If nothing here quite reaches the hook-laden heights of Outdoor Miner or Kidney Bingos, there are plenty of sunlit avant-pop uplands. [May 2015, p.97]

Some ace stuff aboard here.... But you do long for MES to turn up with a sheaf of structured writing, as per Hex Enduction, rather than a sozzled brainful of scattered grievances and in-jokes. [Jul 2013, p.86]

An immersive trip, if not one to take that often. Smith, though, is in her element. [Oct 2020, p.89]

Powerful to the point of brutality, but affecting. [Oct 2017, p.98]

A supercharged, hook-heavy pop-metal attack that impresses but rarely convinces. [Oct 2017, p.98]

Their refusal to accept stylistic boundaries when playing songs works well here. But balancing structure and freedom can be like trying to square the circle, and when you record quickly to preserve spontaneity, not everything will be successful. [Aug 2013, p.91]

The synths are always used imaginately, forming an intricately shifting mosaic structure on Sheen. [Aug 2014, p.91]

A little loosening up might help those serotonin levels. [Jul 2014, p.96]

A rare sustained tension between sex and spirituality bristles throughout. [Jan 2021, p.88]

A third of these songs can rightly be claimed as classic Placebo pop. [Apr 2006, p.106]

The first half of the album is techno-pop, finely balancing euphoria and heartache. .... The subsequent ballads' more fragile. [May 2022, p.89]

Much like Dirty Projectors, it takes an adventurous soul to absorb much of this. [Mar 2019, p.93]

A familiar narrative, perhaps, but rendered with uniquely mordant wit. [Apr 2017, p.91]

Colour Theory showcases a more lavish, studio-based approach. [Apr 2016, p.87]

His retro-pop stylings are just as keenly observed and affable. [May 2025, p.93]

Ghostly lullabies from the Birmingham, Alabama two. [Jan. 2011, p. 105]

It captures their two sides--songs are either rousing with crashing guitars, swirling atmospheres and arresting climaxes or empyrean, indie introspective ballads. [May 2013, p.88]

There's some fight in Hard Habit To Break's elastic boxing-ring bravado, or the ambiguous needling bleep of Doing It To Death, but behind the pair's rangy insouciance lies a hollowness that, this time round, doesn't entirely convince as a deliberate artistic position. [Jul 2016, p.92]

A more structured back to basics approach really works for them. [Sep 2018, p.94]

Bitter-pill catharsis. [Jun 2014, p.89]

While quite meaty in itself, this is odd and not necessarily called for. [Jul 2013, p.88]

The most maligned period of his career, the 80s still served up the odd Dylan gem and 17 are re-ignited here. [Jul 2014, p.96]

Actors marry folk tales and socio-political polemic to pulsing, woozy-synth soundscapes. [Nov 2012, p.96]

While Django Django's eclectic impulses roam wild - Krautrock, house, techno, acid rave and electronica - on this sprawling set, they're anchored by duets. [Sep 2023, p.92]

Matt Berninger walks a distinguished line between control and catharsis, with only occasional collapses (Graceless, for example), but when the music falls away during Bloodbuzz Ohio, you hear a band carried on by both the roar of the crowd and the structural might of their songwriting. [Jan 2025, p.83]

The sunshine's grim down their way, but their best songs allow a glimmer. [Apr 2009, p.109]

It's this continued need to feed her multi-platinum beast that stops the album from being the post-modern wheeze it could have been. [Mar 2014, p.94]

Graham Coxon has left behind his early Jam-meets-Syd-meets-Billy Childish thrashings and his more petulant little-boy-lost vocals, and recorded an album seemingly inspired by Paul Weller's "22 Dreams." [Jun 2009, p.98]

It's a shame Eisold has lost some of individuality, but you can't fault him for hook-fueled momentum. [May 2011, p.110]

Fans will love the touching, piano-led title track, replete with the great man's Jack Russell terrier Gizmo barking at the end, while Stand Amazed finds Martyn at his rural front door, marveling at "the panoply of beauty" before him. [Jun 2011, p.103]

An album of miasmic, trippy electro-pop, heavy krautrock rhythms and sinuous digital funk. [Sep 2017, p.93]

The Decca set allows insight into King's working methods. [Jul 2012, p.99]

