If you crave that ineffable something Abba achieved, then it's only glimpsed here. [Jun 2013, p.84]

American indie cult heroes get a little noisier, a little more obscure [June 2010, p. 104]

It's Ry [Cooder] who handles the production chores and does that capably. [Sep 2016, p.94]

The hits may well keep rolling in for Years & Years, but next time a bit more adventure wouldn't go amiss. [Sep 2015, p.87]

1991's indie strivers and success stories, over three nugget-selected discs. [Mar 2022, p.98]

With Tek on growly vocals, Two To One feels closer to Birdman's hypermelodic chug than any Stooges explosion. [Nov 2020, p.88]

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

Chilled psych-folk from a surreal world. [Jan 2019, p.92]

[The album] is diverse in the songs' styles and themes. [Oct 2012, p.96]

Most tracks are sophisticated, jazzy pop songs and ballads about relationships, but the angry young man of yore occasionally peeps over the parapet. [Feb 2008, p.102]

Support from Howe Gelb, Patty Griffin and more, but things never really take off. [Feb 2012, p.99]

It's a voice that dictates the tone and timber of every other element: the clipped, bass-driven, soulful blues dances delicately around those molasses tones and,at times, you can almost feel his breath in your ear. [Apr 2011, p.98]

Younge's Axelrodish take on orchestral soul dominates. [Sep 2018, p.96]

Mike Scott still has something worthwhile to say, but on Out Of All This Blue you wish there was a little less of it. [Out 2017, p.91]

A few numbers tread too similar a beat; but then there's the gumshoe monologue of Brexit At Tiffany's and The Sergio Leone mash-up of Saint Michael - which is windswept, stately and might, just might be hopeful. [Jun 2022, p.91]

The standout is a take on Nothing Compares 2 U, Prince's adroit vocal melody a showcase for Cornell's affectionate, bluesier reading. Elsewhere, Harry Nilsson's Jump Into The Fire is toughened-up and much abridged. [Apr 2021, p.80]

To Bolero-riffed beat-pop, Soul Capturer beautifully exorcises today's digi-overload, while 22-minute Defeat finds hope in an entrancing oceanic ebb-and-flow, with all the child-like discovery of late'90s Mercury Rev. [Nov 2023, p.86]

It wanders and drifts moodily now and then, but there also some strong songs. [Feb 2012, p.99]

While still connected to soul's sacred wellspring, frames his artisanal songcraft in more modernist settings. [Jun 2018, p.95]

Ultimately, though, the resolutely rubbish recordings--distorted, trebly drum breaks, scratchy guitars, monotonous voices--and near-total absence of melody, might test your stamina for mindless entertainment. [May 2003, p.104]

This dispararte set is a promising indicator of what its debut album might hold: wistful, psychedelic musing, gentle folk and splashes of electric blues. [Mar 201, p.100]

Songs draws itself into clearer focus through Lenker's sweet, freshly-cut voice. [Nov 2020, p.83]

The album lags in some of its quieter moments, but still stands as a fine successor in the righteous roots line that includes The Band and The Staples Singers. [Oct 2018, p.93]

They come across as a self-contained, insular studio band, with tunes aching to break free of the driving wall of guitars. [May 2005, p.96]

As usual, it mixes vintage country, soul and R&B. Be cool, however, listen on, and it comes together. [Oct 2011, p.106]

This album works best when it gives its ideas and sounds space. [Feb 2021, p.86]

Instrumentals with texture and surface but not much substance make the LP trail off in a sequence make the LP trail off in a sequence of audio watercolours possibly in need of a big screen and some diverting pictures. [Nov 2008, p.112]

There's something of the counsellor's couch about these songs, a record that trembles between acute self-awareness, self-laceration and self-preservation in its quest for "the deep blue OK". [Jun 2025, p.82]

Too much of the rest meanders through trickling streams of acoustic guitar and somnambulant vocals without ever detaining you for long. [Nov 2009, p.97]

Reality Killed The Video Star - produced, as the title suggests, by Trevor Horn - offers more than a glimmer of hope. [Dec 2009, p. 94]

Ultimately, it’s hard to escape the conclusion that they’ve scaled greater heights with more time and pre-writing. [Aug 2024, p.91]

