One of the albums of the year. [Dec 2006, p.120]

Crackling with radio-primed hooks, whipsnap breakbeats and Boucher’s helium-pitched vocals, Grimes’ third album makes a convincing strike for playlist ubiquity, with a healthy dollop of the oddball chucked in.

Landing On A Hundred is a strong comeback that hopefully won't be followed by another decade of silence. [Dec 2012, p.84]

Colossal. [Apr 2025, p.85]

Whitley's is an unconventional neo-soul debut. [Apr 2013, p.98]

The rest is equally compelling, oscillating between eccentric skronk essays, woozy nocturnes, and harmonic hymns. It's jazz shorn of cliche that demands to be taken on its pigeonhole rebuffing merits. [Mar 2010, p.92]

Her lyrics draw you in, as she explores the chemistry of attraction on the title track to an appropriately sexy descending chord sequence, while a fly-by-night lover gets his comeuppance on Easy Street. [Oct 2018, p.84]

In all, an unexpected and all-encompassing feast. [Feb 2021, p.98]

Merrick's smoke-ring vocals rarely become agitated; the lyrics are unforced, unadorned, conversational to the point of artlessness. ... Yet there is tension here, lurking in the disconnect between Merrick's nonchalant vocals and the simmering volatility of the music. [Apr 2022, p.82]

[An] Extraordinary album. [Apr 2022, p.92]

Songs build from hypnotic bass grooves and spindly guitar lines, Lottie Pendlebury's nonchalant vocals intertwined with circular countermelodies that pull you into their undertow. Lyrically deft and witty. [Mar 2021, p.82]

No vintage-gear replicator, he's modern-sounding, fresh, fun--a genuine contender for 2007. [Mar 2007, p.105]

His bristling, unexpected arrangements draw new complexities from songs as familiar as Wade In The Water and Swing Low. [Nov 2023, p.87]

But from the off, the sounds here always convince. [Oct 2010, p.96]

The more elemental moments - Sour Flower's mournful rustle of handclaps, cymbals and Fender Rhodes, or the intimate, guitar-led Green Papaya and Can't fight - are understated, introspective and more powerful. [Aug 2020, p.84]

For all its filigree detail, Spring Eternal is a big philosophically questing record, a velvet glove hiding a death-like grip. [Mar 2024, p.90]

The result is laidback and chilled. [Apr 2003, p.104]

It's not morose--his voice is too engaging, his songs (and band) too good. [Jul 2013, p.92]

All in all, with its pervading doubts and joyful release, Glowing In The Dark is very much for these times. [Mar 2021, p.86]

This album makes good on the promise of earlier benchmarks like Ease Down The Road and Master And Everyone. [Oct 2006, p.102]

Introspective, electic brain-groove of the month. [Dec 2012, p.86]

Open's success lies in its final effect on the listener, an enveloping state of reassuring calm. [Dec 2013, p.84]

Periodically dormant they may be, but it's clearly a tactic that works for Jane's. [Nov 2011, p.93]

His 20th album has production that sounds home-made, as if he's singing besides you on the sofa while the bass player, drummer and peep-y keyboard player are playing in the empty attic upstairs. [Jun 2021, p.87]

The music is too futuristic--and, more bizarrely, too rooted in Indian Ocean folk roots--ever to get weighed down in heaviosity. [Mar 2015, p.96]

The New Yorkers' debut is retro but refreshing. [Dec. 2010, p. 106]

Simpson invests this bold, widescreen music with such heartfelt and real pathos and joy that it announces him as a major talent, and makes A Sailor’s Guide To Earth so rewarding.

Capturing his bad life choices, regrets and hopes at their most immediate. [Aug 2021, p.84]