A step up from last year's choogling Livin' The Die: freakier and funnier. [Dec 2019, p.88]

Crooked Fingers' downcast Americana hues always felt like Bachmann's most commercially potent mode, a point Swet Deth proves time and again. [Apr 2026, p.91]

This is straight-ahead folk-Americana, often gentle and slow (Lorelei; The Season) sometimes spirited (Ram-A-Lam-A-Ding-Dong), with Lenker duetting or backing up his dusty cobweb voice. [Nov 2024, p.85]

A funny, funky and gloriously eccentric stew. [Oct 2006, p.100]

The hair-raising honesty of their younger incarnation might have softened, but their new confidence and control ensure theses songs let a lot of life in. [Apr 2021, p.78]

In Amber goes the whole hog. ... Frequently beautiful and occasionally offers succour. [Jul 2022, p.90]

A lush, shimmering and fully immersive experience. [Nov 2012, p.90]

Emotionally speaking, however, Merritt has recreated an inner life that sound agonisingly real. [Apr 2017, p.94]

Intriguer may be more route one than 1993's mighty, loose-limbed "Together Alone," but it is classic Crowded House, and greater for it. [Jul 2010, p.97]

The star is Derek Trucks' sweeping washes of whooshes that wrap the five tunes in a warm blanket, 12-minute ender Pasaquan showcasing his stinging, dexterous, raga-blues brilliance. [Aug 2022, p.95]

Lovely. [Nov 2007, p.102]

His best yet. [Feb 2012, p.98]

The most coherent album Gelb has produced in some years, up there with the best of his considerable canon. [Apr 2019, p.92]

A blurred landscape of muffled beats warped tape and corroded ambiance that suggests club land euphoria. [Feb 2013, p.93]

The everything-but-the-kitchen-sink sonics are matched by an unrelenting emotional honesty. [Jul 2020, p.85]

The Drones whip up a heady storm of garage-bred blues, post-punk intensity and Crazy Horse-style amp overload, in which they couch fevered narratives worthy of Nick Cave. [Nov 2006]

A superbly crafted reiteration of Walker's aesthetic, with the Chicago scene influences of 2016's Golden Sings That Have Been Sung given greater prominence. [Jun 2018, p.90]

Of all her many guises [...] this may be her most powerful. [Feb. 2011, p. 94]

What's so impressive about Man on the Moon, however, is that it's a complete vision, designed to be listened to as a whole. [Dec 2009, p. 92]

An engaging, yet still hip-swinging trip. [Jun 2015, p.96]

A superior folk-tinged brand of MOR. [Oct 2005, p.102]

Her fiercest offering since 1996's landmark The Way I Should, and a long overdue follow-up to that album's righteous ire. [Apr 2023, p.83]

All and all, a winning, beats-driven combination of the personal and the universal. [Apr 2023, p.82]

Fingers Crossed marks another welcome return. [Oct 2016, p.98]

Whether it's the horrors of recognising yourself in an obnoxious younger person, his downbeat but defiant re-working of Jerusalem or the uncharacteristically optimistic The Wolfless Years, it's still the words that really stay with you. [Aug 2013, p.93]

The Sunday Valley songs survive the transition best, particularly All The Pretty Colours, but the psychonaut jiber-jabber from 2014's Metamodern Sounds In Country Music album comes a strong second. [Jan 2021, p.86]

Mazurek's rare talent for sculpting and reshaping space remains blissfully intact. [Dec 2020, p.85]

The Sisypheans is measured and reflective. [Dec 2019, p.91]