Nadler's cathartic inner journey isn't always as easy to empathise with as it is artfully expressed. [Oct 2018, p.88]

Scratch beneath the glossy surface of Torches and beneath the gurgles, stutters and hands-aloft choruses lies an album with a disappointing lack of substance. [Aug. 2011, p. 94]

Guaranteed to make fans of the underground feel queasy. [Dec 2013, p.92]

The whole thing sounds effortless, and not always in a god way. [Dec 2007, p.109]

Occasionally things get laboured or dull; still, a powerful new direction. [Apr 2017, p.93]

Klang is a step in the right direction. [May 2009, p.69]

Their debut full-length more than makes good on the attention they've been receiving. [May 2009, p.103]

While the humour in Always Some MF is more bracing tan previously, it's only on the stark minimalism of Cure For Emptiness where Maltese appears truly vulnerable. [Aug 2025, p.104]

Musically, this album is well assembled, with stabs of Memphis-style horns, slide guitar and luscious strings--but the lyrics lack deep resonance. [Apr 2011, p.100]

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]

The odd sappy lyric is mediated by a resonant Jim James-ish baritone. [Oct 2020, p.94]

Revives the windswept drama of Porcupine-vintage Echo & The Bunnymen. [Dec 2004, p.99]

The shock of the new has evaporated, but she's subtly evolving and broadening her palette. [Dec 2025, p.78]

There's an undeniable feeling of bile over content. [Nov 2005, p.100]

There are sublime moments - International Women Of Leisure, for instance, and Do You Feel, a homage to first ladies of disco songwriting such as Evelyn King and Gwen Guthrie - but other tracks, though taut and tight, become repetitive. [Mar 2020, p.92]

The album sounds squashed and claustrophobic, but lacks the sense of play that still characterises his clever, incident-packed rhymes. [Oct 2007, p.106]

Some more like-minded collaborators might raise the temperature. [Feb 2009, p.112]

In between strong original songs are arresting covers versions. [Mar 2012, p.92]

At its best during the cinematic rock of Coming Home, the epic, plangent Roses and pugilistic opener The Factory Gates. It's less successful on the woozy stomp-alongs of Misery Company and Meanwhile Up in Heaven. [Apr 2014, p.92]

Much is intimate and seductive, but Undress emphasizes the feeling Hoop is in a holding pattern which is increasingly hard to escape. [May 2014, p.91]

Not the Holy Grail that was promised... But considering what material is present, the set plays like a fairly compelling musical narrative. [Dec 2004, p.120]

The twinkling, chaotic, looped intensity of All Graphs Explored is typical of Larry Gus's individual and highly charismatic approach. [Nov 2015, p.89]

Herren never lets his music become too easy-going or the listener too settled. [Mar 2006, p.108]

Deluxe, post-dance soundscapes from Simon Green's anthropoid alias. [May 2010, p. 97]

Opener, the self-referncing 'Better Get to Livin'' is cheesy and disposable even by Nashville standards. The title track, also autobiographical, is better, but like several songs suffers from '80s-style over-production. [June 2008, p.115]

A lovely, evocative album on which Stratton's measured approach barely masks underlying tensions. [Apr 2025, p.80]

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]

With these less-then-cutting-edge elements Wilson manages to conjure that's diverse and full of drama. [Oct 2009, p.97]

Here they are, refreshed and refocused if not exactly reinvented. [Jul 2016, p.90]

Where the remainder deviates, though, is in its lyricism, a good thing, because the beer-boys-in-the-band stance is replaced by only-to-be-encouraged attempts at social comment and a more enlightened approach to gender politics. [May 2011, p.110]

It's a tense, grace and often euphoric listening experience that simultaneously lacks the grit, drama and disquiet of their finest work. [Oct 2018, p.91]

Each song struggles to reach the three-minute mark, and are all the more enjoyable for it. [Aug 2017, p.97]

The group are definitely branching out, but they've not quite reached Zabriskie Point yet. [Nov 2019, p.91]

While their writhing, panic-driven noise never fails to excite, sustained across an entire album it makes for an enervating, overwhelming listen, and its hard to discern what substance might lie beneath their bristling, steely carapace. [Dec 2017, p.94]

lightning Boogie is as unimaginative as its title, but when they calm down In This Lifetime, they twinkle. [May 2022, p.94]

