Malakian's Scars On Braodway further explore his love of machine gun guitars, bongs for breakfast, scatological lyrics and permeating sense of paranoia. [Sep 2008, p.108]

It's often a mess, but to witness he process is genuinely exhilarating. [Jun 2018, p.88]

Though the record perhaps lacks the one killer tune or irresistibly "come hither" song title that can really get you at it, the swooning Pure Heart, intermittently cinematic We Were One, neat instrumental segue Fata Morgana and sonically startling So Many Nights help flag a unique and fruitful cocktail of influences. [Jun 2016, p.90]

Not an easy listen, but a brave, bold debut. [Apr 2009, p.99]

It's less effective on the bland troubadour pop of Here Today and The Man, which samples Elton John's Your Song and is already a US Top 5 hit. [May 2014, p.92]

Black Age Blues is satisfyingly solid and reassuringly familiar a comeback as you'd expect. [Jul 2015, p.89]

It's arguable that Morrison and his smooth, jazzy pards skew a tad too good-natured - more of OG '50s skiffle's rough bite would not have gone amiss. [Apr 2023, p.82]

Business as usual: expansive, often magical, raw rock'n'roll classicism. [Nov 2017, p.103]

Indie-pop sung in French and English; Interrailing-inspired The Foreigner is full of Greek, Finnish and Italian. [Apr 2021, p.88]

An enjoyable if just occasionally patchy miscellany. [Feb 2018, p.90]

An ADHD, electro-fuelled crazy quilt. [Mar 2014, p.95]

On opener 'Satellites,' with Neu!-like locomotion, big guitars and electronics, and melodic twists, they trump their better-known neighbours. [Dec 2008, p.111]

An admirably impassioned return. [Mar 2012, p.92]

The group takes aim at the deadening effect of copywriting, the need for bands to "have so many things to sell you" and the conspicuous tastefulness of some online music fans. Unsubtle but often archly funny, this commentary goes down easier thanks to a melodically complex tunefulness that consistently serve up gems. [May 2024, p.82]

Get past the geriatric sniggering of It's All Going To Pot, here's a beautiful album of covers and new material. [Jul 2015, p.89]

It's harmless, head-spinning fun. [Jul 2010, p.92]

The ragtime version of Wild World is perhaps a re-imagining too far. ... Father And Son remains monumental and intensely moving, however. [Oct 2020, p.93]

A lean collection of blues and ballads accentuated by discreet overdubs by the surviving members of Waylon's backing band The Waylors, along with some occasional new blood. [Nov 2025, p.101]

A useful document of Crazy Horse in rare, relatively subtle trio form (no Poncho). [Jan 2021, p. 101]

He's pushed his sound forwards into more mature, less swaggering territory and recruited non-threatening guests Paul O'Grady and Corinne Bailey Rae. [Mar 2022, p.83]

The pace down Mark Knopfler's latest road is steady and unruffled, like a 72-minute walk around a familiar locale--reassuring but rather lacking in excitement. [Dec 2018, p.87]

The all-pervasive teenage sexual obsessions on his tenth album can only come across as sweaty-palmed and distasteful. A shame, because musically Pom Pom's 17 tracks are uniquely inventive. [Dec 2014, p.96]

Tge Waves Pt 1's ebb-and-flow is closer to Phillip Glass's pulsing minimalism than anything calming or restorative. [Jul 2021, p.87]

The better interpretations come from artists who embrace the Dead's improvisational essence. [Jul 2016, p.97]

A decent return, Alice mostly impresses despite the limiting permutations of their angst. [Nov 2009, p.94]

Deliberately nostalgic. Musically, however, it sounds fresh-packed. [Aug 2017, p.97]

It proceeds funereally, as if in the suspended animation of a nocturnal hallucination, like sleepwalking through a dark and empty airport, but also right there in the room as Wave Pics' on-the-fly magic unfolds. [Sep 2018, p.93]

Songs feel shy of messing with the familiar. [Sep 2018, p.94]

The remarkably unhurried, hermetic vibe of her intimate chamber-folk remains unchanged. [Jan 2022, p.89]

Drily recorded and subtle to a fault. in places, Island Of Noise becomes so evanescent it threatens to disappear altogether. [Dec 2021, p.92]

When she opens her mouth, you get nothing but depressed. [Jun 2004, p.110]

It's hard not to wonder whether Aksnes has been crowded-out on her own album [Mar 2022, p.83]

Rousing, otherworldly, outlandish. [Jan 2017, p.104]

