It's not perfect by any means, and having two of the weakest tracks in pole positions doesn't help. [May 2002, p.98]

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

U2's strongest album this century. [Jan 2018, p.86]

A subversion of new age, but still oddly soothing in its own way. [Aug 2020, p.94]

If you didn't know what the band have been capable of, this would be good enough. [Aug 2005, p.94]

It's too mixed a bag of highlights and lowlights to be lovable. [Feb 2007, p.100]

Affecting and shot-through with tension. [Dec 2017, p.92]

It's late-night, it's autumnal and it's really rather lovely. [Jan 2026, p.82]

A baffling mix of forgettable riffs and clumsy lyricism. [Jun 2019, p.96]

Former Miles Kane sideman McGuinness concocts his fifth solo record with solid powerpop. [Aug 2014, p.96]

There's little real sense of progression here... and at times New Order sound dreary and ordinary. [May 2005, p.96]

Gray returns in strident form with this mature mediation on womanhood, sex and love. [Nov 2014, p.102]

There's a back-to-basics feel on the mid-tempo country rockers, the slow beauties and mournful lap steel, and even on the musically warm, more upbeat, almost Tex-Mex opening song. [Sep 2009, p.92]

His most commercial sounding material to date. [Nov 2002, p.106]

Slick and melodic but more Placebo than Pumpkins. [Aug 2019, p.98]

A glossy finish leaves little to hang on to. [Dec 2013, p.92]

An audibly irked record.... Girl Talk has balls and tunes. [Apr 2013, p.88]

Intelligent, funny, heartbreaking atl-rock, Hornby lyrics music and vocals by Folds. [Oct. 2010, p. 92]

While Grace Potter's vocals are unquestionably impressive on this fourth album--she still hasn't carved out a trademark voice of her own. The music is equally bland. [Sep 2010, p.102]

There's nothing here to match their gonzo 2003 hit I Believe In A Thing Called Love.... But there's still laugh-out silliness. [Jul 2015, p.92]

Not every moment is transcendent.... But otherwise, this is that rare thing, an album that shares new pleasures each time you hear it, made by someone who's still excited by music. [Nov 2005, p.102]

She immediately impresses with a solid version of Wanda Jackson's Funnel Of Love, then moves on to deliver a brace of Patsy Cline classics that stand the comparison test, before with the aid of Vince Gill, whooping it up on You're The Reason Our Kids Are Ugly. [Jun 2016, p.94]

Beats click and rumble while Jewel simpers baby-doll vocals which sound deflatingly calculated. [Oct 2003, p.114]

The Wallflowers make some of the best radio-friendly hooks and melodies around. [Mar 2003, p.112]

Rodgers' fealty to rhythm is still unquestionable from opener Till The World Falls through the emphatic beats that drive Boogie All Night and single Sober, which are clearly less subtle than "old" Chic. [Dec 2018, p.90]

Eerily pretty if a little ponderous. [Jun 2014, p.98]

Lavish second release from Welsh synth-pop artist Rod Thomas. [Aug 2014, p.96]

All in all, this is an unqualified triumph. [Nov 2015, p.86]

[A] soaring yet engagingly earthly first album. [Nov 2015, p.96]

Rattle's haunting weird-pop stands out like ghosts in the daytime. Spread over an album, truthfully, it's a trying listen. [Sep 2016, p.93]

There’s quite a variety of country musicians here. Most tend to play their selection pretty straight, though Rhiannon Giddens has an interesting take on Don’t Come Around Here No More. ... It’s the old school who provide this collection’s highlights. [Aug 2024, p.89]

Strong mastery of mood and era, but the overcast ennui palls before the album's close. [Aug 2020, p.94]

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]

Jared Artaud and Brian MacFadyen pack a pummeling version of cultural vacancy, though they're a tad predictable. [Sep 2014, p.93]

[The] material [is] often so simple in construction that a check of the enclosed lyric sheet is sometimes necessary to ensure the songs really exist. [Jan 2003, p.102]

