Their naked intimacy can be hard to bear. [Aug 2020, p.94]

Much of The Ruminant Band comes sunny side up. [Sep 2009, p.90]

Occasionally, you yearn for Disclosure to take a rasp to Energy and roughen its edges, but their knack for canny hooks guarantees they won't be retiring back to Surrey any time soon. [Oct 2020, p.84]

A bloody-nosed hardcore ruckus that makes no bones of its debt to Black Flag's vintage thuggery. [Aug 2016, p.97]

Nelson sounds edgy while Ali Jackson's percussion solo probably looks good on TV but bores aurally. [July 2011, p. 107]

Rubberband sounds too much like jazz's great disrupter chasing black-radio approval via The Human League. ... Rubberband is not a Great Lost Miles Davis Album. But it has a lot of great Miles Davis on it. [Oct 2019, p.101]

In Through The Out Door is an honest album that makes Zeppelin sound (almost) human. But it hasn't aged well. [Sep 2015, p.98]

There are mimics here but actually surprising few for a tribute. The best salutes to the famously fragile songwriter reincarnate his work in new guises. [Nov 2016, p.87]

At times Little Common Twist seems to misplace its destination, but it's also warm and embracing; not so much ambient as aural amniotic fluid. [Jan 2020, p.91]

'Dancing On Our Graves' pumps out a footstomping rhythm but there's no happiness here, just bleakness, and all the more convincing for it. [Mar 2008, p.112]

A diverse collective taking turns at the canon. [Jun 2017, p.94]

Go some way to subverting stodgy blues-rock gender cliche on an LP that takes off on the Tom Petty-ish title track. [Aug 2020, p.94]

She's clearly still diamond sharp, with a larynx to match. [Aug 2009, p.103]

Inventions contains enough streamlined electronic uplift to force your emotions into an altered state of ecstatic euphoria. [Jul 2014, p.88]

Blends Shimmery psych guitar, spacey grooves and indie-falsetto vocals. [Sep 2018, p.96]

Marshall's irregular flashes of idiosyncratic brilliance impress, though The OOZ's 19 tracks contain many longueurs that merely baffle or bore, so tread carefully. [Nov 2017, p.100]

A meditative, deliciously low-key collection produced by Lee Townsend. [Nov 2019, p.91]

Some of the 22 tracks teeter on the edge of pure corn. [May 2026, p.86]

For all its lofty subject matter, Lost In The Cedar Wood is the raucous sound of modern-day sea shanties. [Jul 2021, p.82]

Surprisingly marginalised on the latest Wu effort, Ghostface Killah proves he's fighting fit on this gritty, organic partnership. [Feb 2015, p.88]

Grace For Saints And Ramblers, from 2013's Ghost On host, is delivered with nonchalant Lou Reed rhythm; 2017's About A Bruise displays a freewheeling agility, while The Trapeze Swingers plus right into Beam's storytelling mode. [Jan 2024, p.91]

Better Strangers' intense mechanoid rhythms and unfamiliar time signatures can make for uncomfortable listening, but snatches of melody are never far away. [Jan 2016, p.94]

By the end, you are left wanting more extreme flourishes. [May 2011, p.114]

Martin-McCormick's vocals remain a deal-breaker, his high-pitched yelp threatening to overheat otehrwise superb, noise-slicked bangers. [June 2010, p. 104]

The falsetto vocals can sound glibly glossy, but as mainstream alternative to Animal Collective they'll go far. [Sep 2016, p.99]

It's hard to imagine droves of converts flocking to so abstruse a musical cocktail, but it's a welcome addition to the Grubbs canon, nonetheless. [Jul 2013, p.87]

A decent album, but perhaps not the one some of us were hoping for. [Nov 2019, p.95]

You sense they need a couple of pure pop gems that the Mary Chain had submerged within the noise to perfect the classic sound they aspire to. [Jun 2005, p.95]