Caravan sound reinvigorated and energised here on their best album in, let's say, quite some time. [Nov 2021, p.93]

He digs deep on guileless rock and soul with bold flourishes, ala Lowell George or Randy Newman. [Feb 2022, p.92]

Boasts duets between Esperanza Spalding ab=nd Q-Tip, Musiq Soulchild and posdnuos and a deep-voiced rap from Meshell Ndegeocello that perfectly marries H.E.R.'s downcast balladeering. Much of the rest, however, is little more than showy, slick and generic R&B, with Glasper becoming virtually untraceable. [Apr 2022, p.89]

There's little commerciality, although It came back gallops along cheerily, but there is the sense of a man doing as he pleases and guessing - correctly - he'll take his audience with him. [Apr 2022, p.85]

Up-tempo and poppy, Simple Minds' energy remains undiminished on Direction Of The Heart. [Nov 2022, p.90]

It's utterly convincing and frequently ace. [Nov 2022, p.87]

Spectral Lines tries to come at hurt, loss and destiny afresh, with Ritter's dexterity with universal themes often paying dividends. [Jun 2023, p.86]

Supernatural Thing makes a strong case for keeping that odd flame alive. [Aug 2023, p.82]

Lovely though these songs are, it’s hard not to feel they demand a similar attention, your mind fighting to impose structure on their swathes of classic rock signifiers, their lyrical opacity. Izenberg might be getting closer to his music, but he’s still oddly far away. [Sep 2024, p.84]

The album’s overriding mood is captured by the title track’s gospel choir sample: “daylight, sunshine, dance, embrace.” [Aug 2024, p.82]

There are tender moments, too, such as Lianne La Havas’s guest-spot on sodium-lit ballad Body Shock, but this is largely a record of brash textures from a band relishing the margins. [Jan 2025, p.83]

Downstate's a more focused listen. [Mar 2025, p.93]

Funny, thoughtful, pragmatic and whimsical, We're Only Human is a perfect alt-country album [Sep 2025, p.84]

Light but ultimately sunblinding, things really get going in the second half. [Apr 2026, p.93]

This is a musically assured, soulful descent into life's messy middle. [Mar 2026, p.81]

Thoughtful, tuneful, exquisitely melancholy, ever slightly off centre-- [Silencio] is, indeed, a welcome haven. [Sep 2012, p.86]

Even at 52, this Dinosaur senior is a miracle of ongoing evolution. [Dec 2018, p.88]

What if Lou Reed and Moe Tucker joined forces with the Danielson Family? [Mar 2007, p.104]

The first half of this double album follow-up picks up Badlands' wayward trail.... As the set wears on, Hungati's soundtrack-composer instincts take over. [Jul 2013, p.84]

McGuire's guitar and tape loop examination of his own psycho-dynamics. [Mar 2014, p.96]

The mood is all of a piece, the songs are stronger, and nobody suggests lightening the atmosphere with a high-energy single. [Sep 2013, p.84]

Ducking and diving between ivories and six-string, his reedy-voice makes for a Syd Barrett attempting Todd Rundgren's Something/Anything? record, full of compulsive tunes, but ever off-centre. [Feb 2019, p.91]

There's more hope to be found in the sound Deerhoof assemble into single songs that play like a hallucinating DJ's set. Any element sounds perfectly straight by itself, but layered together, they feel imported from the multiverse. [Jul 2020, p.87]

Deerhoof being Deerhoof, the arty, poppy, proggy noise is jagged, cathartic, and occasionally grand. [Nov 2021, p.88]

The melding of the Bristolian mixmasters' complementary styles is a low-end treat. [Apr 2015, p.95]

With self-awareness and personal catharsis equally high on the agenda, everybody's favourite nerdcore veterans may not have grown up just yet, but they've certainly become better at acting their age. [Sep 2016, p.98]

Each of them [psalms] is spoken word, less than two minutes long, and set to music that's ominous, ambient, spectral and spiritual. That's side one; side two is taken up with a 12-minute instrumental - a ruminative play of dark on dark, with a deep drone and synthesized choir of ghosts that's quite lovely. [Aug 2022, p.96]

The Cribs of 2009 sound bold, fully-realised, their anthems polished and radio-ready, without sacrificing the acerbic edge that's powered them this far. [Sep 2009, p.88]