[A] breezy conflation of Beta Band-esque jollity, default indie guitar chime and High Llamas-style retro melody. [May 2003, p.95]

Nelson sounds edgy while Ali Jackson's percussion solo probably looks good on TV but bores aurally. [July 2011, p. 107]

It's a fine - if eccentric- album, but a bit of extra tinsel wouldn't have hurt. [Jan 2012, p.98]

Frustratingly, that search [for plaidits] and presumably producer du jour Ethan Johns--has led them into the uncomfortable territory of bombastic, charmless "October/War"-era U2. [Oct 2007, p.92]

A coffee table record. [Jun 2007, p.114]

While Harvieu's voice shows she's got potential, the material tends towards the bland and boring. [May 2012, p.84]

On a basic, gut-punching level they deliver with inarguable aplomb. [Feb 2016, p.92]

Almost every track plays nice sweet-and-sour tricks on the ears. But maximum, piercingly intelligent, heartfelt Crow comes through only in Sending A Letter To God. [Oct 2005, p.98]

Only By The Night is best viewed as a transitional record from a band who have quite literally done their growing up in public. [Oct 2008, p.98]

Whatever they're called, Sabbath still rule. [Jun 2009, p.99]

This Family album goes toward capturing the band's undeniable genius, in music that lingers like the most terrifying dream. [Feb 2016, p.91]

The frat-boy humour is wearing a tad thin. [Oct 2011, p.97]

The album is engagingly eclectic, always melodic, sometimes hard and storming, but never quite so sublime [as single "Good Boys"]. [Nov 2004, p.132]

A vast, often splendid affair that recalls the lavish expanse of Roger Waters-era Pink Floyd alongside the psychedelic crash of The Who. [Dec 2003, p.122]

At once as snug as a velvet quilt in a log cabin, yet as challenging and testing as modern architecture, VII is a signpost to a whole new direction for Americana. [Jan 2014, p.100]

There are mimics here but actually surprising few for a tribute. The best salutes to the famously fragile songwriter reincarnate his work in new guises. [Nov 2016, p.87]

While his alienated, laissez-faire flow disguises sly pop sensibilities on the smoked-out, funereal-paced Red Bottom Sky and Silver Arrows, it's bare-bones lament Agony that sums up his charm. [Jan 2018, p.94]

Their most challenging record to date. [Nov 2004, p.102]

The continuing resemblance of their lyrics to motivational speeches may still grate on non-fans. [Oct 2013, p.88]

Her songs are full of girl group feistiness. But not all of them. [Jul 2015, p.94]

A return to the Guillemots beckons, then, but Fly Yellow Moon is still an enthralling and at times euphoric affair. [Feb 2010, p. 97]

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

[A] thrilling state-of-a-broken-nation address. [Jun 2013, p.95]

It's all a bit similar, and amazingly unmoving, until the last number. [May 2014, p.92]

Clearly not a point of entry for the uninitiated, but all serious Wire-ologists need this. [Sep 2014, p.107]

No nonsense also means no frills and Stereophonics still follow the white line straight down the middle, doggedly relying on songs rather than production dazzle or image to see them through. [Oct 2015, p.96]

2017's TLC are clearly more comfortable reminiscing, making their good-natured fifth less futureshock, more time machine. [Aug 2017, p.89]

An evocative set of instrumentals, rich in texture and gentle, melancholic beauty. [May 2007, p.103]

It all becomes a bit of a grind--and not entirely in a sexy way. [Aug 2008, p.103]

As M. Ward's unflustered, vintage-sounding guitars gift memories of Chet Atkins and Les Paul, there's a welcome, brandies-by-the fireside serenity afoot. [Jan 2012, p.92]

It's core is stop-start, angular digital transmissions entwined with acoustic piano and smokey analogue-synth interludes. [Apr 2013, p.95]

It's hard to imagine droves of converts flocking to so abstruse a musical cocktail, but it's a welcome addition to the Grubbs canon, nonetheless. [Jul 2013, p.87]

