It's astonishing how, despite his 32 instrumental credits and 20 guests, it still sounds dustbowl-empty, as if these were missives from The Great Depression, time-wise and spiritually. [Aug 2015, p.93]

An exotic and exuberant affair with hard-rock, electronica and symphonic elements. ... Some might find the afterlife that Farrell's Kind Heaven promises a little daunting, ultimately. There's a helluva lot going on all the time. [Jul 2019, p.89]

Each of the album's 10 songs is a downbeat, dreamy, ultra-melodic yet angular nugget. [Sep 2019, p.90]

[Wolf Parade] stand against the day, insisting, "We can begin again." Doing it less with grand declarations than moments of grace. [Mar 2020, p.89]

The new approach... lets them explore their lyrical side. [Sep 2005, p.94]

You have to go back to Costello, The Beat or Smiths to find a catalogue simultaneously as hummable and as disturbing as McCabe's. [May 2006, p.102]

At the heart of Continuum and Incurably innocent are untamed pop melodies that writhe like snapped power-lines, while berserk closer Hostage Stamps is a glorious collision of Jane's Addiction, Minor Threat and Mahavishnu Orchestra. [Jun 2017, p.91]

Ooz[es] between queasy fantasy and distorted reality. [Mar 2007, p.105]

With this first album, Stealing Sheep join that weird and wonderful place inhabited by Warpaint, Bat For Lashes and The Raincoats. [Oct 2012, p.94]

Understated, lovely. [Feb 2017, p.98]

Catchy, undemanding, irksome. [Feb 2018, p.99]

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

The pace plods on some mid-tempo tracks, but overall this is a personal, politically-charged mix of dark thoughts and good vibes. [Aug 2019, p.88]

She still meanders between electronic-infused pop, Eastern-tinged R&B and AOR balladry, but crisp production and Spektor's pliant, atypically measured vocals keep things focused. [Nov 2016, p.89]

Widow City is the Furnaces' punchiest set to date. [Nov 2007, p.104]

Diego Garcia has fallen hard for Interpol's diagonal guitar/bass chimes, but his band's debut also suggests The Cure's pop-conscious first album rather than Joy Division. [Jan 2005, p.102]

Courageous eccentricity it is, then. [Jun 2005, p.106]

The Austin Doors ramp up the psych-pop tunes. [Oct. 2010, p. 97]

There's no desperation here, just the sound of a fortunate man having a huge amount of fun. [Oct 2010, p.95]

Coherent but properly crackers, this is easily the most delicious post-Trux gumbo so far. [Feb 2012, p.98]

The result is ZZ Top's Eliminator meets The Best of Chic. [Jun 2003, p.112]

An album which makes his previous excesses seem conservative.... Dazzling though this bombardment is, it's a draining experience. [Jul 2001, p.97]

Modern without being self-conscious, metal without being stupid. [Mar 2004, p.106]

lang's expansive delivery makes the album sound overblown in a few places. [Oct 2004, p.102]

Depending what side you take in the Heartbreaker v. Gold debate, you'll like some tracks more than others. [Oct 2002, p.92]

Only problem is, he also wants us to love him for his mind, so he has declared this a concept album. [Nov 2006, p.116]

Off With Their Heads deftest creations may fall just short of the Kasier Chief debut's ruddy-faced string of exhuberant big hitters, 'Never Beat A Beat,' 'Addicted To Drugs' and the huge 'Like You Too Much' are still sizeable cut above some of "Yours Truely's" tepid misfires. [Nov 2008, p.104]

A little too relaxed for its own good. [Apr 2007, p.108]

Scialfa's writing wipes away any celeb-gossip patina through the universality of convincing detail. [Oct 2007, p.92]

More so than on predecessor The Spell, the Procession's ominous, gothic-baroque sound now suggest angular German Expressionist cinema and the raven wing atmospheres of Edgar Allan Poe as readily as The Bad Seeds. [Dec 2009, p. 94]

It rarely rises above a sloth-like pace. [Dec 2012, p.86]

Much of the rest is background music of a high standard and, although shorn of imagery and narrative, has an existential heaviness Camus would appreciate. [Jun 2015, p.86]

There are enough off-kilter moments to stop complacency setting in. [Jul 2018, p.90]

