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

This second RVG record finesses a precision indie-pop sound hinged up on Reuben Bloxham's chiming guitar, equal parts Johnny Marr and Darklands-era William Reid - a classy backdrop for one of 2020's most arresting batch of lyrics so far. [Jul 2020, p.78]

Sonic hexes that feel simultaneously cursed and curative. [Oct 2020, p.91]

While Time Skiffs sounds deeply, existentially scattered, every atom is in its rightful place. [Mar 2022, p.87]

The songs have a sort of likeable innocence; humanistic and quirky. ... Nothing not to like here. [Apr 2022, p.84]

Hugely entertaining. [June 2022, p.91]

Focusing in the songwriting, at its best the album recalls Gene Clark (Outsmarted), folksy Led Zeppelin (All God Did and Make You Happy) and even the very best of his father (the title track). [Aug 2025, p.77]

A deceptively simple set of songs that manage to explore his Southern roots while sounding as if they've always been around. [May 2026, p.84]

If Come Closer occasionally strays into the arena of techno-hippy (admittedly a compliment on the siren-squall of Ring The Alarm), the duo provide enough incentives to keep you there quite happily for a while. [Jun 2026, p.90]

While the rest of Sigur Ros make babies, their singer creates too. [May 2010, p. 96]

There's something for anyone with a taste for things multicoloured and marvellously eclectic. [Nov 2008, p.104]

Samurai is a cheesy teen ballad similar to those written by David lynch and Angelo Badlamenti, where Vega gives us bulletins on the Magi and unsolved murders. It's typically unsettling and helps give the album some welcome structure. [May 2021, p.87]

With its onus on hooks, the result is an enjoyable, lightweight pop album. [May 2011, p.104]

A craftsman-tough album about decision times. [May 2011, p.106]

Lewis hasn't topped 2010's masterful Forget, but he has proved it was no fluke. [Aug 2012, p.87]

Occasionally, the lyrics veer into fuzzy abstraction, but the music never does. [May 2021, p.82]

This 77-minute abbreviation includes the 18-minute triptych 'Time Of Ye Life/Born For Nothing/Paranoid Arm Of Narcoleptic Empire, typifying CBP's simmering conflagration of Mogwai, Godspeed! and The God Machine. [May 2009, p.109]

This a masterful, emphatic stuff, brimful of poignant insights and unforgettable melodies. [Jun 2014, p.92]

A trippy reined-in take on Madlib's psychedelia across a powerfully conversational ode to person resurrection winningly contrasted against past druggy misdemeanours. [Jul 2017, p.93]

For all of Startisha's eclecticism, Juwan's visions are coherent, his voice assured. [Aug 2020, p.88]

Fluorescent keyboards crowd Kiwi Jr.'s once-open spaces on Chopper, making the surface of their first "produced" LP feel more like an oil slick than the band's past terrain of jagged delights. [Sep 2022, p.93]

Here they're presented as a crisp, razor-edged groove unit, with not a milligram of flab aboard. either instrumentally or melodically. [May 2024, p.84]

That bravery and those haunting songs make for an album that, while not the very best Oberst has made, buttresses his growing reputation as the best songwriter working today. [Sep 2008, p.102]

Sadly A&E neither draws on personal crisis or the intimacy of "Acoustic Mainlines" [June 2008, p.106]

It's a puzzler.... Given brilliant execution, no doubt we'd still have come out with out hands up. Instead, it's patchy and the worst comes first. [Dec 2001, p.114]

Much sparser and looser than we are used to from David Sylvian. [Sep 2003, p.101]

While initial listens don't suggest a classic like Kiko, one gets a feeling that this as a work that will reveal layers over time. [Sep 2010, p.104]

Have Some Faith In Magic pushes further out, into a gorgeous and strangely spacey conflagration between the pastel end of '70s prog, the Kosmiche end of funk and '90s dance. [Mar 2012, p.103]