At first spiky and combative, gradually (and ultimately) it is hypnotic and calmative. [Dec 2022, p.89]

There's a playful quality to the chunky adrenalin-soaked fuzz the duo create. [Jul 2015, p.86]

Dwyer's crew are oft-cited as the world's most exciting live rock band; they're also making some of its most exciting rock records. [Sep 2017, p.93]

Hotly tipped Ipswich rapper's expansive debut. [July 2011, p. 112]

Beautiful songs studded with dissonant eruptions of noise. [Oct 2018, p.94]

It's a compact yet satisfying set of 10 surging semi-acoustic almost-ballads with occasional electric interludes. [Sep 2013, p.91]

Arguably Plant's most Zeppelinesque solo work to date. [May 2005, p.92]

It's not tidy, but fittingly for such unabashed pop maximalists, there's a lot to love here. [Jan 2019, p.84]

Think Jolie Holland, or P.J. Harvey's To Bring You My Love, and prepare to be entranced. [Jan 2019, p.90]

A more intimate dimension to this incisive chronicler of beleaguered times. [May 2022, p.88]

It's as if the quintet has not yet achieved lift-off velocity. As such, the most fascinating tracks here are the older standards. [Sep 2023, p.94]

The years don’t fall away – you feel every one – but this recording shows just what a beautiful thing that can be.

The ballads bewitch, reminding us that Tracey is one of the unique British voices, up there with Dusty. [Apr 2007, p.100]

He delivers another strange and beautiful record, retooling is soporific folk sound with synths and experimental soundscapes. [Apr 2021, p.81]

Songs to keep returning to with no hope of ever exhausting their meaning. [Apr 2020, p.84]

In The Magic Hour is, in turn, both exhilarating and exploratory. [Feb 2016, p.97]

Overall, this is pretty near perfect. [Dec 2013, p.90]

The Truckers have always been a direct band but this time there's a kind of foreplay, where each song gives the other time and consideration. [Mar 2008, p.100]

Wriggins remains his own elusive self, his songs forever moving between the prosaic and the ecstatic. [Sep 2022, p.89]

A fourth album of brisk Saharan grooves, heavy jamming and trance percussion. [May 2018, p.98]

Velocifero is comparable to pop at its best--travelling straight to the brain's pleasure centres but taking a strange tantalising cargo with it. [July 2008, p.110]

Through the overdriven riffage, juggernaut rhythms and starey-eyed James Cox's foghorn yowling, some proper and highly dynamic songcraft does emerge. [Apr 2019, p.93]

Two dark, roiling 22-minute tracks that conjure up a world of nature in turmoil. [Feb 2012, p.97]

You can't pin them down, but there lies the joy. [Jun 2025, p.84]

While Tonight: Franz Ferdinand might not take all the chances those early reports suggested, it shows the band examing their world from all angles, from the unflattering profile in the mirror behind the batr to the long hard look into the soul. Life in three dimensions suits them very well indeed. [Feb 2009, p.102]

A trancelike alliance of technical mastery and instinctual chemistry far greater than the sum of its acoustic parts, GoGo Penguin already feels definitive. [Jun 2020, p.93]

Witty, tender pieces to charm even those for who wrestling means Shirley Crabtree. [May 2015, p.100]

The main strength of this album is how the guitar playing, which is superb throughout, feels inextricably bound to the structure and shape of the melodies. [Jul 2016, p.95]