Notwithstanding the occasional banjo and flute intrusion, in essence this remains flamboyant, '60s-tinged guitar pop, forever poised equidistant between accessibility and inscrutability. [Apr 2015, p.93]

He's made a dramatic leap between first and second album as profound and unexpected as that of John Grant. [Feb 2014, p.96]

Treacherous lapses notwithstanding, there's enough vim and invention here to suggest that Foals may yet prove themselves champion thoroughbreds. [June 2010, p. 96]

Impermanence resonates like a lullaby, or a prayer. [Mar 2017, p.90]

Real heart pulses behind the earwiggy riffs, the lyrics tracing ideas of love from first stage to last, more nuances being revealed on each play. [Oct 2019, p.85]

Regardless of language, it’s substantive synth-pop with broad appeal. [Oct 2024, p.91]

Regardless of these felicitous connections, however, Hoop remains her own invention and the appeal of her biographical details doesn't lie so much in the glitzy endorsement of Waits as in the fact they chime so perfectly with her melding of Kat Bush sensuality and Mary Poppins whimsy. [Dec 2009, p. 95]

Her ideas and unabashed sexual allusions, certainly, are a good deal more interesting than her inflexible retro-electro rumble. [Oct 2015, p.92]

Threat levels peak on Sewer Blues' ominous, John Carpenter reverberation. [May 2017, p.98]

This parade of audacious flops is a powerful introduction to this great band's pleasures, should you need one. [Jul 2017, p.104]

Girl Band play ugly noise with a charisma and energy to drag them from the no wave ghetto, to somewhere bigger. [Nov 2015, p.89]

Bows & Arrows might seem like the ideal rock'n'roll yuletide soundtrack--and it is, but only for those who spend their Christmases in dive bars with nothing but a gold-hearted hooker, bottomless highball glass and volume of Bukowski poetry for company. [May 2004, p.100]

After a corkingly good start with 'Don't You Wish It was True?,' the album dips into Creedence by the numbers for several cuts with only the gospelly 'River IS Waiting sounding fresh. [Nov 2007, p.92]

Raskit junks its predecessor’s egregious schmaltz for marauding bass and spartan trap backings. They amplify a biting double-time flow his nearest rivals would readily trade jaws for, Dizzee slaying his competition on Focus and Wot U Gonna Do? and literally eating them for dinner on Space (“Can’t find enough time to dine on rappers / All these MCs are looking like tapas”). There’s depth, too.

A singular voice, in more ways than one. [Dev 2017, p.90]

Strip off the rock'n'roll trappings of Spiritualized circa Pure Phase, or tune in to Terry Riley at his most horizontal, and you are close to the immersive pleasure here. [Jun 2021, p.85]

Each note feels laser cut, accompanied by the bellowing bass keys that have long characterised Geist's work. [Oct 2022, p.87]

10 elegantly rendered tracks, uncovering an intersection of The Clientele and Waxahatchee. [Jun 2023, p.91]

Frisell is travelling a unique, but to old admirers, rather familiar path here. [Apr 2026, p.91]

The album isn't defined by what is on the record but what's missing, and sometimes less is just, well, less. [Oct 2014, p.94]

Jones's playing is inventive throughout, comparing favourably to his work with the M.G.'s. [Sep 2013, p.86]

It's in a familiar lineage [of meditative alt-rock]--shoegaze, Sigur Ros--but very much at the quality end of the spectrum. [Oct 2013, p.87]

Hersh still transmits a visionary quality through her songs, her writing only adding to the sense of compulsion. [Dec 2013, p.88]

A deep, powerful and satisfying album. [Jul 2021, p.82]

Apart from the more lightweight yarning of In Electric Blue, each track on this album takes you further into her brave new world. [Jun 2023, p.94]

Wild Beasts' stripped down songs have developed incrementally into a more electronic direction and these finely detailed arrangements feature twitchy kit and synthetic drums, sequencers, abstract sonics, '80s keyboard stabs and guitars occasionally let off the leash. [Sep 2016, p.95]

His innate genius for transforming base building blocks into rhythmically compelling, humanist dance gold shines through. [Aug 2015, p.89]

Elegiac Montreal collective's relatively orthodox sixth album. [May 2010, p. 97]