Like Bridgers, Nagler is clearly fond of Elliott Smith's slow-release devastation - see Hammer And Nail or Another Mona Lisa - but even her most downbeat songs come with an easy, melodic shrug that keeps her on the sunnier side of the street. [Apr 2026, p.92]

This stylish set quantum leaps from the title track's ethereal doom disco to the acid-damaged dreampop of Tokyo Wonderland via robo-glam rave-up Party Boy, and deserves to find these most playful of veterans a wider audience. [Aug. 2011, p. 92]

Emmy's most effective tool is a sense of place, and her journey from experience to the finished work, saturated in detail, is often a lot darker than her measured delivery suggests. [Mar 2016, p.94]

All told, it sounds a bit like a band searching for a new direction, and while they don't always find it, it's a worthwhile endeavour either way. [June 2008, p.106]

Musselwhite's bittersweet harmonica offers plaintive asides to 10 Harper-penned tunes, the most potent of which is Nothing At All, a solemn waltz-time ballad. Elsewhere, the material ranges from rough-hewn country blues to swaggering Muddy Waters-esque message songs. [May 2018, p.95]

Even if there are moments when Rockstar seems under-amped, you have to admire her chutzpah. [Jan 2024, p.89]

This ambitious record loses subtlety in the grand Springsteen-ish gestures of songs like Just For Tonight. Bay fares better with the looped, crunchy soul and more nuanced lyrics of Fade Out and Slide. [Jun 2018, p.95]

Several songs here feel swamped. [Nov 2020, p.88]

Production detail aside, their is little tinkering with their formula. [Sep 2013, p.91]

They've created a splendidly polite fusion of Fleetwood Mac and the Cocteau Twins. [Sep 2013, p.86]

The album is a great showcase for the Fontaines D.C. guitarist's production skills, which makes even occasionally inert material punchy and dynamic. [Mar 2026, p.81]

The faithful can still but with confidence--these are polished performances--but others may weary of a long journey round past glories. [Feb 2017, p.96]

In total, a pleasant, charm-filled release but no great addition to the Nelson canon. [Feb 2015, p.95]

It all becomes a bit of a grind--and not entirely in a sexy way. [Aug 2008, p.103]

On 'North London Trash,' 'Burberry Blue Eyes,' 'Hostage Of Love' and the histrionic 'Blood For Wild Blood,' Razorlight have matured beyond bubblegum rock and may yet answer Borrell's prayers for immortality. [Dec 2008, p.100]

Cleverly, it mixes them [stadium rock and Celtic roots] both. [Mar 2012, p.99]

A change in direction, with a consciously smooth production and modern drum sound apparently aimed more at FM radio than wind-up gramophones, leaving precious few rough edges. [Jul 2017, p.94]

Conor Oberst regroups with the band that made him. [March 2011, p. 94]

The album takes the artist to new territory. [Aug 2016, p.92]

Though this debut might lack any real moments of surprise, guitarist Tom Morello still manages to squeeze unholy sounds out of his instrument while Chuck D's apoplectic anchorman baritone reminds us of his lyrical power and unique timbre. [Oct 2017, p.96]

When Goddard himself provides vocals – notably on Follow You and On My Mind – it adds necessary cohesion. [Aug 2024, p.83]

Wistful alt pop gets an ample glug of electro groove and distinct hints of '80s cheese comfortably reinforce Austin William's hazy vocals. [Oct 2015, p.98]

Strip away the wearying kung-fu skits and there'a s hard-boiled 12-tracker at The Saga Continues' core. [Dec 2017, p.90]

Over 24 songs they constantly tremble on the brink of collapse yet they also manage to turn in such laser-guided songs as You Can Stay But You Gotta Go and Double Deuce. [Oct 2013, p.96]

Take The Crown plays it safe. [Dec 2012, p.85]

Harsh but striking. [Dec 2013, p.92]

There is room in the world for such quaint records as these, but the world doesn't need another version of the Eagles' Take It Easy. [Mar 2019, p.91]

Lyrically, he may occassionally jar but it's hard not to be uplifted when he lets rip on the opener 'Setting Forth' or when he and Sleather-Kinney's Corin Tucker chime on 'Hard Sun.' [Dec 2007, p.100]

Kurt Cobain-worshipped Glaswegians' break 20-year silence. [Oct. 2010, p. 92]

While there is an absorbing, hypnotic quality to droning songs like Twilight Zone, the exceptional thrash of We're Tired Of It offers proof that a few more gear changes would have been welcome. [Apr 2018, p.91]

