Peaks on Joy Division-ish New Structures and the helter-skelter title track. [Oct 2016, p.100]

The Ghost In Daylight is a memory-haunted journey through the dead voices and deep narratives of Englands lost; broadside ballads culled from earth and sea. [Jun 2012, p.87]

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

With contributions from one third of Grizzly Bear, lilting vocals and arpeggiated guitar chords are gracefully manifest. [Sep 2013, p.96]

Tough to take in one sitting, The Outsider nevertheless boasts enough fine 'deep cuts' to be a keeper. [Sep 2006, p.98]

The hobnailed thud and electronic clatter of Youth and Love riot force the seriousness but when they hit their exuberant stride, they pull on legwarmers and dance the night and cold away. [Dec 2012, p.88]

A few clunky lyrics take the shine off. [Feb 2012, p.95]

It's as commercial as it gets but works purely because the Quin girls have fashioned with good tunes that come replete with more than enough hooks to keep everyone happy. [Mar 2013, p.88]

Radio Retaliation is another example of the Corporation's remarkable consistency. [Dec 2008, p.104]

Its influences and allusions diverse, but fruitful. [Dec 2008, p.110]

Goodnight Oslo could be a ghost story, a slice of stoner paranoia or a song about steam trains, but shows something sleek and ominous still looming in the fog of Hitchcock's imagination. [Mar 2009, p.107]

Often you wonder exactly what you're hearing; you just know you haven't heard it before. [Aug 2020, p.87]

Unfidelity exhibits sonic DNA from all corners of pioneering electronica. [May 2014, p.93]

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]

MacNeil is certainly a stronger singer--though without the coarse and charismatic Carter there's a sense that they are now one punk band among many, albeit still more sonically violent than most. {Oct 2012, p.86]

The first half rifles through their familiar bag of production tricks. .. The weirder and more diverse second side is where stuff gets interesting. [May 2021, p.81]

They're still best when the basic Paco Pena influences surface. [Feb 2012, p.94]

Their third album is more highly evolved than what normally constitutes straight up good-time rock. [Feb 2009, p.105]

Though mostly a one-man affair, he covers a lot of ground across the album's 11 tracks. [Jun 2015, p.86]

Makes you smile without even really listening because the whole sound is such a cheering mix of grunt and grin. [May 2004, p.104]

The result is a low-key mist of strings, piano, percussion and electronics. [Jun 2012, p.87]

Annoyingly, [the] high marks are all too infrequent. [Oct 2004, p.116]

A preposterous, highly-entertaining return. [Apr 2005, p.104]

Though it's certainly refreshing after the murk of 2002's Evil Heat, the results are still variable. [Jul 2006, p.104]

[Unfinished Business captures her vigour and verve] with its rough'n'tumble mix of R&B, country and rockabilly. [Dec 2012, p.90]

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

Not yet a strength, lyrics probe the border between naive and trite. [Feb 2012, p.94]

Knopfler retains his latter-years Celty-folk musical tone, with that measured guitar flicking in a sun-through-misty-woods way. This doesn't make for memorably distinctive songs, but his storytelling sharpens almost every track. [Apr 2015, p.91]

They're more likely to be judged on face value, but that shouldn't do them any harm. [Sep 2009, p.95]

Given the right mood and lighting, it is almost magical; in stark sunshine, less so. [Jun 2011, p.100]

An album that plays too safe in its thirst for hits. [Jul 2015, p.110]

The intervening nine songs jump between genres with varied success, with a fee whimsical tracks sticking out like sore thumbs. [Oct 2018, p.88]

The Bridge is Sting at his most-Sting like. [Jan 2022, p.82]

Anyone with a dog-eared Thick As A brick or A Passion Play album will be familiar with the rich brew of prog, folk, metal and whimsy he has served here. [Jun 2014, p.95]

Mahal and Cooder are giving back here like so often before. [May 2022, p.92]

He's at his best, however, when he takes it all very seriously indeed. [Feb 2017, p.96]

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

A girl on fire? Now and then--and inbetween times, she smoulders as well as ever. [Jan 2013, p.95]

It's a mixed bag. ... Until Hot Chip's mothership heaves back into view, Taylor's emotive, immersive solo output will tide things over nicely. [May 2018, p.93]

It's an engaging, sometimes beautiful step forward. [Apr 2015, p.92]

A newly dynamic SAG here build on the intuitive eclecticism of last year's "59:59" debut. [Nov 2009, p.100]

Welcome Back To Milk is a powerful outpouring, but what lingers are the pauses for reflection. [Jun 2015, p.87]

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

It's a joy to hear VDP's mission with the boosted clarity of 21st century production. [Jun 2013, p.87]

We Are Chaos thrives when Manson ditches his horrorcore shtick and actually emotes. [Nov 2020, p.80]

Though lacking the infernal dynamics of 2009's Farm, there remains sufficient compensation to delight Dino devotees. [Oct 2012, p.88]

This is an exciting second act, tempered by the occasionally predictable moment. [Oct 2014, p.87]

For all its cryptic lyrics and melodic complexities, the revelation it constantly seems to promise never quite arrives, but repave remains a grand gesture. [Oct 2013, p.95]

Coming in at just 28 minutes. .... But the grand old man of Afrobeat is on fine form throughout, challenging the horns and bass to follow his lead. [Aug 2023, p.83]

Studs Nuggets ruckus with broody grooves. [Mar 2020, p.96]

Lakeman is in his element. ... McGann's narration is disappointingly flat and some of the musical settings - like the shanty Sailing Time - are underplayed; but the songs are emotive. [Mar 2020, p.88]

'I Remember' and 'My Dearest Friend' are intimate, sad and soft.... More songs like these, and he would have a classic album on his hands. [Oct 2007, p.98]

