Can be hard for mere mortals to swallow. [Oct 2011, p.104]

Only a slight dearth of killer melodies ... disappoints. [Apr 2012, p.86]

The results, often transcendent and inventive, incorporate gospel elements and "found sounds," while retaining the spirit of shaky DIY experimentation. [Nov 2014, p.95]

The restless thump of Out For The West stands out. [Oct 2014, p.96]

It's time for Cut Copy to free its own mind too. [Dec 2013, p.89]

Three or four candidates for an updated greatest hits package is not a bad hit rate. [Apr 2012, p.94]

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

Occasionally, the joke is pushed too far (the feigned English accents and campy synth-pop of Muscles). Mostly, however, McBean's native gift for riff and songcraft transcend any conceptual archness. [Aug 2022, p.92]

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]

While the song selections are unimpeachable, the execution varies massively. [May 2026, p.101]

System Of A Down frontman is caught trying too hard. Again. [Oct. 2010, p. 101]

It's not a bad album, just not that distinctive. [May 2008, p.111]

The bad times have never sounded better. [Mar 2012, p.98]

It's the slo-electro instrumental Grillwalker that steals the day. [Nov 2011, p.103]

Recorded in analogue, Echo Kid is his love letter to '70s AM rock radio. [Jan 2010, p. 93]

Brevity obviously suits them as the results are both evocative and sublime. [May 2008, p.111]

The songs barely disturb the dust in the room as they gently tip-toe about, Millan's lazy drawl far less deliberate than the clipped enunciation she often exercises on Stars' chamber pop. [Feb 2010, p. 102]

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

This is a resolutely up record, for the most part. [Jul 2014, p.92]

There are some hammy moments on Americana Act II, but Davies' status as one of pop's great storytellers endures. [Aug 2018, p.92]

Only a few moments--Happy, the Daft Punk-featuring Gust Of Wind and I Know Who You Are--sound truly out of the ordinary. [May 2014, p.86]

Inspiral Carpets sounds like the band did back in 1989 on their Dung 4 demo. [Nov 2014, p.92]

Nothing here compares to opening track Heaven, Sande's ubiquitous 2011 hit, though Daddy attempts the same You Got The Love dynamic with less vital results. [Mar 2012, p.102]

It's a more than worthy companion piece, with an unfinished, scrapbook feel that's far from unbecoming. [Sep 2014, p.94]

An intriguing companion to DM's Songs of Faith and Devotion, heady with the lexicon of addiction and redemption. [Jun 2003, p.110]

Waiting in Vain mines a harmony-rich seam of sticky-fingered country rock and blue sky FM pop. [Oct 2008, p.109]

It still feels a bit hammy. [Jul 2013, p.96]

It may be that RW are out to capitalise on previous use of their music in shows such as "The O.C." and "Weeds," but Rogue's voice--as angelic and tender as those of Buckleys Tim and Jeff--is a joy throughout. [June 2008, p.103]

What he does less of these days, regrettably, is production, upon which his outside-the-box reputation rightly rests. [July 2011, p. 103]

Their obsession remains with sounds rather than songs, with every digitised boom, click, and ping picked out in arresting detail. [Dec 2013, p.103]

A polished affair, it cannot but fail to eschew their naive early '80s glory. [May 2015, p.100]

Much of the material is standard heavy fare, based around familiar riffs and embellished with solos that blaze momentarily. [Jun 2015, p.89]

Heat haze indie pop with Brit post-punk lyrical realism in place of slacker zaniness. [Oct 2016, p.109]

Rich, sonic politesse on offer here. [Apr 2017, p.99]

Opener Habub Faye is a lovely slice of sophisticated pop, as are the rootsier Macoumba and Ay Coono La. ... Yet there is still space for two absolute clunkers. [Aug 2019, p.97]

The more gothic the song (Girl In Amber; Red Right Hand) the better the interpretation. [Feb 2022, p.92]

Inessential recordings predating the Tuaregs' breakthrough by a decade. [Dec 2022, p.93]

Heard back to back they almost make sense, but the sequencing here amplifies the disjointed feel of an album that facinates and frustrates in equal measure. [July 2008, p.108]

Chromatics fans will fine much to love, but the eeriness that made Carpenter's reputation is mostly lacking because he doesn't need to soundtrack a shock or its aftermath. [May 2016, p.89]

Man from another Time is an album that sounds decidely lived-in. [Nov 2009, p.91]

Too often his songwriting is so tasteful that it can tend toward the anonymous. [May 2014, p.88]

His tendency to overemote can prove distracting. [Feb 2017, p.99]

Mister Pop is at once an old friend and a stotal stranger. [Nov 2009, p.100]

From captivatingly woozy opener State Of new York to the languid euphoria of Everything, this challenging but addictive record cocoons the listener in chloroformed candy floss. [May 2011, p.109]

Tricky may not be reinventing the wheel, but his focus is sharper than ever. [Oct 2014, p.93]

Not a record for those prone to depression, but a varied, substantial and intriguing one. [June 2002, p.112]

[Producer Daniel Boyle] strikes a crisp specious groove somewhere between dubstep and '90s digi-dub, for Perry to voice croakily alongside co-vocalists. [Mar 2024, p.82]

Her singing, often overwhelmed in the mix, lyrics inaudible, adds David Lynch eeriness. [Nov 32012, p.94]

Gravez is scrappy, fun but unoriginal--free in spirit but limited in execution. [Jul 2013, p.105]

A gentle record that is astonishingly timely from a political perspective. [Apr 2016, p.93]

