All told, a spellbinding journey. [Mar 2014, p.100]

Less direct than its 2012 predecessor The Shadow Of Heaven, Suicide Songs collects richly arranged reflections which climax with A Cocaine Christmas And An Alcoholic's New Year. [Feb 2016, p.96]

Gately's soft vocal melodies audible through the layers of madness, leading you to points of strange beauty and lyrical wonder. [Jan 2017, p.97]

A striking stop-gap for Krug and Siinai. [May 2012, p.87]

What's new, though, is how Taylor has pushed his music's most rousing dimensions to the fore. [Oct 2023, p.84]

They are a fuller-sounding group in 2013. [Apr 2013, p.91]

Even though Marathon is rife with such oblique, ominous trails (Safety offers "Compleete us/King snake ringed with rust"), it still feels like a personal and revealing testimonial. [Apr 2026, p.93]

[Ladytron] have evolved into a dark behemoth, trading much of their Moogy plinky-plonk poise and gentle subversion for ominous rock thunder. [Sep 2005, p.96]

The result is a brilliant modern singer-songwriter record, full of wit and musical variations. [May 2009, p.100]

Disturbing. [Feb 2012, p.102]

She further unleashes her psyche in a voice of throaty, Diamanda Galas-style intesity. [Jan 2022, p.88]

They wear their ideas on their sleeves, certainly, but under all the layers, a heartbeat is sometimes hard to find. [Feb 2008, p.104]

With his trademark gothic drawl, Patterson Hood limns close highway calls with perspicacity, then mourns the compatriots he's lost to foibles and vices alike. Perennially underrated Mike Cooley, meanwhile, hands in some of his sharpest-ever writing. [Jul 2022, p.86]

James's reputation as one of electronic music's most daring, inquisitive artists grows record by record. [Dec 2022, p.91]

This is thrilling, intelligent stuff. [Dec 2002, p.122]

This has more than enough beauty and character to stand on its own. [Mar 2009, p.107]

Despite the record's impromptu genesis, its results sound endearing. [Apr 2014, p.93]

Though the battering ram thrust of Sad But True takes some beating, other highlights are James Hetfield solo with orchestra on The Unforgiven III, and on (Anesthesia) Pulling Teeth, SFS principal bassist Scott Pingel paying tribute to Metallica's Cliff Burton, who died in 1986 aged 24. [Oct 2020, p.86]

Welfare Jazz finds them dropping through the gears and settling on a sound that often resembles the frazzled nocturnal grooves magicked up during Josh Homme's Desert Sessions. [Mar 2021, p.90]

The overall effect is a bit off-key, ill-defined and generally incomprehensible yet warm and attractive. [Mar 2007, p.100]

Meticulously constructed. [Nov 2006, p.114]

The best of the original bunch is still the frantic rockabilly charge Wearing And Tearing from the Polar Studio sessions.... What gives this new Coda its edge are versions of Four Sticks and Friends recorded in 1972 by Page and Plant in Bombay with local musicians who'd never heard a Led Zeppelin song before. [Sep 2015, p.98]

By the closing traditional, Fair Annie (Child Ballad 62), much of the atmospheric murk has lifted, revealing a radiant kinship with the like of Trees, similarly uncanny folk-rock alchemists from the cusp of the 1970s. [Dec 2018, p.88]

The constant, keenig purity of Ohiona Molina's vocals save all this from becoming too relentlessly dispiriting. [Aug 2009, p.104

Its aim is true, uplifting and yes, mighty persuasive. [Mar 2024, p.80]

They've carved a bleak and beautiful album; their best, in fact. [May 2004, p.106]

Finds them fine-tuning their class act, Dickon Hinchcliffe's choice string arrangements underpinning a typically careworn set. [Jul 2003, p.107]

While on occasion disappointingly heavy handed, the more wistful moments shine through the murk. [Nov 2002, p.105]