While not completely immunised against country cliche--I Thought You'd Never Leave has the audacity to reference a pick-up truck--his songwriting is what strikes hardest. [Aug 2019, p.95]

The whole album unfolds at a pace somewhere between stately and glacial. [Oct 2015, p.93]

Pugnacious indie squares up to all-comers. [Feb. 2011, p. 106]

The North feels like a shuffle back into soft focus. [Jan 2013, p.98]

Although Four may strike some despondent notes at times, it's a high point for Harvey's career. [Jun 2013, p.88]

Their nostalgic lo-fi jangle and reverb surf guitars sound, weirdly, like a SoCal version of The Coral, with synths. [Nov 2014, p.102]

Dark humour and combustive noise are proven fine bedfellows, and Flat Worms will soon have you slam-dancing as the planet burns. [May 2020, p.86]

Highlight of an unfathomable whole: Hell. [Jul 2020, p.88]

It's hard to shake the sense that these songs ape Corgan's past but too often lack the spark of inspiration that fuelled his previous masterpieces. [Jan 2015, p.100]

Anthrax's energised take, though hardly original, remains forceful and persuasive with each member still delivering with the strength of 10 men. [Apr 2016, p.94]

Less niche cartoon-rave abroad, more classic-rock and baggy/disco. [Jun 2017, p.86]

With no appealing tunes or choruses to hang his hat on, Caufield's limp, blank vocals founder. [Jul 2012, p.88]

The best Waterboys record since 1988's Fisherman's Blues. [Feb 2015, p.88]

Ringgo Ancheta continues on a liquid ambient-funk, gliding across a set of between album one-offs and remixes. [Aug 2019, p.98]

When they strip down everything down for the closing pair Fear and the onomatopoeic Organ Blues, the nape hairs rise even higher. [Mar 2011, p.100]

A chequered beast swiveling between ill-fitting newe adventures in growling rock electronica and hazy, '80s-throwback dram pop. It's somewhere between that Safe Place seem happiest, Eternal Recurrence, Jump Jet and End Game revisiting hazy, propulsive Ride territory of old--complete with the odd crap lyric--but the laidback, Syd Barrett-like Dial Up and arrhythmic, big-sounding In This Room show they still have genuine class. [Sep 2019, p.86]

It's not a groundbreaking record, largely because Tricky himself broke most of the ground here 13 years ago. [Aug 2008, p.103]

The sudden shifts between smooth/jarring and soft/hard make for an uncomfortable but compelling ride. [Mar 2008, p.113]

Largely insubstantial. [Aug 2017, p.97]

It's music for dreaming, the keyboard equivalent to shoegaze, reinforced by its song titles and vocals mostly mixed beneath the waves to gorgeously woozy effect. [Sept. 2011, p. 97]

For a band feeling they had painted themselves into a corner, this is them sodding the consequences and stomping their way out. [Dec 2010, p.96]

It doesn't all work. ... But the doo wop-in-space Hope Hell High, the football chant-as-polemic punk rock of Motherfuckers Got To Go and the widescreen desert balladry of Love Is A Mind Control prove the Deap Vally girls should experiment like this more often. [Apr 2020, p.91]

The only drawback is that 16 tracks and 55 minutes feel too long for a set of minimalist adventures. [Jun 2015, p.91]

[The Ridge] finds the Montrealer's signature esoteric bow-work allied to song structures that err, at least vaguely, toward the orthodox. [Apr 2016, p.93]

Overall these are bold ideas rather than great songs. [Aug 2016, p.91]

Their fourth album largely abandons any subtlety in favour of a scattergun art racket. [May 2016, p.91]

A very fine, if long-gestated, debut. [May 2020, p.93]

Play sees Nashville superstar Paisley jam with an array of equally adroit pickers. [Dec 2008, p.111]

They have emerged with identity still intact, marrying melodic '60s songwriting to Doorsian melodrama and garage rock mentality. [sEP 2007, P.110]

Their music is an improbably addictive miasma of chopped-up spoken-word fragments and spectral electronica. [May 2011, p.110]

Whikle the quintet can comfortably do sincere and introverted on tracks like A Thing Like This and Proud/Ashamed, their speciality indisputably lies in lo-fi revelry, as showcased in Friend Crush. [Jul 2012, p.88]

