[Vanishing Life] exceed the sum of their hardcore parts by adding loose, QOTSA-style hips to their riffs and even the odd synth. [Jan 2017, p.104]

Mayall and his ace band revive songs by Bettye Crutcher, Jimmy Rogers and Jerry Lynn Williams alongside Piquant original material. [Mar 2017, p.96]

Occasionally overwrought but never dull. [Sep 2017, p.96]

The fractured electronics of his homespun-sounding dispatches give way to freewheeling keys that smack lightly of Thelonious Monk, Herbie Hancock and Bill Evans. [Sep 2018, p.91]

A potent psychedelic wash blurs the edges of these 10 tracks from trippy chimes to crackling static experimentation. [Feb 2019, p.93]

Lennox has created a record that mixes the hum of his adopted city [Lisbon] with the serenity of its oceanside setting. [Mar 2019, p.97]

His vocals reverberate with the passion of Bobby Womack, the sensuality of Al Green and the sincerity of Curtis Mayfield. The music, an interlocking web of bass and drums, fanfaring horns and wah wah, carry his romantic ballads and socially engaged protest. [Jun 2019, p.95]

Kicks is an up-and-down affair but Rickie Lee Jones remains pleasingly unpredictable. [Jul 2019, p.88]

There's social critique and black humour in spades, though the blanket-warm harmonies often smother The Rails' tougher messages. But if you want comfort in trying times, wrap up here. [Sep 2019, p.90]

His macabre tendency has evolved further into a kind of disaster romanticism on his 21st album. [Mar 2020, p.89]

It is the older material that comes out on top. A Euphoric, feel-good collection, nonetheless. [Apr 2020, p.87]

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

Deep into side two You Hear Georgia starts to drag a little as they ditch the choogle and attempt to foray into the cosmic Americana territory of My Morning Jacket. [Jul 2021, p.82]

Candlepower isn't the full picture yet, and it only lasts seven tracks and 19 minutes, but it's a fine start. [Jul 2021, p.81]

Great that they are back on their own label, on their own terms, but some of these "democratically produced" recordings want for a more ruthless arbitrator. [Apr 2022, p.80]

Moonshine occupies that rich space between hope and melancholy, smooth, maybe, but not without its hooks and catches. [Aug 2022, p.90]

It's the tracks that mix it up a bit that appeal most. [Apr 2024, p.90]

Idol's rebel yell still has snarl and charisma, but some of these songs (Wildside; Too Much Fun) feel like pop-punk makeweights included to get Dream Into It up to 35 minutes. [Jun 2025, p.82]

She takes memories and splashes them around in them, a style she's made her own. Hokey, lo-fi acoustics and a fluid off-key croon add a surreal edge. [Sep 2025, p.86]

The Lemonheads have never sounded so feral yet so tight. [Oct 2006, p.104]

Painting Of A Panic Attack is easily FR's strongest album in years. [May 2016, p.89]

Impressively, he makes it all his own--at times it feels like the songs might have been written by, or for, him. [June 2008, p.115]

Green can turn on the charm--countrified finale Blacken My Stay and Castles And Tassles are winners, and "castles and tassles and fatulent assholes" is a hysterical refrain - but overall, Minor Love is a curiously enervating affair. [Feb 2010, p. 95]

Behind the moments that sound like megachurch guided meditation, however, are flashes of brilliant disturbance. .... Sophie stands as a monument to what might have been. [Dec 2024, p.92]

Strange Pleasures is a lush, intoxicating place to drift away in. [Jul 2013, p.86]

Easy on the ear yet never sugary, full and layered yet never stodgy, intricately assembled yet never fussy, pulsing with a Ringo beat yet never monotonous. [Nov 2012, p.91]

A typical case of slack self-editing... Kelis was here too long, frankly. [Nov 2006, p.101]

Harvey's softly purring voice hardly leaps from the speakers, but his identity is stamped strikingly on Rhymeless, with its malevolent appropriation of "all the songs you never sang to your little ones." [Jun 2011, p.103]

[Laurenz's] supple grooves energise their quixotic synth patterns and intricate guitar-scree, ensuring this wordless yet dramatic debut triangulates the oft-dweebish worlds of electronica, no wave and retro sci-fi with a funky red-blooded brio. [Sep 2008, p.106]

