This is repeat-play head music that still manages to hotwire the heart. [May 2006, p.102]

It's difficult to make either narrative or poetic sense of, well, what she's on about. [Jun 2012, p.85]

Franz Ferdinand's first album since 2018's Always Ascending finds them re-invigorated, if not wholly reborn. [Feb 2025, p.88]

His gritty voice and folk-art lyricism ensure that these stylistic curveballs carry real emotional resonance. [Sep 2005, p.90]

It all slides down nicely--great bachelorette party music that sounds good on headphones. [Sep 2010, p.104]

Support from Howe Gelb, Patty Griffin and more, but things never really take off. [Feb 2012, p.99]

His gospel-tinged solo debut withstands most Levon Helm comparisons you may care to throw its way. [May 2012, p.87]

It's a meandering but heartfelt collection. [Jan 2014, p.97]

Tricky effectively goes missing as sultry vocal proxies Avalon Lurks, Mina Rose and Terra Lopez takes the weight, before beautifully briny closer When We Die, with original foil Martina Topley-Bird, reminds us of his peculiar strengths. [Oct 2017, p.94]

A starkly beautiful unerringly poetic outing. [Sep 2011, p.100]

Winterval has glimpses of Walls' hypnotic, frostbitten, ambient beauty, but equal airtime is given to funkier, tech-leaning tropes. [Dec 2012, p.86]

Life is rarely more tellingly captured in music. [May 2014, p.89]

This second outing is an exercise in documenting a much beefier, hot-blooded sound. [Nov 2015, p.87]

[A] heartfelt, reflective LP. [Nov 2015, p.91]

The Wild Swan echoes both John Hiatt's gnarled, R&B-rooted wit and Van Morrison's lyrical-mystic flights while developing Vance's own romantic voice. [Jun 2016, p.90]

The slow-burners can drag, but it peaks again on Down and Eno-ish Waiting. [Jul 2017, p.96]

It doesn't quite blow the emotional lid off, but Open is rich in subtle variations. [Dec 2017, p.88]

The unfamiliar are advised to check out his first three solo albums. [Dec 2017, p.92]

Vince Mendoza's symphonic orchestral arrangements ooze romantic grandeur, combined with Porter's magnificently soulful vocals, resulting in a thrillingly transcendent experience. [Dec 2017, p.93]

[The EPs] bring together the best of both sides of Belle And Sebastian: the innocence and experience, if you will. [Feb 2018, p.92]

[Alice Moki Jayne's] one-hour length is rather testing. The 29-minute 8 Spring Streeet is more structured and achieves a thrilling momentum. ... 35 minutes in [Galaxies (Sky)], the 12-strong, 12-string "guitar army," directed by Moore hit a breathtaking peak. It feels like a spectacular end, but then there are still over 20 minutes to go. [Oct 2019, p.86]

With its shuffling drums and strong tune, Microclimate has a song-like feel, while the title track is very different in mood as it gently pulses with restless rhythmic tics and a melancholic, meandering keyboard line. [Sep 2018, p.93]

When he's good (Con Conn Was Impatient, B'n'D) he's sublime. [Nov 2018, p.96]

The combination of Schultz's desperately appealing voice and Fraites's lonesome but poppy piano still hits hard. They're still doing things right. [Mar 2025, p.88]

An astonishing album... a nu soul master that should ride high on any 21st century 'best of' lists. [Dec 2003, p.109]

An explicitly shambling and weedy breed of music rendered with slavish precision, even muscularity... Decent tunes. [Dec 2011, p.100]

Basement Jaxx's energy and vision appears to be undiminished. [Oct 2014, p.93]

With Love's blackout material is thinly stretched, allowing light to shine in on a skeletal basement stock of dubstep sketches and flat house beats that repeatedly loop out to abrupt endings, halting Zomby's greater narrative ambitions. [Aug 2013, p.92]