The result is adventurous and totally mesmerising. [Jun 2012, p.84]

A winningly downbeat brand of urban realism, set to minimal, pounding drums. [Apr 2002, p.115]

Smoke & Fiction is lean rock'n'roll that plays to the group's strengths. [Sep 2024, p.86]

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]

This is a record that rewards digging into Treays' melodic moods and lyrical follies. It is also a staggering collection of exceptional songs. [Oct 2014, p.86]

Full of warmth, humour and depth. [Feb 2020, p.86]

The album's nine tracks oscillate between driving neo-Krautrock and string-caressed pastoralism, everything garlanded by Kaye Gibson's euphoniously harmonised lead vocals and buffed to a gleaming finish by John Entire's mix. [May 2026, p.91]

A noteworthy comeback. [Feb 2018, p.94]

Rueful, ruminative and ultimately hypnotic, Garden Of Ashes sings a welcome blues for the coming apocalypse. [Mar 2017, p.97]

The tenth album from the fabulous Sadies is up there with the best. [Mar 2017, p.93]

The result is an unusual and likeable mix of country rock, rockabilly and excellent ballads. [Nov 2007, p.102]

The law school drop-pout is at his analytical best here. [Jan 2013, p.93]

This 17-track colossus is eclectic, ambitious ad expertly executed. [Nov 2011, p.103]

His most impressive album yet. [Dec 2013, p.86]

Each of the eight tracks fade into the distance, making for a hypnotic, haunting record, yet a highly individual and accomplished one too. [Oct 2012, p.95]

As ever, the sonic palette is richly clean, the harmonies stacked, and Jerry Douglas’s dobro an empathetic, keening presence in constant dialogue with the singers, now the dominant solo instrument in the ensemble. [May 2025, p.87]

His reliably nerdular delivery and thoughtful lyrics still make it sound box-fresh compared to the generic macho fare that still dominates mainstream hip hop. [Dec 2008, p.100]

An uncompromising set that will swallow hardy listeners up into its shadowy world. [Jul 2025, p.85]

The sound of an artist surfacing from his dank hypogean world and embracing a new warmth. [Aug 2022, p.89]

An antidote to pop bands masquerading as punk, this is the real deal--ugly, and utterly English. [Jun 2009, p.98]

Ambitious, soulful and joyous. [Apr 2012, p.90]

So much more than the original boy band. [March 2011, p. 106]

The winnowing, soul-pop sheen of the hit-yielding Soul Mining and Infected is long gone, replaced by an overall grungey, corrosive edge which indicates that Johnson bought up every last piece of analogue gear in town.

The surface mayhem actually masks an admirable craft. [Aug 2004, p.96]

A debut proving the universal emotional weight in teenage preoccupation with romance. One to watch. [Aug 2018, p.96]

Cronin delvers timeless, classic pop that evades cliches. [Jun 2013, p.86]

EURO-COUNTRY is everything great pop music should be: smart, subversive and tremendous fun. [Oct 2025, p.88]

The band's conventional elements are even more conventional while the boundary-pushers stretch as far as ever. [Album of the Month, July 2002, p.92]