Too much of this album, while pleasant enough, melts into a low-key blur of whispered, introspective nothings. [Jun 2012, p.85]

The repetitive music loses a little power when you're sitting down listening to a hi-fi. [Aug 2012, p.87]

The albums most evoked are the mid'90s brace, Charade and Misère. The Monochrome Set remain unmistakeably themselves. [Apr 2022, p.82]

It's over-reliance on Nine Inch Nails atmospherics and Boots's far from distinctive Bowie-lite croon could benefit from further tweaking. [Dec 2015, p.92]

Together they've grafted that rare commodity: Grown man dance music with dignity intact. [Nov 2011, p.103]

VWETO III occasionally struggles to transcend its origins as a collection of essentially unfinished pieces. ... More often, however, her lop-sided rhythms, offbeat electronics and uncanny sense of mood are compelling in their own right. [Jul 2021, p.82]

The Soul Of The Hour rumbles onward with fearsome nocturnal dread, if paced with sufficient patience this time to allow the odd shaft of illumination to seep in. [May 2014, p.87]

The Cree folkie in fine bellicose form at 74. [Jun 2015, p.96]

A big-sounding record, it feels like a step forward for Segall. [Nov 2021, p.91]

The DLO3 serve up a decidedly old school-sounding platter whose feel-good vibe is infectious. [Mar 2022, p.86]

Scratchily downbeat, this is a true artist's vision in that Hood can remove himself from the pain without stinting on the honesty. [Oct 2012, p.82]

Atmos aplenty then, but more melodies like Magdalene's would be nice. [Dec 2015, p.94]

Odd, enjoyable. [Jun 2006, p.103]

She's assembled an intriguing set of duets. [Nov 2015, p.91]

If pulverizing female vocals and pop-rock guitar licks were your thing in 1995, you certainly won't be disappointed now. [Oct 2012, p.96]

Luster is less dreamy than blurry, as if her subconscious is piloting this deep-trawling ambient indie with breathy vocals submerged in waves of drone and fuzz. [Jul 2025, p.86]

Less visceral than before, this one's a quintessential grower. [May 2015, p.91]

He's still a remix away from getting played at Gatecrasher, but full marks for effort all the same. [Nov 2009, p.95]

This is very much Goodwin's record, the work of a man revelling in his own company. [May 2014, p.88]

The results are slightly uneven. [Jun 2013, p.89]

While focus isn't really his thing, when Presley and his minimal combo cohere, they're scratchily persuasive. [Oct 2016, p.97]

Though humour abounds, there's also some serious musicianship on display, both from the mercurial Goldblum and his excellent band. [Dec 2018, p.90]

Webb has an eclectic Thomas Dolby-style approach and he's not totally successful. ... But that doesn't matter because when he hits it, the song rises with glorious abandon. [Mar 2019, p.98]

Songs blur into each other, rendering Beat My Distance a series of variations on adopted themes rather than evidence of a singular voice. [Apr 2019, p.93]

Intriguing debut. ... A surfeit of vocals is distracting. [May 2017, p.98]

Album seven hits a sweet spot between prog and power-chords. [March 2011, p. 108]

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

New radiations is not without moments of ponderous stasis. Nadler still shines as a spell-weaver and mistress of moods, though. [Sep 2025, p.79]

Occasionally, the vaulting arrangements threaten to overwhelm what is a naturally lower-case singing voice, but the ambition here cannot be faulted. [Apr 2023, p.85]

A strange, haunted phantasmagoria that explores atmospheres and moods more suited to the score of an art film than to a rock album--despite the gratuitous use of grungey guitar noises and distortion. [Dec 2016, p.94]

An album drenched in familiar swathes of charm, pathos, elegance and black humour. [Dec 2015, p.90]

It's pleasant enough, it hardly transcendent, and feels--whisper it--ever so slightly old fashioned. [Feb 2017, p.95]

Instrumental rhythms and all manner of sound effects are used to colour in these morbidly compelling stories. [Apr 2017, p.90]

It's largely stripped of their loftier excesses. Instead, the tone - meditative, inward-looking - coalesces around Circle Of Trust's tender electro, Ride Or Die's minimal escapist lullaby or the tech-U2 of She Cries Diamond Rain. [Jun 2025, p.80]