It's the chiming guitars of album centerpiece, A Swallow In The Sun, that really underlines a sense that The Cautionary Tales Of... operates in the same ballpark as Sea Change--Beck's 2002 work of staggering heartbreak. [May 2014, p.91]

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]

As intriguing as it is, it's of course lacking the focus of Neilson's brilliant songwriting and characterful voice, while likely offering him vital creative inspiration for his next record proper. [May 2025, p.91]

Souleyman's high velocity dabke-techno hybrid keeps the BPM and bleep count high on his third LP. [Dec 2017, p.96]

There's no leap forwards here but Still On My mind is the sound of a woman playing to her strengths and the good ship Dido remains reassuringly unsinkable. [Apr 2019, p.92]

They've fleshed out the colourful sketches that make up the bulk of their last album. [Feb 2011, p.96]

O resoounds with the lustily imparted vocals of Kianna Alarid and Neely Jenkins, while the band's signature instrumental palette--fizzing guitars, chunky '60s organs--has expanded into a thick sonic cheesecake. [Nov 2008, p.109]

West's intimations of mainstream modern pop sit alongside the less direct and impressionistic. [Mar 2026, p.89]

Hitchcock's own songs--especially Trouble In Your Blood and San Francisco Patrol--maintain the heartsick mood, drawing the corners of this record together into a beautifully measured whole. [Sep 2014, p.91]

Vocally and melodically, Durant aims for nursery-rhyme simplicity, sometimes to her detriment. [Jun 2006, p.100]

Another stirring record. [Feb 2003, p.88]

Among their best. [Sep 2002, p.104]

Countless moments of sheer melodic magic. [Dec 2001, p.116]

Fans are well served, but newcomers might tire waiting for the group's charms to percolate. [Feb 2002, p.93]

Every song is arranged beautiful but it feels like an accomplished assemblage rather than a living, breathing whole. [Oct 2018, p.85]

Though there are also moments when TDD's seemingly random amalgam of influences and styles doesn't quite work, Fuckarias rocks like a bastard and frontwoman Linnea Jonsson has all the poise and tone required of a top-notch pop singer. [Apr 2011, p.97]

Multi-artist tributes are typically patchy by nature, but George Fest really works. [Apr 2016, p.86]

If you love pop, you really have to hear it. [Mar 2015, p.92]

It's a fine bookend for a man who defined one parochial corner of the music world. [Mar 2011, p.96]

This is possibly the most remarkable album Finn has been involved with in a decade. [Oct 2011, p.99]

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]

At it's best Interiors is alien and magical.... thought, it can also slip into a rather inaccessible coolness too. [Nov 2013, p.107]

The Ghost In Daylight is a memory-haunted journey through the dead voices and deep narratives of Englands lost; broadside ballads culled from earth and sea. [Jun 2012, p.87]

Its influences and allusions diverse, but fruitful. [Dec 2008, p.110]

In Our Bedroom After The War aims for a more dramatic sweep than its predecessor but falls a couple tunes short. [Nov 2007, p.108]

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

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

Not quite enough to give Win Butler the vapours, but not far off it. [Sep 2013, p.90]

The permanence of adolescent earnestness hangs about the Young Adult novel-ish lyrics. [Jul 2014, p.92]

Joyland has a coherent feel of low slung rock'n'roll and Morricone twang. [Apr 2015, p.96]

As with previous Immersion material, analogue synthesizers provide the musical focus here, sporadically infused with electric guitars, often played in the oblique, angular style that Wire Fans will instantly cleave to. [Feb 2017, p.98]

What Matters Most is near faultless; a whole semester of song-craft in 40 minutes. [Jul 2023, p.90]

Packed with fine folk-tinged numbers. [Jun 2006, p.102]

I know which post-millennial album I'll add to the Atlantic, Bell and gospel classics. [Apr 2005, p.96]

Matt Sims turns out to be the perfect complement to Leila's post-Moroder production pyrotechnics. [Feb 2012, p.97]

On one hand, there are well written songs here, served up on a bed of country tunes via Jack White's rarefied, obsessively aesthetic Third Man label. But then there's the cheap, digitised sound, with all the charm of a Hallmark Country Christmas album dropping an '80s home organ down the stairs at Nashville airport. [Jun 2022, p.86]

A ton of fun, just like the old days. [Oct 2016, p.92]

