A series of grand rippling hallucinations, unfolding ever outwards on the central melancholy theme. [Mar 2012, p.97]

Peaks: Tough Enough's flouncing post-punk; radiate's bright, Buzzcocks-meet-The Knack groove. [Apr 2019, p.96]

A mind-blowing creation merging the high period Dungen of Ta Det Lugnt with its more straightforward predecessor, 2002's Stadsvandringar. [Nov 2022, p.91]

Ronson and Wainwright have dressed these songs to kill, not just to impress. [May 2012, p.84]

Their music has a heavier gait, like a cross between a crazed Triffids and a stroppier Bad Seeds. [Oct 2006, p.102]

The Waterfall II comes fitted with escape hatches and launch pads. ... Those in search for a 2020 anthem, meanwhile, could do worse than the gorgeous calendar-collapse of Spinning My Wheels. [Sep 2020, p.86]

At times they resemble The B-52's having a bitter row, at others a particularly violent Femmes. [Jul 2005, p.110]

[The album is] spare, poignant, dark and dry. [Jul 2013, p.92]

Prim they may appear at times, but their offer of comfort in sound is impossible to refuse. [Nov 2012, p.90]

Daniel conveys an expert melancholy. its ups always just on the brink of an elegant down. [Mar 2024, p.88]

Moonbuilding 2703 AD proves that his space academy can still churn our excellent results. [Aug 2015, p.88]

Presence is the best of the three [remasters].... The deluxe edition's bonus track, a soft, piano-led instrumental titled Pod, reiterates how dark and gnarly the rest is. [Sep 2015, p.98]

[A] fine and discerningly lean album. [Sep 2016, p.93]

Inspired stuff, though its slightness feels like a tease, and leaves us hungry for more. [Aug 2018, p.88]

This long-rumoured debut is a thing of stark intimacy, rendered by just Pearson's rustic voice and roughly picked guitar, with an occasional smear of wintry violin or doleful piano. [Apr 2011, p.100]

This band's charms are elusive, indeed, but uniquely compelling. [Dec. 2010, p. 99]

It all adds up to the heavy, heavy sound of extinction rebellion, King Gizz developing themes they first explored on 2017's Murder Of The Universe. [Sep 2019, p.94]

Its successor emanates a similarly yeasty authenticity, stretching songs into epic ballads, its acoustic guitars, bass and drums ornamented by a lattice of deftly plucked and strummed things. [May 2009, p.105]

It's Converge's energy that impresses first, their brutal, full-blooded fury, the sheer physical assault; listen closer, however, and you'll find a group as inventive and progressive in their riffage as Slayer or Metallica at their early apex, a compulsive complexity to their chaos. [Feb 2010, p. 100]

To The Bone keeps its pop and prog influences in a near perfect balance--flash and flamboyant at times but with some lovingly crafted big tunes. [Sep 2017, p.86]

A rich score of chamber melancholy and electronic disquiet. [Mar 2016, p.97]

With her soaring, passionate voice the wail of a spectre, she's the incubus Kate Bush. [Aug 2013, p.88]

While there are shades of Berninger’s day band in the propulsive Nowhere Special, for the most part it’s a more laid-back affair in the stylistic vein of R.E.M.’s Automatic For The People, or a country-tinged The Blue Nile. [Jul 2025, p.86]

Stalking drumbeats collide with lush chords and Joel Cadbury's smoky vocals for an emotionally fragile record. [May 2004, p.104]

Cex moves slightly away from his former snot and swagger towards more humble inflection. [Jun 2003, p.108]

It's ever so nice, except for the nagging feeling that a disembodied voice is about to say, "I'm going to count backwards from five and, when I snap my fingers, you will wake up and remember none of this." [Sep 2002, p.106]

Sonic Nurse is not... a classic rock record. And it's not a classic Sonic Youth record. It's an excursion, into corners weird and corners familiar. [Jun 2004, p.100]

Miraculously, it succeeds as a rambunctious, unruly grenade of largely unmitigated spleen, a hail of words set to music. [Sep 2002, p.96]