If you can stick with its synthetic marionette oompah band designs, become immersed in its whirlwind momentum and flint-eyed wit, the chances are you'll fall in love with the album's deep miined reservoirs of charm and sheer eagerness to impress. [Sep 2004, p.90]

On Everyone Is Here, you'll find some of the most haunting music to bear the Finn imprint. [Sep 2004, p.95]

By the end, you are left wanting more extreme flourishes. [May 2011, p.114]

Dev Haynes' debut is a sinewy, surprising move for one steeped in metallic noise bridging semi-acoustic country rock and chamber folk with a folk-prog detour on the 10-minute centrepiece 'Midnight Surprise.' [Feb 2008, p.112]

Mostly, though, the album plays to Mould's strengths. [May 2009, p.98]

Beal's vocals shift from Screaming Jay Hawkins wails to the lo-fi R&B melancholy of Cody ChesnuTT, while his chattering snake times rhythms summon up the ghosts of Moondog and Sun Ra, taking things to another level entirely. [Jun 2012, p.83]

There is always the creamy centre of that angelic voice, making this a mightily impressive debut. [Oct 2015, p.93]

[A] sturdy, panoramic critique of modern rap mores. [Aug 2014, p.92]

Song-for-song Damage And Joy is the most rewarding Jesus And Mary Chain album since their prime. [Apr 2017, p.92]

That Lucky Old Sun is easily Brian Wilson's most consistently enjoyable, moving solo albums; indeed you have to go back to "Surf's Up" itrself to hear a Beach Boys long-player as good. [Spe 2008, p.99]

Ambitious, hypnotic but a little relentless. [Jan 2013, p.102]

[A] set of exhilarating if unrelenting Weezeresque thrash pop. [May 2014, p.96]

It's business as usual. [Mar 2005, p.106]

The instrumental smorgasbord can feel a little claustrophobic, as on the clattering All The Way Live, but overall The Go! Team's relentless party vibe emerges undiminished. [Feb 2018, p.96]

The Aislers don't always hit their mark, perhaps because the disparate interests at work also contribute to some unengaging instrumental, noise and nearly spoken word pieces. [Apr 2003, p.103]

A combination of fierce electro-clash, stabbing rock riffs, and the rudest raps on the planet. [Oct 2003, p.118]

The album's real trump card is its abiding sense of goggle-eyed imagination. [Nov 2002, p.98]

If this is to be Cash's last album, then what a magnificent way he has chosen to say goodbye. [Album of the Month, Dec 2002, p.100]

A superior folk-tinged brand of MOR. [Oct 2005, p.102]

Costello has again hauled material from diverse regions of his writing life into a strangely cohesive cornucopia. [Jul 2009, p.96]

Nothing unfamiliar, yet distinguished by granite totem-pole vocals and mesmerically ominous axe. [Sep 2011, p.97]

It's a shame that their modishness acts against them, but sometimes, playing all the right notes in the right order just isn't enough. [Nov 2011, p.92]

There's enough to pique interest for newbies. The rest of us will head on back to the master. [Sep 2011, p.99]

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]

A bustling, concise and sunny affair. [Apr 2012, p.88]

An album packed with thoughtful adventure and mischief. A true gem. [May 2012, p.83]

There's plenty of individual spin to set k&f apart and the tension never slacks. [Oct 2012, p.89]

Simon's songwriting ability is unquestionable, and the similarity with his father's voice is hard to ignore, but his quest to re-imagine Elliot Smith's XO too often gets in the way. [Apr 2013, p.86]

Rowe's gravelly baritone is as suited to the shimmering surf plucks of Downwind, or the percussive pummel of Horses as it is to his sombre ballads. [May 2013, p.96]

A sound that lies somewhere in between early Beach House and breezy, ambient techno. [Sep 2013, p.96]

A little gem. [Jul 2015, p.89]

The Machine Stops proves that Dave Brock's sonic adventures still have plenty to say, and inspired ways in which to say it. [Jul 2016, p.95]

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

[Devoldere's] disaffected drawl and seedier impulses are curbed by co-singer/melodic foil Sylvie Kreusch. [Dec 2017, p.96]