The past might be intoxicating, but The Candle And The Flame - lucid, conversational, immediate - is beautifully present in its moment. [Mar 2023, p.84]

The tunes are still naggingly memorable, but often less convivial, more melancholy. [Feb 2022, p.86]

The Detroit duo spin sordid tales and lovelorn drama with just the right amount of restrained percussion, blooze picking and screaming confessionals. [Sep 2001, p.93]

Leonard's half-spoken, slow, dark blues growl is powerful. [Nov 2014, p.86]

Very sad and very beautiful. [Apr 2011, p.100]

It’s the surprisingly light touch of the booming bass that gets you on 100% Samba; Rio De Janeiro A Janeiro, meanwhile, reminds you that Verocai grew up on the progressive rock that percolated through Brazil in the late 1960s. Long may they keep collaborating. [Jan 2025, p.87]

American Dream feels like a strong re-statement of what they do, and what they can mean, a record that, despite its fear of death, feels very much alive. [Oct 2017, p.86]

There are startling moments: the title track’s D&D blues-rock, for example, The Groundhogs doing The Tempest in a nasty basement; or Juvenile’s ice-rink keyboards, McCombs ennobling and mocking adolescence (“You suck/I suck/Primus sucks”). Other songs, though, creep up more subtly, such as Miss Mabee’s Elliott Smith hush, or Peace’s heartbreaking Go-Betweens valediction. [Sep 2025, p.80]

The quality of both performances and recordings is exceptional for the time, with elegant versions of Starman and Oh! You Pretty Things affirming the confident new direction of Bowie's pop sensibility, and muscular renditions of Suffragette City, Queen Bitch and Changes.

With simple surf beats and a lyrical bent that takes in everything from ladymen to male models, All Hands... is mostly playful (You're No Rock & Roll Fun) with a touch of pathos (Was It A Lie), but not a bad one in sight.

There's a real sense of party-beneath-the-scaffold much of the time--a looseness you don't often get on these star-studded affairs. [Nov 2003, p.122]

A masterpiece. [May 2004, p.103]

Further expands ambient pedal steel's possibilities, adding strings and piano. [Mar 2021, p.91]

This never feels thrown-together, which is some achievement. Instead, the album feels like one to spend ample amounts of time with as you travel its far-flung corners as it reaches for the stars. [Feb 2021, p.84]

A sensual, hallucinatory delight. [Jan 2022, p.86]

Imarhan's 11 songs come wrapped in a soundscape; a surround-sound version would have the guitars and vocal central, but dust devils and translucent scorpions in the corners of your room, a sweet tea bubbling away and, after dark, the shuffling of a hyena behind the settee. the music expands to fill the space. [Mar 2022, p.82]

Another great, mind-bending, soul-baring, melodically rich album to his name: a singer tap dancing on the very edge. [Jan 2025, p.80]

Might be one of the very best, and a neat entry point for new explorers. [Apr 2021, p.85]

Her jazziest yet, expressive alto-sax and hypnotic spoken words ladle emotional gravitas onto its fevered meditations and splintered storytelling. [Nov 2023, p.94]

This is an intimate portrait painted in bold strokes. [Dec 2023, p.90]

Across 10 intimate songs deftly ornamented by guitarists Matt Worley and Tony Kelsey and cellist Barney Morse-Brown, magic happens. [Nov 2025, p.88]

Toronto punk sextet's third LP is an epic soundtrack. [July 2011, p. 104]

Maybe if they'd dated this collection back to 1979 and the Christian albums, they'd have a more interesting storyline, but we definitely wouldn't have had a better collection of songs. [Nov 2008, p.122]

Admirers of Granduciel's previous forays along E Street won't be disappointed. [Apr 2014, p.91]

Beautiful and potent stuff. [Oct 2020, p.89]

Owusu is a charismatic anchor throughout this boundary-pushing debut. [Apr 2021, p.85]

Comic, sinister, suddenly moving, it feels like real-time psychological excavation, digging for truth. [May 2021, p.84]

A liberating 73-minute sprawl, constantly blurring the lines between euphony and cacophony. [Dec 2021, p.89]