Few can match The Cribs for their facility with bruised melodies and crunchy dynamics, perfecting here a transatlantic noise that draws equally on Smithsian jangle (the jaunty Never The Same) and Sonic Youth squall (Dark Luck). [Mar 2026, p.86]

Starts with a raw, retro-rock song with a big, catchy chorus - one of several swaggering electric guitar numbers (Strange Companion; Loyalty; On fire) But there's a lot more going on in these 12 songs. [Mar 2026, p.87]

This album feels like a reliable harbour. [Jun 2026, p.87]

Sparkling banjos arpeggios; freak-out saxophjone; John Parish's inventive production; a wealth og strong, beautifully-enunciated vocal melodies--tons has gone into the latest work from Kate Stables, aka This Is The Kit, and all of it is good. [Aug 2017, p.91]

The Western lands proffers a winning cocktail of shimmering guitar harmonics, grand sweeping choruses, drums that avoid funk like the plague and solemn, psychogeographi lyrics from the Ian Curtis school. [Oct 2007, p.94]

The stage is small, the set short, but as ever, The Bad Seeds contain multitudes. [Jan 2014, p.96]

Shows a good deal more focus than their last two studio efforts. [Nov 2005, p.104]

A compelling exercise in craft. [Jul 2005, p.96]

This is not a Big Rock Record. Instead it's intimate, multi-layered and uplifting. [Apr 2005, p.86]

The snotty attitude of MIA's incendiary globalist skipping rhymes has never been better balanced with first-rate pop hooks. [Jan 2014, p.96]

This is a great record for and about New Orleans and one of the best the two men have ever made. [Jun 2006, p.96]

Stranger Me is accurately titled. It's both intriguing and entertaining throughout. [Sept. 2011, p. 106]

For a record about a lonely planet, it makes all the right connections. [Sept. 2011, p. 96]

Beguilingly, knowingly rendered debut. [Jul 2023, p.92]

Vividly of-the-moment, rich in melody and wry optimism. [Mar 2007, p.104]

You certainly feel stimulated, but as with those frenzied, uber-detailed set pieces on modern-day CGI animation movies, there's almost too much to process. [Mar 2019, p.91]

Their strictly modal, contemplative soundscapes have rarely sounded more compelling. [Mar 2006, p.93]

These 11 songs brim with images of armed men, noxious air and entitled egotists, intermingled with notions of self-liberation and community solidarity. But the sonics too often seem stuck in Garbus's past. [Jul 2025, p.83]

This ragged, feverish concoction, fortified by choppy-bar-band tropes as Sensor mirrors Paul Westerberg's disillusioned bonhomie. [Aug 2017, p.90]

Painkillers suggests their frontman really was holding his best songs back. [Apr 2016, p.88]

It's another absorbing, sonically rich record, albeit one lacking a chunk of the charm that marked out its predecessor. [Dec 2013, p.89]

Generous handclaps and a beautifully thrumming guitar buoy The Loneliness & The Scream. Living In Coulour, meanwhile, is a statement of intent, chiming pianos and a reeling rhythm pushing things along, typifying an album made by a band happily at the peak of its powers. [mar 2010, p.90]

An intense, slightly avant chum. [Aug 2021, p.86]

Cassadaga is an album to warm souls, rally minds and break hearts in equal measure. [May 2007, p.110]

No self-indulgence, no grandstanding, just excellent. [Mar 2004, p.100]

An arresting cocktail of post-punk angularity and instinctive pop savy. [Feb 2004, p.102]

Manages to provide a more coherent and enjoyable listening experience than mainstream dance bods like Daft Punk and Basement Jaxx have delivered of late. [Album of the Month, April 2002, p.94]

Alluringly odd. [Mar 2002, p.112]