It's an all-instrumental, but through eight focused tracks bringing to mind the non-vocal aspects of Eno's Another Green World, Vini Reilly at his most hard-edged, and mid-period Popul Vuh. [Jun 2018, p.91]

The band's bluegrass, country-folk and doo wop-informed debut packs a front porch charm. [May 2014, p.89]

Their second album is a bittersweet indie-punk chaser. [Jun 2015, p.96]

Simple, homespun arrangements shift between folk pop and folk rock with an emphasis on bittersweet. [Sep 2020, p.85]

No one sounds like they are having much fun on this follow-up and his rearrangements of the classics on piano add nothing new to the songs. [Jun 2013, p.84]

Prolonged exposure to this scattershot approach can be exhausting. In smaller chunks, however, Free Humans is exhilarating, and unpredictably so. [Nov 2020, p.89]

By focusing on the temporal, he reduces himself to simple protest music rather than timeless folk. [Aug 2005, p.104]

The revivified Bush Tetras prove No Wave's not dead. [Sep 2023, p.86]

It leaves a prescribed set of more or less familiar songs, sequenced randomly with in some broad chronological parameters. [Jul 2010, p.108]

Emotions unemoted can work, but Good Advice feels too disciplined/stylised. [Mar 2016, p.98]

At odds with the folk-pop quirk of her 2012 debut Yours Truly, Cellophane Nose and the angular, raw and rocky approach of albums two and three. [Jun 2021, p.85]

The Ottawan's new record abounds with moments most arresting for the crazy chutzpah with which she'll shoehorn a line of verse into a line of music whose rhythm puts the stresses on all the wrong words. [July 2008, p.104]

Nude With Boots alternates between their trademark, skin-crawling sludge rock, and more accessible, almost anthemic moments. [Aug 2008, p.106]

Edmunds has always delivered, whatever the age and circumstances. And this batch of originals and covers, recorded in full do-it-himself mode, doesn't change that. [Feb 2014, p.91]

You could muse on the dignity of 40 year olds having a rave revival but when the 303 synth squelch kicks in on soulful closer 'Stand Up,' it's all more pukka than moody. [Mar 2009, p.105]

Tracks recorded with Cyndi Lauper and Primal Scream suggest some pruning might have made for a more impactful listening experience. [Jun 2016, p.88]

An album that falls between traditional and progressive country stools. [May 2014, p.89]

OFWGKTA are talented, if not as ground-breaking as they think. [Jun 2012, p.85]

Like most homage platters, the affair is only as strong as its weakest moments. [Nov 2002, p.113]

While there are enough inspiring moments on here to suggest Beck hasn't yet run out of ideas, it demonstrates that the best way for him to revisit former triumphs would be to travel somewhere new. [Apr 2005, p.92]

This is cerebral yet genial fare. [Oct 2012, p.91]

A beautiful waste of time. [Sep 2005, p.88]

No Tourists may be an open-topped bus ride around a familiar sonic landscape, but it's also a lot of fun. [Dec 2018, p.84]

Too much of My Soft Machine is too smooth by half. [Jun 2023, p.95]

The best tracks on Panic of Girls have some edge and bite... though the all-points-of-the-compass eclecticism makes [it] sound somewhat disjointed and schizophrenic. [Aug. 2011, pg. 99]

Pearlies has more the feel of a wistful autumnal folk record than any kind of'90s throwback. [Dec 2023, p.92]

This young, Reading rock foursome offer hyperventilated hooks and heart-soaring breakdowns. [Jul 2017, p.96]

What's lacking is the shock factor.... At its best, amid the oceanic dream-wave of melody and surreal verbiage that these reanimated Pixies still essay with style, Indie Cindy is worthy of full participation. [May 2014, p.90]

Aside from a handful of instrumental snatches... Democrazy's main events are six or seven tantalising sketches. [Jan 2004, p.96]

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

On record it’s more the spoken-word sections that grab the listener. [Jul 2024, p.93]

It features the Bright Eyes/Desaparecidos frontman alone with piano, harmonica and guitar, putting down songs never quite intended as an album. This sparseness means that the focus on Oberst is tight--maybe too tight. [Nov 2016, p.90]

Devoid of da funk it may be, but the scale and scope here are impressive. [May 2023, p.86]