Enjoyable, though less revelatory, Arcade Fire's Games Without Frontiers, Joseph Arthur's agonised Shock The Monkey and Lou Reed's Jokily grindscaping Solsbury Hill contrast with Paul Simon's restrained Biko. [Nov 2013, p.91]

His sixth solo offering is a surprisingly mainstream jolly. [May 2015, p.97]

It's rather an unsuccessful mish-mash, especially given the aggressive diversity of the guest stars. ... But the weakest link is Morello's hyperactive and ultimately distracting tic towards Skrillex-esque techno bursts, bleeps and squelches, which ensure The Atlas Underground will age worse than MAGA hats. [Dec 2018, p.84]

Out Of Control is something kinda meh. [Jan 2008, p.104]

Ziggy never quite manages to be his own man here. [May 2014, p.86]

It might be another album indebted to the '80s, but the sound of discovery has seldom been such fun as is. [Nov 2010, p.107]

Such earnestness makes for a terrifically hard slog. [Aug 2004, p.93]

While the album has its awkward moments, there are enough slinkily wonderful tunes, gleeful beats and miments of genuine tenderness to make Skinner's transformation not just convincing but also really rather lovely. [Oct 2008, p.100]

They haven't really been missed, yet it's good to have them back. [Jun 2012, p.83]

In its own way, Time is as pleasingly surprising as Bowie's re-emergence. [Jun 2013, p.86]

This is musical wheatgrass juice: wholesome, virtous, but ultimately fun-free. [Mar 2008, p.115]

Some ace stuff aboard here.... But you do long for MES to turn up with a sheaf of structured writing, as per Hex Enduction, rather than a sozzled brainful of scattered grievances and in-jokes. [Jul 2013, p.86]

It's impeccably stylish, idiosyncratic stuff, as ever, but is a little more heart too much to ask for? [Apr 2007, p.108]

Belle Starr and... Red Staggerwing finds [Knopfler] reaching for a goodtime clambake feel that ends up sounding kinda grating and twee. [Jun 2006, p.98]

Somewhere in there Brown's murmurous vocals and the lyrics tend to get lost. [Sep 2001, p.99]

Rubberband sounds too much like jazz's great disrupter chasing black-radio approval via The Human League. ... Rubberband is not a Great Lost Miles Davis Album. But it has a lot of great Miles Davis on it. [Oct 2019, p.101]

More non-threatening folk-pop. [Jul 2014, p.96]

It's not so much that the most singularly talented and important soul singer of now has let us down, more she's tried too hard to please. [Sep 2003, p.105]

Beneath The Skin becomes a cautionary take if how going for "affecting" can end up just terribly overwrought. [Jul 2015, p.90]

Esteemed guests such as flautist Michael McGoldrick, accordionist Phil Cunningham and fiddler John McCusker ornament the arrangements exquistely, while the Knopf's ever-tactile guitar continues to say more with three notes than most do with 20. [Oct 2009103]

A classy veneration of the Byrds, Bob and Band, exquisitely seasoned with phlegmy harmonies and subtle instrumentation. [Mar 2004, p.108]

There's an engaging sense of uncertainty running through these songs. [Mar 2010, p.96]

Patchy seven-song set. [Feb 2017, p.105]

It's polished, professional, but one for the faithful. [May 2023, p.89]

Bold, stirring and so unfashionable it just might work. [Mar 2003, p.114]

Their new direction sounds suspiciously like the old one. [Jul 2006, p.100]

Some of the most powerfully surging melodies from a British band since the second Travis album. [March 2002, p.114]

Once they settle in, Cats In Paris could be a hyper-modern Stackridge. [Sep 2008, p.98]

New all-star trio featuring Joseph Arthur, Ben Harper, and George Harrison's son, Dhani. [Jan. 2011, p. 96]

At it's best, it's a picaresque, altered-states voyage through old school hip-hop, black-leather electro and techno menace; elsewhere it's as invigorating as trying to get served at a bar. [Apr 2008, p.101]

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