It makes for perfect summer listening. [Aug. 2011, p. 101]

The arrangements sound less finessed, less "performed" and more file-shared this time out, and you sense Patient Number 9 has known corrective surgery. The great man's ongoing rage against the dying of the light still as its triumphs, though. [Oct 2022, p.85]

'Lifelong Passion' and 'Don't Stop Running' suggest that there's something inspirational, even cathartic, about making an album under an assumed name (even if the world know it's you). McCartney should do it more often. [Dec 2008, p.111]

Pop songs at warp speed in the vein of say, All or early Lemonheads. [May 2014, p.96]

Enjoyable, but the signposting towards "the good bits" can be a tad too obvious. [Jun 2013, p.86]

Ron in terrific voice; Santana's Latin rock and jazz notes both beautiful and rousing. [Sep 2017, p.96]

She ensures these songs keep it together. [Sep 2020, p.88]

The whole soundtrack comes downbeat, mum-like fusion of standard instruments and glitchy electronics run throughout all the atmospheric instrumentals. [Sep 20129, p.89]

Both beguiling and frustrating, The Ascension is complex, bold and oddly lovable. [Nov 2020, p.89]

It is her once feral voice, now markedly more controlled, which proves most impressive here. [Jun 2012, p.88]

It's not always easy to get emotional purchase on these songs, but the hint of something moving beneath the immaculate surfaces makes the challenge worthwhile. [Dec 2025, p.86]

Although the album's emphasis is on electronica--some of which is distinctly Balearic--these characteristically hymnal songs suggest fluid boundaries between each entity. [Dec 2017, p.90]

A queasy heat seeps into the Sonic Youth hiss and clang of My Little Tony, Jelsy's Bad Seeds metallic thrum and Shoo's slow, high plains drift. [Dec 2023, p.94]

Some are great. Some are thinner--but James's new groove has big promise. [Feb 2013, p.97]

Sometimes it works but often it just feels odd. [Apr 2014, p.105]

It is no ragbag collection, even if several tunes are little more than snippets. [May 2015, p.92]

Very promising young London singer. [May 2014, p.96]

Sisterworld's art-pop is perhaps more accessible than much of Liars' discography, but it's a sound this most restless group will likely tire of long before you do. [Mar 2010, p.98]

The sheer relentlessness dilutes that thrill factor, but there are shades, notably on the stately opener 2022 and the closing Sleep Cult. [Feb 2023, p.91]

Always Tomorrow sounds like a last laugh - elegantly modulated, slightly hollow. [Apr 2020, p.88]

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

Jade Bird's compelling voice is the deliberately uncontested focus of her no nonsense debut. [May 2019, p. 93]

The new wave veteran's magic touch has left his current charges' blend of plaintive pop and indie-punk edginess a tad shinier but otherwise safely intact. [Apr 2015, p.92]

Tellingly, Al Jardine and David Marks return here, their harmonies shining in the gorgeously dreamy Whatever Happened. [May 2015, p.93]

Cavernous drones suggesting messages from a reverberant brutalist cathedral somewhere out in the California desert. [May 2014, p.96]

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

With the skeleton of a dance beat on Daydream, you can picture Powers doing a little skip around his bedroom, momentarily escaping the sad, hermetic beauty that characterises his record. [Jan 2012, p.96]

There are so many tricks twirling for your attention that the effect is a little like wearing all your clothes at once. [Jun 2005, p.100]

Eighth LP settles into a classic rock groove. [Jan 2016, p.98]

Vocals are stretched and warped, beats submerged into icy baths. [Dec 2012, p.94]

Striken, sorrowful balladry is the meat of this fine album. [Feb 2008, p.102]

The Pretties turn in a brand new album of mostly original material recorded the righteous way on analogue gear, displaying considerably more energy and invention than most what's around today. [Nov 2007, p.108]

For all the florid curlicues and crescendos, Welch's second album is light on true beauty, real idiosyncrasy. [Dec. 2011, p.94]

In all, a tad more mannered and staid than you'd expect from these former experimentalists. [Mar 2013, p.94]

Though the ingenuity of the project occasionally outguns the quality of the songwriting, Darnielle's spadework has resulted in a zesty, spontaneous-sounding record. [Sep 2022, p.95]

From thrilling and ecstatic to confounding and even infuriating-- Bailing Man's A Day Such As This, and David Thomas's vocal freakery throughout, is all of these--post-punk Ubu is one of a kind. [Apr 2016, p.104]

The band sound like they're striding into the mainstream, leaving Desveaux sounding more of a sweet, upbeat pop-rock songstress than she should. [Apr 2009, p.109]

Cumulatively, the combination of Ashworth's sub-Bill Callahan levels of vocal animation and the mid-paced songs with tolling chord changes can err towards the enervating rather than the enigmatic, but funkier beats and mellotron give White Jetta a lift. [Jun 2009, p.96]

Wildly uneven, sporadically awesome. [Jun 2015, p.92]

A promising diversity of ideas, tempo and riffs. [Feb 2018, p.97]

Solo he's more ruminative. [Apr 2020, p.91]

Much of the airbrushed pop-metal nous that elevated 1983's Pyromania and 1987's Hysteria back in evidence. [Feb 2016, p.92]

If the imagery on this album is often solemn--ice, looming meteorological disaster, remote canyons--it isn't melodramtically so. [June 2008, p.109]

Though her fellow Willies may not possess her audience-pulling ability, they lack nothing in the way of talent. [Feb 2012, p.94]

It's just a shame his parochial worldview is often at odds with his music's overreaching grandstanding. [Mar 2013, p.94]

This extended family Sunn))))/Boris supergroup opt for cross-referenced influences. [Apr 2013, p.98]