It is all heart, it is truth and it is beautiful. [Jun 2003, p.94]

Measuring out grief and resilience with a steady hand, these are the best songs of Low's quiet career. [Feb 2001, p.98]

New York is one of Reed's strongest solo albums, with its tight focus, impassioned lyrics and spare, almost punky music. This is a deserved reissue, but the extras - a complete, energetic live rendition of the record from 1989, and some outtakes including he unissued The Room - are for fans only. [Nov 2020, p.92]

And In The Darkness, Hearts Aglow again shows Mering's most extraordinary craft. [Dec 2022, p.82]

This is Swans at their most user-unfriendly and trouser soiling. [Sep 2012, p.94.]

Expertly sequenced as a narrative of lethargy, collapse and recovery, Purple Mountains is ultimately an album about return. It is the sound of David Berman coming back from the cold and converting it to a welcoming, lyrical warmth. ... Prepare to be taken in. [Aug 2019, p.86]

Enhancing the listener's wonder at her rapid evolution, shoreline to treetops in under four years. [Dec 2020, p.90]

The most remarkable collaboration since Norah Jones and the Foo Fighters is also one of the best albums of the year. [Nov 2007, p.92]

Let's Stay Friends is a triumphant fusion of graft and glimmer. [Nov 2007, p.96]

Despite their meticulous craft, these songs don't feel like curated artefacts--they feel raw, unquiet, still moving. Vulnicura might tell an old story, but it still feels new. [Apr 2015, p.87]

The songs feel like they're boiling over, there's so much heat under them. [Mar 2004, p.95]

Nash and long-time CSNY associate Joel Bernstein have produced the set with reportorial faithfulness, arranging the songs to mirror a typical marathon night and leaving the scars intact.... You also hear the group's genuine power and competitive fury at its height as the four rotate the spotlight through their individual songbooks. [Aug 2014, p.103]

Mind-expanding stuff. [May 2017, p.106]

As passionately exciting as anything in the classic Carlos canon, Africa Speaks is an album of highlight after highlight. [Jul 2019, p.87]

His rare talent for corralling emphatic musicians into his rhythmically intense, entrancing vision adds a whole new spin to the Indo-jazz continuum. [Aug 2019, p.91]

McFarlane creates a series of vibrant storytelling soundscapes where her sweetly soulful harmonised vocals intertwine with woozy synth sounds and throbbing electronic rhythms. [Sep 2020, p.92]

An expansive, summery jazz-funk crossover that lives and dies on its monster grooves. [Aug 2021, p.85]

Donaldson keeps refining what is essentially one song. ... Fortunately, Donaldson's undeniable homage is exquisitely on the nose, one comforting swoon after another. [Mar 2022, p.86]

This is a new mature indie scene in the making. [May 2022, p.94]

Its 13 songs are mostly slow but diverse. ... Sometimes sentimental, sung in a dusty voice that still sounds strong. [Oct 2022, p.90]

10 moving gems of adult experience. [Oct 2025, p.90]

The new sound of young Scotland. [Dec 2025, p.82]

Lloyd is joined by pianist Jason Moran and guitarist Marvin Sewell, who prove highly empathetic collaborators, creating delicately nuanced backdrops that are conductive to the saxophonist's poetic storytelling. [Nov 2025, p.82]

Yes, it can be formulaic, but when it's this deadly, bring on the soundalikes. Mar 2026, p.97]

There are grand arrangements and barbed bon mots in the style of Randy Newman and Harry Nilsson, but what's most striking are the more restrained moments. [Mar 2014, p.94]

An engaging, rewarding whole [that] speaks volumes about the breadth of both of his imagination and compositional agility. [Nov 2013, p.86]

If at times things veer towards needy, the sum of the set is saved by how real it all feels. [Sep 2018, p.92]

The results make for a chilling and captivating experience, with the unexpected musical flourishes in stop-start songs. [Sep 2009, p.104]