Full of regret, hard-won wisdom and DIY pop artistry, No Need To Be Downhearted transcends bog-standard indie to build a world of sophisticated melody and ingenious arrangements. [May 2007, p.112]

While Tonight: Franz Ferdinand might not take all the chances those early reports suggested, it shows the band examing their world from all angles, from the unflattering profile in the mirror behind the batr to the long hard look into the soul. Life in three dimensions suits them very well indeed. [Feb 2009, p.102]

A pea souper of an album, beneath which there is some gold. [Feb 2011, p.104]

A collection of songs which rings with the same deeply felt, universal truths of Bon Iver's For Emma, Forever Ago and Ryan Adam's Heartbreaker. Chillingly authentic. [Aug. 2011, p. 100]

There's lyrical playfulness throughout. [Oct 2014, p.89]

More thoughtful and restrained than the heavily tattooed band's raucous live (and already very well-attended) shows may have promised, Shallow Bed is full of passion, nonetheless. [May 2012, p.88]

The presence of four hired songwriters dilutes the duo's offbeat DNA. [Oct 2016, p.96]

From the title track onwards, he slaps down 25 minutes of spring-heeled and rump-shakin' bumpin' Bootsy funk, which will pick up again after ballad Heaven Yes, gentler Ladies Nite, and the poppy Candy Coated Lover and Snow Bunny. [Dec 2017, p.93]

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]

This transatlantic convergence of innovative, virtuosic minds is a sublime advert for the possibilities of improves post classical composition. [Aug 2012, p.94]

With very few exceptions, there's a real sense of unity throughout the album. [Oct 2011, p.106]

This brittle, torrid world has little light and shade. [Apr 2015, p.89]

This band could, and should, go mega. [Jan 2003, p.99]

At times positively fizzes into life. [Jun 2003, p.110]

A fine piece of work. [Mar 2003, p.106]

Certainly, for anyone dosed up on post-Sisters black-attired rockisms, these Alabamans are a pulse-racing godsend. [Jan. 2008, p.110]

This bombastic, cacophonic, but endlessly impressive set would make a fine soundtrack for dancing madly among the wreckage [of capitalism]. [Feb 2009, p.113]

Not everything is quite so Travis by-the-numbers--and with mixed results. [Sep 2013, p.88]

While there are moments that grate, this is an assured first outing that suggests that Brad and his band are worth keeping a keen eye on. [Jul 2012, p.83]

Ignoring the meek opener Looking For A Fight and any rote lyrics, the instantly likable Outta My Mind and Dead in Your Head are a master class in girl group jangle pop. [May 2013, p.95]

It's great that the music is allowed to live in the moment, but the inevitable live albums are hardly essential purchases. [Dec 2008, p.112]

[Disc 1] is grunge-punk-metal boiled down to mere energy -- and calories don't rock. [Jul 2005, p.102]

Certainly the most accessible [album] of their career. [Jun 2006, p.99]

In its dreamy, fluttering loops and Sian Ahem's brittle, deliberately understated vocals it possesses a brace of powerful tools. [Aug 2014, p.91]

What's missing? A hot-shot producer. Turbocharge their tunes with studio oomph and jiggery-pokery, and Soul Motivators could fill floors worldwide. [Feb 2020, p.90]

Gleeful scattershot collision between genres and theatrical drama, explored through such epistles as DIE! DIE! DIE!, barked by Pixies' Black Francis. [Aug 2020, p.92]

Slow, stark tracks like Kick-Around Johnny sound like a spun-out, confessional Lou Reed, and there's epiphany too: I Came To Tell You In Plain English (I'm Leaving You) is casually devastating. [Jan 2021, p.90]

It's a slow burner that catches fire. [Feb 2025, p.82]

Probably his most varied album. ... The extremes work better still, be it Cyrus's eyebrow-raising raw trawl through Metallica's Nothing Else Matters or the vocal pyrotechnics which course through Young Thug & Nicki Minaj's Always Love You. [Dec 2021, p.87]

Cherished Canuck crooner recruits Metallica's producer. [March 2011, p. 95]

This is the band at their melodious best. [Jun 2004, p.112]

Though some things remain reassuringly the same--the glitzy, moody, twangy, cinematic '60s Euro-pop feel--as if time hasn't passed, there's also a strong sense of Turner and Kane having grown as people. [May 2016, p.86]