Albanese's piano plus synths and cello soundtrack near-darkness in pensive, drifting instrumentals. [Apr 2016, p.96]

It throws up its fair share of sunshine treats. ... Consumed in one siting though, the relentlessly Day-Glo vibes can get a little sickly. [Aug 2021, p.81]

For all of its gentle yet intense reflection, it's never overtly maudlin. [Mar 2012, p.92]

Drawing elements from both [previous albums], Horses And High Heels is a similarly accomplished if more playful affair. [Apr 2011, p.94]

For better and occasionally worse, it feels effortless for listener and writer alike. [Apr 2003, p.112]

It's Converge's energy that impresses first, their brutal, full-blooded fury, the sheer physical assault; listen closer, however, and you'll find a group as inventive and progressive in their riffage as Slayer or Metallica at their early apex, a compulsive complexity to their chaos. [Feb 2010, p. 100]

Blood pressures doesn't quite take charge of their joint destiny as decisively as it needs to, the cohesive chain smoking cool do their earlier albums diluted by sudden shifts in tempo and mood. [May 2011, p.104]

If Three Futures lack depth, then, it's only because everything inside has been dragged out, up to the surface, into the light. [Nov 2017, p.98]

This is (finally) an album that is enjoyable solely as a listening experience. [Sep 2013, p.89]

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

Rodgers' fealty to rhythm is still unquestionable from opener Till The World Falls through the emphatic beats that drive Boogie All Night and single Sober, which are clearly less subtle than "old" Chic. [Dec 2018, p.90]

Fans of Porcelain Raft will go nuts for the aural sigh that is Pavo Pavo. [Dec 2016, p.94]

Occasionally self-indulgence threatens, but no matter; there is an undeniable musical hunger and pioneering spirit at work here. [Apr 2006, p.101]

It's definitely in the family tradition. [Oct 2006, p.112]

Over 12 mostly blueprint-hugging songs returns diminish, but scuzzy beat-box disco outrider What Did I Ever To You is great. [Sep 2023, p.86]

Scally's armoury of drum boxes, Bontempi organs and electric guitars provides shape-shifting backgrounds--classic '60s pop arrangements filtered through the fuzzy prism of a dream. [Mar 2008, p.108]

Precision tooled to keep Green chart and arena-bound for the foreseeable.[Dec. 2011 pg. 94]

Witchy and hypnotic. [Feb 2015, p.95]

A series of grand rippling hallucinations, unfolding ever outwards on the central melancholy theme. [Mar 2012, p.97]

A trippy reined-in take on Madlib's psychedelia across a powerfully conversational ode to person resurrection winningly contrasted against past druggy misdemeanours. [Jul 2017, p.93]

His sixth solo offering is a surprisingly mainstream jolly. [May 2015, p.97]

This set is more ambitious, sometimes bonkers [than his previous two albums]. [Jun 2016, p.91]

Leader Joseph D'Agostino drops vowels with a schizoid, Malkmus-esque charm (somewhere between a meltdown and a bong pipe), while the band see-saw between going for the jugular and a surprisingly touching melodic tinkering. [Dec 2009, p. 90]

Ringo makses a good fist of his production debut. [Apr 2010, p.98]

Stewart sets about pushing up the earth under these delicate folk orchestrations and prog madrigals with subversive skill. [Dec 2022, p.91]

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 record of quality, but not of distinction. [Aug 2013, p.86]

Posse-laden re-workings of deathless anthems Public Enemy Number Won and Fight The Power are suitably superfly; rehashing four tracks from 2017's Nothing IS Quick In The Desert less so. A welcome blast if righteous funky wisdom nonetheless. [Dec 2020, p.83]

His third album in as many years, while not among his most consequential, proves that, at 71, Morrison can still perform with gusto. [Nov 2017, p.98]

Her laconic, absurdist humour gently inflects each track, even when she is singing about intense paranoia and loss. [Dec 2018, p.90]

Though arriving with less of cacophonous attack, their crush of distortion and Elena Tonra's swooning vocals is rooted in the same psychedelic heartland. [Feb 2016, p.91]

Sometimes Duffy tries just that little too hard to capture the sound of soul music's glorious past. [Apr 2008, p.102]

This trio's future pop debut is almost synthetically pristine. [Feb 2015, p.96]

You can see why they've got another Golden Globe nomination for this, although most of the music here isn't in the film and the many highlights get lost in an eternity of approximately similar sonics. [Mar 2012, p.94]

There was much brooding menace and acoustic industrial, and things have not developed significantly. [May 2015, p.99]