If not quite a match for Gainsbourg's ticklish masterpiece, it's a partial return to the stringy artistry of 2003's Friends Of Mine. [Oct 2019, p.83]

For all that bombast, though, there's a disappointing, un-Texan restraint. [Feb 2005, p.94]

The best moments on this double CD are those which foreground Valerie Trebeljahr's sighingly lovely vocals. [Aug 2005, p.120]

Fourth album from the Kensington-born, Georgia-based garage rock queen's latest incarnation. [Jun 2011, p.100]

Highly agreeable in small doses. [Jul 2006, p.104]

The cascading ping and pop of 35 Summers and arpeggiated digital melancholy of Unbank is evidence of Plaid's empathy with this most beguiling of music forms. [Nov 2011, p.103]

At Asiatisch's heart is bass, gargantuan and window rattling, around which she builds an elaborate framework of complex rhythms and melodies using analogue hardware. [Jun 2014, p.93]

There's just one heart-grabbing moment. [May 2007, p.120]

Reliably familiar punk pop by enduring Japanese trio. [Sept. 2011, p. 96]

A great blue-eyed soul record. [Dec 2006, p.108]

For much of the album's remainder, Carthy sticks with the melting pot approach that he and Greater Mancunian peers like Rae & Christian helped codify over a decade ago. [Jun 2014, p.93]

Yet more caustic politico cold-funk disco grooves. [May 2019, p.96]

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]

At times, its lumbering gait palls somewhat, but This World's rousing yacht rock twinkle proves that Kalevi has some aces hidden up his sleeve. [Nov 2018, p.91]

The Amazing Snakeheads have delivered an album bristling with unapologetic rock'n'roll invective. [Jun 2014, p.91]

When the album's latter half descends into cluttered abstraction, Delicate Steve measures up as disappointingly slight. [Mar 2017, p.96]

The sentiments charm and Cuomo's nose for a tune endures, but the drive-time metal supremacy of Def Leppard and Mutt Lange is never under serious threat. [Jun 2021, p.84]

The perfect album for cool, sequestered evenings in scary cities. [Sep 2001, p.102]

As Mayaer talks himself in circles you hear an artist facing massive success, and retreating from it. [Dec 2003, p.112]

'Mother May I?' and AdRock's 'Oooh Girl' are the most engaging and enetertaining of a solid selection. [Oct 2007, p.106]

Repo is a brightly coloured series of aural non sequiturs, its lard-legged beat science peaking with distorted synth-funk jam 'Ultra Vomit Craze.' [May 2009, p.109]

What Did You Expect is a breathlessly exciting debut, it's giddy raunch'n'revisionism hard to resist. [Apr 2011, p.100]

Bright, snappy and instantly infectious hooks. [Jun 2012, p.84]

An energised splicing of riff, declamation and technology that sounds like a thrilling synthesis of 2003's The Real New Fall LP and 2005's Fall Heads Roll, delivered with the highest levels of vigour for some time. [Feb 2007, p.92]

The Watsons' approach is softer, and more affecting, than wry, tack-sharp Lewis. [Aug 2008, p.114]

A blistering, breathless set of dynamic, high-impact punk rock aiming straight for the heart and jugular. [Feb 2015, p.94]

100% Publishing is brimming with energy and ideas. [Aug. 2011, p. 100]

The whole album is characterised by a subtle, all-pervading sense of menace that superbly offsets Campbell's snow-pure vocals and sparsely psychedelic orchestration. [Dec 2006, p.104]

It's hard to love anyone as self-absorbed as Wainwright, but it's impossible not to admire his ability to craft enduringly engaging music. [Nov 2008, p.112]

This is a good album, but there's a pull between the commercial and the more left-field. [Dec 2008, p.104]

Clever and cool, Season High is a career high. [Jun 2017, p.90]

Heavy with atmosphere, Dream House doesn't disappoint, corralling their genius for cerebral house chicanery, subtle techno and motorik rhythms. [Jul 2018, p.95]

An engaging genre exercise. [Dec 2003, p.112]

Third, and finest, brew of Seattle trio's fever-folk moonshine. [March 2011, p. 99]

It reaffirms Kano's position as a consummate grime all-rounder. [Apr 2016, p.86]

Monsters Exist feels like a stadium rave washing machine, stuck on infinite cycle. [Oct 2018, p.88]

It's audacious, experimental and, unsurprisingly, resists literal interpretation. [Jul 2016, p.94]

Whip-smart and wonderful. [Jul 2022, p.89]

Its choice of selections successfully reinvent the familiar and/or introduce the less well-known. [Jul 2009, p.104]

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

It's a return to their best. [Oct 2012, p.83]

While six of these 19 tracks are intricately wrought miniatures, it's the supreme confidence of four-minute relative marathons Peel Free and horn-pricked parental paean Bloom Wither Bloom that shine. [Sep 2019, p.91]

Brilliant! Tragic! soars on the crumbling wings of an Adverts-brand art-punk and Argos's much-improved bellow. [Jun 2011, p.96]

A little of these Lee & Nancy-style duets foes a long way. [Feb 2013, p.98]

He sounds like a cross between Sonic Youth and Massive Attack, and the results are immediately convincing. [Apr 2003, p.100]

A souffle-light concoction of tape loops, odd samples, and fey vocals. [July 2000, p.118]

It's a near-total reinvention, and a triumph. [Apr 2011, p.98]

Its echoes of '60 Brit Invasion rock, arch lyrics and prime Pollard song-title jibber will sound more familiar. [Feb 2015, p.96]