Most of its layered, ornate creations and moody conjurings emerge from a deep shoegaze rabbit hole redolent of Slowdive and Lush. [Jun 2023, p.90]

These gentle, melodic, acoustic guitar-driven songs are outweighed by electronica of the retro-modern variety. [Nov 2005, p.110]

In the album's second half, Georgia aims beyond euphoria and thrills with Mellow and Ray Gun's hip-hop shade, Honey Dripping Sky's aching power ballad and Ultimate Sailor's Tangerine Dream-style banks of ambient synths. [Feb 2020, p.92]

The track I See Red radiates synth euphoria but the Pet Shop Boys-ish Death In London and single Kingdom Undersea are more about introspection than rapture. [May 2026, p.88]

Songs are complemented by a close-miked acoustic production. [Nov 2012, p.96]

[IX meerges] distortion and tunes with heartfelt euphoria and big breakdowns. [Dec 2014, p.102]

It's a mixed affair. [Feb 2015, p.91]

An intriguing, stylistic volte-face. [Nov 2022, p.94]

When the music gets quieter there is an irritating increase in tape hiss. [Jun 2017, p.89]

Edge Of The Sun offers no real surprises, but it is perhaps their poppiest set yet. [May 2015, p.99]

In its early stages, Joy feels not at all slight, dashed-off or inferior, launching out on a series of acoustic-rattling, inescapably Syd-Barrett-esque pop tunes whose wonky brevity is a virtue. [Sep 2018, p.93]

With the less auspicious intrusions of Petra Haden's '80s rock emoting, and Meyer's cliched whiskey-waffle, it's harder to discern where Williamson's heart lies. [Sep 2018, p.88]

Free, in a good way, resembles his more esoteric work from that time, such as 1999's brooding Avenue B. [Oct 2019, 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]

An accomplished study in post-punk boom, synth whoosh and creepy-crawl vocals. [Mar 2022, p.90]

Ultimately Four is an album of two 9uneven) sides). [Sep 2012, p.89]

A Wonderful Beast occasionally revisits that street-walkin' vibe (When The Weekend Comes Around), but otherwise rises above genre to present this foghorn-voiced alt icon as quality songsmith, amid unprecedentedly high-spec playing and arrangements. [Nov 2018, p.94]

Spare, simple, languid, often Ens lacks, ironically, is a wildness. In the end, it's just a little too tame. [Jan 2019, p.85]

A breathless, party-starting exploration of the connection between the Congo and cumbia. [Mar 2025, p.91]

It's when Spektor is less showy and more direct that her songs are most affecting. [Aug 2022, p.86]

Ultimately over-long, Of The Blue Colour Of The Sky is still a preconception-changing album. [Mar 2010, p.100]

His fifth album finds him digging into the C-60 funk box, and sometimes misplacing his wonderful strangeness in the process. [May 2011, p.104]

Frustratingly for JM solo-heads, as well as Neil Tennant hanging around for a superfluous Rebel Rebel, instead of The Messenger we get The Passenger. Top notch performances, though. [Nov 2025, p.87]

It’s unlikely to set anything alight, but LA Times still leaves a warm glow. [Aug 2024, p.81]

Medicine At Midnight is strangely impersonal, with little to declare beyond its maker skill at the form. The lyrics, meanwhile, are often undercooked. [Mar 2021, p.82]

While some of this uneven material has been reheated from past writing sessions, Aerosmith are genuinely fighting to reclaim their soul.

If Palmer sometimes gets it wrong, when she gets its it right, nearly all is forgiven. [Apr 2019, p.89]

At every turn there are moves unarguably adjacent to Revolver, The Zombies, early Byrds, and, in the title track strident harmonies, The Mamas & The Papas.... The tunes throughout, though, are original, and infectious. [Mar 2014, p.94]

A sweetly-rendered set of originals. Sometimes, though, even if it drips with Nashville authenticity, it's all a bit too sugary. [May 2016, p.90]

If you dug them back then, you'll likely dig them now. [Jun 2019, p.93]

Few are better placed than Bostonian Edan Portnoy, who uses access to the old-school masters owned by Traffic, one of the few reissue imprints interested in rap, to curate a fine, fun funky and fascinating half-hour mixtape interlaced with new sample-based production. [Feb 2010, p. 105]

