A skittering show-reel of outer-space advert indents that flit from dying hard-drive porn disco to sweetly-warped On-U dub lullabies. [May 2012, p.89]

This album isn't shy, but the jittery electro-pomp and lyrical cleverness can feel off-puttingly arch. [Aug 2016, p.90]

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

It's an honourable outcome for such overreaching ambition to fall inevitably short, but not flat on its face. [Oct 2003, p.110]

Armstrong continues to lean on lyrical phases that sound clever but don't say much. Still, the album includes several strong character sketches. [Nov 2016, p.88]

Morcheeba's lightly shaken, hardly stirring sounds will doubtless satisfy fans, band and record company. [Aug 2002, p.104]

For the time being Palms are holding fast to a distinctly high-flying trajectory. [Oct 2013, p.90]

Holds together as a coherent statement, offering - like its predecessor, 2015's Right On! - a more modest, bare-bones vision of the spectral, goth-adjacent dark pop of her day job. [Jun 2022, p.86]

"Hesitant" is the right word for his attempt at creative rebirth. [Nov 2014, p.92]

Smith is occasionally stodgy, but when he's good, he cuts to the heart. [Apr 2021, p.84]

These 21 carefully edited electronic jams have a distinctly new age feel, glacier-sized slabs of ambience occasionally disrupted by undulating or cluttering beats. [May 2020, p.89]

An endearingly dog-eared weirdness to their idiosyncratic country rock, a charm to their off-kilter harmonies and a mystery within Curt's songwriting that ensures Dusty Notes is craftmanlike, rather than workmanlike. [Apr 2019, p.91]

Ortega's voice cuts like cheesewire, every word kicking the beat and the story both. [Oct 2011, p. 100]

On the whole, they succeed by taking a careful layered approach. [Mar 2014, p.100]

'Love Runs Deeper' is vintage Buckingham soft rock, while the barmy title track recalls the new wave-inspired weirdness of 'Tusk.' [Nov 2008, p.118]

Idol's rebel yell still has snarl and charisma, but some of these songs (Wildside; Too Much Fun) feel like pop-punk makeweights included to get Dream Into It up to 35 minutes. [Jun 2025, p.82]

A bustling, concise and sunny affair. [Apr 2012, p.88]

It's early days, but given everything is self-played, and the guitars are as deftly layered as they are swiftly shedding, Baldi might rise to something magnificent once the hormones have been expunged. [Feb 2011, p.107

Pierced Arrow's 10 tracks range from strutting, power-chord anthems and barroom boogies to riff-driven shuffles. [Jun 2016, p.91]

Their fifth album still features plenty of trademark thrills - Brian Chippendale drumming junglist breakbeats at heart-attack velocity, bassist Brian Gibbon's' riffs sounding like a grindcore group playing gabba - while the bark-spitting tempo-shifts of opener Sound Guardians wouldn't alienate the Metallica set. [Jan 2010, p. 96]

This is terrific. [May 2012, p.89]

Quality control slumps toward the end, but when they're good the're grrreat. [Nov 2004, p.110]

At root, it's a heart-warming little curio. [Jul 2014, p.86]

There’s quite a variety of country musicians here. Most tend to play their selection pretty straight, though Rhiannon Giddens has an interesting take on Don’t Come Around Here No More. ... It’s the old school who provide this collection’s highlights. [Aug 2024, p.89]

Gigantic of sound and vision, grandly poetic of pronouncement, the Millennium Stadium surely beckons. [Sep 2012, p.97]

Here he achieves immediate take-off with a version of Nilsson's The Flying Saucer Song that could fit neatly on The Dark Side Of The Moon without too many people noticing. [Aug 2013, p.92]

Very focused and quietly anthemic. [Feb 2006, p.92]

Redolent of soundtrack ace Danny Elfman, if Kubrick is a pitch for work in cinema it's a sound move. [Jan 2016, p.94]