This tenth album opens, unappetizingly for non-disciples, with a histrionic funeral dirge call provocatively, Killing Strangers--plus ca change from the Status Quo of Satanist twaddle. But hold tight, there's livelier material ahead. [Feb 2015, p.89]

Heard back to back they almost make sense, but the sequencing here amplifies the disjointed feel of an album that facinates and frustrates in equal measure. [July 2008, p.108]

Bleak but often gripping stuff. [Oct 2021, p.97]

As a record of one man's love affair with his guitar, it's a solid testament. As the work of one of British music's unshakeable geniuses, however, it's not really worth the name. [Mar 2003, p.98]

Crushing riffs and ancestral memories of hardcore. [Aug 2015, p.98]

Bowness's delivery on the more subdued material tends to revisit similar melodic cadences, but when the musicians inject more energy, as on The Great Electric Teenage Dream and the gorgeous Sing To Me, the music is transported to a different level. [Sep 2015, p.90]

Further evolution is needed to forge an identity from the shadows of their contemporaries. [Feb 2016, p.98]

Mostly it looks like there's a new kid in town. [Dec 2007, p.98]

The rethink has paid dividends. [Nov 2007, p.90]

An enjoyably hook-filled, pulse-quickening dab of squidgy yet soulful colour. [May 2016, p.96]

Gentleman Jack White does his Loretta Lynn production thing for another grand old lady. [Feb. 2011, p. 108]

Emanon is unequivocally a visual treat but in purely musical terms, it's nothing less than stunningly breathtaking. [Oct 2018, p.88]

If all you want to do is throw the same funky shapes you threw a decade ago, this long-awaited outing will more than suffice. Otherwise, it's the same old same old. [Jul 2001, p.114]

Highly agreeable in small doses. [Jul 2006, p.104]

El-P's portentous delivery lacks poetics. [May 2007, p.110]

Ward opens More Rain with the sound of a deluge outside before going on to ponder the vast gulf between the American Dream and its less glamorous reality, but the final glitterbeat stomp of I'm Going Higher he finishes with the sun on his face. [Apr 2016, p.94]

Brodericks' augmentations tend to eclipse Rngle's sometimes evanescent songwriting. [Jan 2008, p.101]

This is the sound of a band making a bold, if not entirely original, creative leap. [Mar 2014, p.92]

Its peaks evoke Jack White's maximalist blues fusion. [Nov 2022, p.94]

As ever, it's best to not to take them too seriously. [Nov 2009, p.90]

Dissolution doesn't break character, but there's a sharper focus to the writing--and more sweeping melodies. [Sep 2018, p.88]

It's a unified listen: it works as an album. [Sep 2012, p.102]

Naturally, it's a disjointed exercise, but consumed at one sitting, 5EPs also makes perfect sense, showcasing how each part contributes to the whole. [Jan 2021, p.83]

[A] mix of old themes and new forms. [Nov 2015, p.96]

Hard-won optimism, as ever, from this troubled heroine. [Oct 2023, p.78]

Mantaray, however, displays a passion and conviction that shows an artist unhappy to rest on her numerous laurels. [Sep 2007, p.102]

The ensuing synthetic pop suite can't disguise a crucial lack of memorable songs. [Mar 2009, p.111]

At their best, the band conjures a delicious mix of slippery funk and soaring horns, a feelgood soundtrack to roaring down the freeway--or pootling to the off-licence. [Jul 2016, p.90]