A return to the Guillemots beckons, then, but Fly Yellow Moon is still an enthralling and at times euphoric affair. [Feb 2010, p. 97]

What stands out most about Give More Love is that Ringo's vocals have matured stylistically from his trademark amiably blokeish tones, and are stronger and more expressive now. [Oct 2017, p.90]

[Their] irony is especially trying when it infects the music. [Jul 2006, p.110]

Although it's his longest, it's arguably his least ambitious. [Dec 2012, p.84]

He's strong instrumentally, but maudlin content like Separate Ways and One Thought holds him back. [Dec 2012, p.90]

All told, less might have been more. [Apr 2016, p.96]

It's still a safe record, however, neither spasm of petulant experimentation hell-bent on commercial suicide, nor return to the good old days beloved by original fans but viewed warily by the new. [Nov. 2010, p. 94]

His voice remains strident as the album veers from pared-down solo to spritely contributions from the likes of Chaim Tannenbaum and David Mansfield, plus a less successful string arrangement. [Sep 2022, p.90]

[The] third Egyptrixx album has a fidgety, unsettling quality. [Mar 2015, p.97]

There's nothing indistinct about the more congenial, festival-friendly direction of War Room Stories. [Mar 2014, p.95]

Russell sings with heartfelt authority, while Calexico's cool elegance balances the emotional ticket. [Oct 2009, p.106]

Some tracks occasionally feel more like fillers--but at its best, Legacy feels like tuning into a magical mid-dial shortwave station, where all the neighbouring broadcasts gave fallen into an exhilarating synchronisation. [Jul 2013, p.88]

Peaks early with the opening title track. [Nov 2016, p.96]

It's unfortunate that the weedy vocals dilute some of its impact, otherwise this would be a triumph. [Apr 2005, p.89]

If Lerche lack Beck's nous, he makes up for it with a cavalier freedom. [Oct 2014, p.92]

A solo album with not enough of the soloist. [Jun 2006, p.102]

Gallo's eccentricity is bound to irritate at least as many as it charms. [Jan 2019, p.91]

This is Lopatin's most cogent record yet. [Dec 2015, p.91]

He and his guests have history, but the second half of Mountains might have benefited from fewer backing singers - however good, they over-egg the songs. [Sep 2023, p.86]

A set of seamless, lyrically concise songs that are as sweet and harmonic as their pairing suggests but also strangely stilted. [Dec 2013, p.92]

[The lyrics] carry every once of experience and writerly imagination he's learned and earned in 76 years. [Dec 2012, p.86]

The songs inside are equally well groomed, yet it is a shame that the singer--not generally a man to take the easiest path--hasn't frayed their edges a little more. [Dec 2013, p.85]

As fans of the or two previous albums might expect, there's little on this covers collection that proves Vetiver's love of the three-minute pop format: the mood is instead tuned to the free-festival campfire and the misty morning meditation. [July 2008, p.111]

Here nothing has changed as she melds all these influences ub a tribute to her now beloved New York. [Dec 2008, p. 100]

The album works because McCartney treats the material with respect, exuding charm by the bucket-load. [Mar 2012, p.94]

While there is no quibbling with the noble sentiment behind this set, a more judicial selection policy might have established a unified aesthetic to eclipse some of the B-side material here. [Mar 2009, p.114]

Although every other verse here is filled by paradiddles, polyrhythms and wilfully complex time signatures, DMB's ear for a tune at least provides us with some fine choruses. [Jul 2009, p.94]

On over half of the songs, the marriage works.... But the titles and the lyrical obsessions are generally those of the Sparks oeuvre. [Jul 2015, p.89]

[The album] is most notable for two typically saturnine contributions from unlikely electro diva John Grant. [Jun 2014, p.98]

Louris and company have created a soothing balm for overly neurotic and trying times. [Sep 2018, p.89]

Vol. 1 here is mellow, introspective and rootsy. [Nov 2017, p.103]

It's polished, professional, but one for the faithful. [May 2023, p.89]

It doesn't quite blow the emotional lid off, but Open is rich in subtle variations. [Dec 2017, p.88]

The album's soft-haze strings are to die for, and the trad-sounding Trusty And True has admirable reach and dignity. [Dec 2014, p.100]

New York's post-punkers are mooder than ever. [Oct. 2010, p. 90]