Pollard sounds more curious and engaged here than on some recent releases, and the result is the most compelling GBV of their third act. [Aug 2024, p.82]

This is a very traditional U2 album, the sort of album people want U2 to make. [Dec 2004, p.96]

[A] powerful debut. [Nov 2017, p.103]

Valerie call this "organic moonshine roots music"--it's the perfect phrase to sum up her glorious sound. [Jul 2013, p.88]

Another weighty addition to this first-choice list. [Dec 2015, p.91]

A bewitching record. [Aug 2006, p.96]

To some, Hurts lugubrious, gruff delivery might jar with the LP, but it's entirely intentional--they cast the beauty and simplicity of the melodies into even sharper relief. [Oct 2011, p.96]

Their latest band, captured on Live Forever in full electric flow. [Jun 2026, p.84]

Martin Phillips was, and is, a singular songwriter, whose unassuming delivery belied songs of psychological depth and complexity. [Dec 2014, p.89]

The brothers have recorded an album that goes to the heart of who they are. [Jul 2026, p.80]

Exquisitely intimate; the kind of emotionally articulate record Karen Carpenter might have made had she lived longer and fully discovered her own writing voice. [Feb 2024, p.87]

Shulamith proves that intelligent pop music still has the ability to seduce and enthrall. [Dec 2013, p.86]

Vibes, instrumental and psychic, are crucial to Angeles' reverberant keys or redemptive LP coda, Pigs. [Apr 2021, p.88]

While some of its more indulgent elements may not be to all tastes, his scale of ambition and dazzling audacity should be applauded. [Apr 2025, p.76]

Self-produced and tracked with manifest passion and finesse. [Apr 2016, p.94]

Beneath the surface sheen, Resistance Is Futile is a complex, multi-layer work. [May 2018, p.88]

Dense of riff and melody but not crassly anthemic, their sledgehammer euphoria is Kyuss gone monster trucking. [Dec 2010, p.97]

Most are country ballads--sentimental, heartfelt and tend towards sacred. [Apr 2009, p.109]

The core idea brings a bright focus and forward movement to their gummy, ambrosial stoner sound, adding bright melody and fairytale zing to these end-of-summer tales of beachbound escape and smalltown torpor. [Nov 2009, p.101]

This second is more sophisticated [than 2018 debut Sistahs]; distorted guitars still feedback and synths jar, but there is also mellotron, violin and Omnichord bringing subtlety and depth. [Dec 2022, p.91]

In just any universe, Playing Favorites would dominate the world's FM stations for two years straight. [Apr 2024, p.84]

The pace plods on some mid-tempo tracks, but overall this is a personal, politically-charged mix of dark thoughts and good vibes. [Aug 2019, p.88]

The 52-minute suite was mostly recorded live, as Ray vamps, beautifully as always, through shivery glades of country blues, girl-group drama and Link Wray throb: this time around, she dwells at the shadowy end of the street, with less room for levity. [Jul 2016, p.93]

Brilliant! Tragic! soars on the crumbling wings of an Adverts-brand art-punk and Argos's much-improved bellow. [Jun 2011, p.96]

The tribute album of the year, a cavalcade of orch-pop joy, an object lesson in songwriting smarts. [Dec 2003, p.106]

This is music for interiors, sequestered days in tune with the beauty of our immediate surroundings. [Dec 2020, p.85]

No more the quieter introspection and reflection of solo tracks like Hormones or Fever Dream – here Thorn and Watt are a combined force, capturing the giddy euphoria and release of the club experience.

The shared predilection for sub-Saharan styles is implicit, if not obscure, across Let It Be You's 10, expansively produced essays. [Nov 2016, p.89]