Goodnight Oslo could be a ghost story, a slice of stoner paranoia or a song about steam trains, but shows something sleek and ominous still looming in the fog of Hitchcock's imagination. [Mar 2009, p.107]

Less minimal folk this time, the title track and Holograms are particularly fulsome. [Mar 2019, p.99]

To Bolero-riffed beat-pop, Soul Capturer beautifully exorcises today's digi-overload, while 22-minute Defeat finds hope in an entrancing oceanic ebb-and-flow, with all the child-like discovery of late'90s Mercury Rev. [Nov 2023, p.86]

Sometimes it's more about a blues feeling, encompassing high-lonesome, electric country-blues rock, two-chord garage rock and at its most beautiful on the opening track Promise The World. [Apr 2017, p.94]

Delicate, inventive and deeply, deeply touching. [Mar 2019, p.95]

Things work best when the musical surroundings match their respective vocal style and they create something resembling the cinematic edge of Johnny Jewel's Chromatics. [Oct 2014, p.93]

The Sparks take the nascent country rock of their obvious influence and extraploate every last ounce of plangent guitar chime and yearing vocal polyphony until they ring afresh. [Nov 2001, p.100]

A mature and often profound record. [Dec 2002, p.102]

Picks up where 2002's Impasse left off, with Buckner at large in a dusty, wide-screen landscape of brushed guitars, weeping pedal steel and decorous strings. [Dec 2004, p.114]

Central to Whatever The Westher II is an underlying hum and crackle that offsets its engrossing sound design. [Apr 2024, p.84]

Thanks to the vision of singer/songwriter Traceyanne Campbell, this is a killer record, rather than just a pretty one.[Jul 2006, p.102]

10 seamless melds of indie guitars and electronic pop, stuffed with spry choruses and poetic self-castigation delivered in Toledo's appealingly crushed bleat. [Jun 2020, p.86]

His commitment is palpable, the sequencing deft, and whole wilfully hit-free bombast-fest commendable, if scarcely palatable to anyone apart fro card-carrying Suede-heads. [Oct 2018, p.93]

Anyone seduced by the standout Wounded Rhymes track Sadness Is A blessing will be left winded by the even more sorrow-stricken I Never Learn. [Jun 2014, p.92]

Neither sparkly nor weird enough. [Sep 2008, p.110]

A dizzying tapestry of rave, Chicago footwork, jungle, hip-hop and soulful pop. [Aug. 2011, p. 104]

The Cordon Bleu-trained chef transforming humble ingredients into Michelin-starred delicacies at once melting, tender and sweet. [May 2014, p.93]

Their emotional post-club grooves are the real star. [Mar 2016, p.95]

Twisting the familiar sounds into altogether more challenging forms. [Jul 2020, p.84]

Despite a surfeit of guests and some over-embellished kitchen sink production, the hit rate is remarkably high, reminding just how far Killer Mike's unflinching, candid style has evolved since he debuted on Outkast's Stankonia. [Aug 2023, p.84]

The combination of shimmering sonics and dislocated characters is what makes Hyperspace so holistic, and compelling. [Jan 2020, p.83]

If her murmurous slurring defies full comprehension, her gentle sadness, hesitant beats and melancholic piano settings match the odd clear phrase. [Mar 2004, p.102]

Dawn's Auto-Tuned vocals push it into Major Lazer territory. Yet the best moments are where restraint wins out. [Jan 2017, p.102]

The Shrine deliver a cantering second LP full of heads-down charm. [Jun 2014, p.98]

Beautifully black. [Jul 2022, p.88]

Mid-life crisis rarely sounded so appealing. [Nov 2014, p.90]

Part 2's brittle, somewhat alienating production isn't exactly subtle. ... Foals sound like they are overreaching themselves a little. Two highly ambitious, thematically-linked albums in six months was always a big ask. [Nov 2019, p.86]

Bowerbirds at their least bucolic, both expanding and focusing on a sound that is as timeless as The Band. [Apr 2012, p. 89]