Thankfully Slash doesn't lack guts, tunes, potent solos or giant-slaying riffage. [May 2010, p. 92]

Peyroux's best work may happen beyond the perimeter of her comfort zone. [Aug. 2011, p. 96]

There's a formlessness to the greater endeavour that ensures it's somehow less than its constituent parts. Still, the likes of subterranean Latin shuffle American Reference possess an invention and mystery that makes this an endlessly fascinating place to get lost. [Apr 2025, p.84]

An intimate, home-recorded piece that feels like a private performance.[Nov 2011, p. 95]

The Rick Rubin and Jacknife Lee-produced follow-up to 2005's "Make Believe," finds Cuomo precariously balanced btween amused/amusing self-obsessed and de facto narcissism. [July 2008, p.110]

They write about what they know. Once that was dashed hopes and broken hearts, now its families and what sounds like pages from a diary. [Apr 2011, p.104]

It's a pity that the set plays out with a hat trick of dreadlock holiday stinkers. [Apr 2011, p.98]

Her relaxed experimentation is more inviting than hearing Longstreth grind his axe. [Aug 2017, p.92]

Her music mostly comprises ordinary, though precisely crafted, acoustic arrangements and plaintive-lite laments regarding absent lover. [Dec 2009, p. 92]

With several songs appearing twice covered by different acts, the malleability and strength of The Midnight Organ Fight material is clear. [Aug 2019, p.88]

Listen too close to the lyrics and you'll often detect a dispiritingly autopilot misanthropy.... Lose yourself in the music, though, and Cherry Bomb reveals a fevered charm. [Jul 2015, p.89]

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

With Love's blackout material is thinly stretched, allowing light to shine in on a skeletal basement stock of dubstep sketches and flat house beats that repeatedly loop out to abrupt endings, halting Zomby's greater narrative ambitions. [Aug 2013, p.92]

Most compelling on the looser, less slick numbers. [Aug 2014, p.96]

Experimental longueurs and lack of vocals mean this trip's not for everyone, but out-rock fans should get on board. [Aug 2005, p.109]

There's undoubted musicianship on display but killer tunes are rarer. [Dec 2018, p.87]

An album whose gentle charms fades a little before the final curtain falls. [Feb 2016, p.93]

A triptych of glitchy, dissonant beats, shards of white light and fractured, ambient interference. [Aug 2013, p.91]

With Telegram's Krautrock, psychedelic Pink Floyd and glam rock influences, it packs a remarkable punch. [Apr 2016, p.91]

Stygian Waves has a pleasing surety of direction. [Jun 2025, p.84]

[Singer MJ's] reverb-drenched vocals keep his lyrics veiled, but the reckless energy of two-chord Spaceman-3 like rock-outs such as Preservation and Away/Towards suggests a most electrifying catharsis is in process. [Apr 2013, p.89]

Despite some uneven quality control, here's proof that this veteran MC still has things to say. [Dec 2010, p.94]

This 77-minute abbreviation includes the 18-minute triptych 'Time Of Ye Life/Born For Nothing/Paranoid Arm Of Narcoleptic Empire, typifying CBP's simmering conflagration of Mogwai, Godspeed! and The God Machine. [May 2009, p.109]

The one-nature of the wracked, robotic torch songs does wear thin by closer Smoke Rings, however. [Jun 2016, p.95]

The album's seven-minute epics, Done and Tomorrow, chase their melodies to powerfully dramatic heights, pocket symphonies that stir and haunt with graceful, emotive crescendos that beg lighters waved aloft. [Feb 2010, p. 104]

Jaded & Faded offers a series of fleetingly thrilling, anti-everything songs that pulse with the kinetic energy of New York street life. [Aug 2014, p.92]

Tricky effectively goes missing as sultry vocal proxies Avalon Lurks, Mina Rose and Terra Lopez takes the weight, before beautifully briny closer When We Die, with original foil Martina Topley-Bird, reminds us of his peculiar strengths. [Oct 2017, p.94]

All the ducking and feinting is entertaining enough, but it begins to feel more like a box of disguises than a coherent album. [Nov 2024, p.91]

This is uneasy listening with little in the way of recognisable groove or plotting. [Jan 2015, p.94]

