excellent....What's lacking is the nailed-on megatune--a "Clint Eastwood" or "Feel Good Inc"--that we've come to expect from a Gorillaz album. [Apr 2010, p.99]

Peggy Sue have jettisoned some of their quirkier traits (past gigs saw them play a tambourine nailed to an old school desk) to deliver a debut with a great deal more grit and fire in its belly than their earlier EPs would suggest. [June 2010, p. 93]

A Broke Moon Rises sheds a gentle but persistent light in the darkness. [Sep 2018, p.86]

Their contrasting flows clip together surprisingly well. [Jan 2021, p.88]

All Roads Lead Home holds together surprisingly well. [May 2023, p.86]

Its breezy charm belies clever compositions and the odd jagged stylistic shift, but at 58 minutes feels overlong. [Nov 2018, p.96]

Everything Is Recorded has its sublime moments, but despite a pervasive post-tricky hip-hop nocturnalism and some loopy-interlude glue sprinkled through, it's just too disparate to cohere into a compelling whole. [Mar 2018, p.92]

Of the 12 heat-seeking tunes, Daughters sounds the best bets. [Mar 2016, p.100]

Given the backdrop to Joan Wasser's second album was her mother's passing to cancer, it's unsurprising that To Survive also packs a soporific sadness that can be draining despite our hostess's artistry. [July 2008, p.110]

Barman was keep that Keep You Close had a warmer sound than the "very loud, in your face" approach of its predecessor... while we can just about give him the benefit if the doubt, it's not quite that straightforward. [Nov 2011, p.98]

Haze's impetuosity may've harmed Dirty Gold's commercial prospects, but the purity of her intent speaks volumes. [Mar 2014, p.94]

This brisk, well-crafted follow-up maintains the feeling if a pop band masquerading as something harder. [Mar 2012, p.102]