This is serious... and seriously good. [Oct 2015, p.89]

This ambitious record loses subtlety in the grand Springsteen-ish gestures of songs like Just For Tonight. Bay fares better with the looped, crunchy soul and more nuanced lyrics of Fade Out and Slide. [Jun 2018, p.95]

First album in 16 years for the post-punk maestros. Riveting and robotic. [Feb. 2011, p. 106]

He has an honesty, knows how to caress a good song, and phrases knowingly. [Apr 2016, p.89]

Over the course of a whole album their light-as-afeather mix of glacial keyboard, breathy vocals and mid-tempo time signatures begins to grate, and you wish producer Thom Monahan had made them take more risks. [Jun 2009, p.99]

Throughout the album's crisp 10-track sequence, this reconfigured band are clearly once again enjoying the fruits of the unfathomable confluence of life and art. [Apr 2016, p.87]

Department of Disappearance won't surprise or disappoint anyone who loves its 2009 predecessor Yours, Truly, The Commuter. [Nov 2012, p.86]

OFWGKTA are talented, if not as ground-breaking as they think. [Jun 2012, p.85]

ESG are still creating music of eerie austerity. [Oct 2002, p.108]

Coral Fang finds The Distillers aping the bloodless Hollywood impotence of Hole's Celebrity Skin, their 'punk rock' inoffensive and utterly forgettable. [Dec 2003, p.113]

Drifts somewhere between Mogwai's softest moments and Her Space Holiday's wry prettiness. [Aug 2004, p.101]

The heart of the album sticks closely to their well-tried formula: sing-song melodies and puerile lyrics set against a steady backdrop of numbingly bland riffage. [Jan 2004, p.106]

A sophisticated set of cutting edge R&B.... TLC's best, most consistent LP. [Dec 2002, p.106]

It's a mix of acoustic and occasionally stodgy soft rock with a message of peace and positivity to all men and women. [May 2016, p.88]

Fans of Porcelain Raft will go nuts for the aural sigh that is Pavo Pavo. [Dec 2016, p.94]

It's a mixed bag. ... Until Hot Chip's mothership heaves back into view, Taylor's emotive, immersive solo output will tide things over nicely. [May 2018, p.93]

New Facts Emerge could be said to be business as usual: ie, it cannot be quantified, and pulses with raw music, stimulating confusion and a certain monstrous glee. [Sep 2017, p.88]

What could of been a sedentary stopgap has become an heroic attestation to the thrillls of music fandom. [Apr 2010, p.104]

With much of Harrison's early solo output slammed upon original release, these remasters allow us time to search for the diamonds in the dirt. [Nov 2014, p.109]

The Darkness have regained much of the joy, silliness and virtuostic songcraft that made their 2003 debut Permission To Land such fun. [Nov 2017, p.96]

Whatever Royal Blood have surrendered in volume here, they have gained in new dimensions. [Jul 2017, p.89]

Here her wonderful voice, smooth and warm with throaty twang and unforced power, has free rein to do what it does best on 11 fine new songs. [May 2008, p.111]

Fans will wallow in the superficial nuttiness of it all--though profound issues underlie the wilful eccentricity. [Mar 2005, p.96]

Oldham's typically weary, wavering larynx is rendered imperious as it rises Lazarus-like from the wind-tanned dronescapes and rasping harmonues of an epic 'Cursed Sleep,' while a mistily brooding 'Ain't You Wealthy? Ain't You Wise?' finds him deploying unlikely falsetto whoops a la springsteen. [Nov 2008, p.110]

There's more down the line, heart-on-the-sleeve songcraft secreted, near-guiltily, in the album's latter half. [Mar 2012, p.99]

It's properly cosmic stuff. [Jan 2012, p.97]

Minimalist production values prevail and succeed in highlighting the beautiful--and often haunting melancholic--sonorities of Wilson's pipes. [Sep 2012, p.90]

The Weighing Of The Heart puts Shott's breathy yet deceptively resilient voice to work in the service of her music with a disciplined playfulness worthy of kindred spirits Juana Molina and Alexander tucker. [Jun 2013, p.94]