Flowing with an easy energy, it's the last track on an album that shows Madonna still firmly on the dancefloor, but with her eyes now turning to the USA. [June 2008, p.106]

Gloomy, seductive avant folk-blues. [Jun 2017, p.95]

Less a big splash, more fascinating ripples on a pond. [Apr 2013, p.89]

Tell Me is a pure and earnest amble through heartbreak, Bluegrass-tinged, with Seldom nods to anything approaching modern. [Apr 2011, p.106]

It's something of a lucky dip, lurching between lean electro jams with a half-finished feel, robust MC skills, Young Fathers-like melds of chants and bleeding synths, and the breathy exhortations of Maskandi guitar legend Phuzekhemisi. [Aug 2019, p.97]

You can't accuse Powers of resting on his laurels--although it's at the expense of some of that first record's unique character. [Jul 2015, p.91]

Johnson considers the world's woes with gentle reflection rather than recrimnation, along the way hoping to illuminate his son's path to finding his own truth. [July 2010]

Hectically enjoyable LP. [Oct 2020, p.87]

Better records lie in their future, doubtless, but this is a very promising, very charming glimmer. [May 2004, p.104]

11 songs thematically linked by a search for realty in an increasingly virtual world. [Sep 2018, p.90]

As ever, Lanegan's voice is solemn and affecting, emphasising the melancholic sentiments of the material. [Oct 2013, p.91]

There's even more of a streamlined feeling to Seeds.... but there's precious little which surprises. [Dec 2014, p.93]

While the key of Random Desire is mostly subterranean, when the serpentine build of The Tide breaks, the impact is undeniably soulful and powerful. [Mar 2020, p.88]

Defiant and cathartic. [Dec 2014, p.90]

He and his bandmates have grasped the flaming torch of '70s hard-rock pomp - but how to make it their own? [May 2021, p.82]

Miranda's unwieldy new album comes across as showcasing unreconciled viewpoints. [Apr 2018, p.94]

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]

This sort of works, but clearly their obsession lies with the lyrics. [Sep 2008, p.106]

Chic, soulful, but more boom and swoon than hooks. [Feb 2015, p.96]

It starts in fine fashion. ... Tellier's Auto-Tuned croon is unrelenting, and by the album's mid-point we're approaching the realms of self-parody. [May 2020, p.89]

Smooth soul or hip hop tropes being largely the order of the day here. [Jul 2016, p.95]

That confiding voice retains its hushed intimacy throughout but there's a lack of the soaring melodies that distinguish her recent collaborations with Julie Fowlis and Karine Polwart. [Aug 2025, p.76]

Laurie is best on standards such as St James Infirmary and Buddy Bolden's Blues, playing piano on them with strength and sensitivity. [Jun 2011, p.104]

Entertaining, at the very least. [Aug 2016, p.93]

Lashes panoramic drum'n'bass rollers (Living In Recycled Times) to pulsing deep house (The Beginning Of The End) and amniotic ambient (Prism). [Jun 2023, p.95]

For the most part this pensive, intriguingly restrained album marks a welcome, if overdue, return. [Oct 2013, p.91]

Emotion & Commotion embraces tunes so big you'd think no more could be wrung into them. [May 2010, p. 93]

She sings the bejesus out of these big, open-hearted tunes, and despite some lyrics having a slightly gauche quality, you soon warm to the melodramatic hooks of Agony and the cleverly constructed pop-soul nugget Beauty Of The End. [Jun 2012, p.82]

It doesn't all gel, but the hits-to-duds ratio is high. [Jan 2015, p.94]

Hugely enjoyable, with nagging tunes too, but let's move forward next time. [Mar 2009, p.106]

Songs of promise, resilience and the occasional unpredictable turn. [Jul 2018, p.98]

While T.I.'s measured, discursive rap style is heard at its best on scourging confessional duets with Eminem and, of all people, Christina Aguilera on the genuinely touching Castle Walls, Further promising collaborations with Kanye West, Pharrell and Drake end up having a rather more formulaic ring to them. [Apr 2011, p.97]

His socially conscious lyrics can be clunky but never overwhelm the light, acoustic setting. [Oct 2017, p.98]

Allways showcase a band reconfigured as a kind of hippy Meters. It's an unlikely transformation, but an appealing one. [Dec 2018, p.93]