While showcasing a further surfeit of talents - Zongo Brigade's K.O.G., Ghanaian singer Pat Thomas, a rap-happy Soweto Kinch - could make Freedom Fables feel like a compilation, a wide streak of jazz connects the dots. [Mar 2021, p.90]

There are moments where the charts could bear being much edgier, and the guest spots are variable. ... In the midst of it, Weller himself sails regally on, in fine-grained voice, and the songs are happily, bomb(ast)-proof. [Feb 2022, p.87]

A massive step away from his band's sound and more towards that of his friend and touring partner Nathaniel Rateliff. No one could dismiss Mumford as a lightweight folk tourist after this. [Nov 2022, p.86]

Asher steers The Secret Of Life toward familiar traditional-pop territory. The Placid setting brings out the politeness in Streisand's guests. [Aug 2025, p.76]

LLFR! is a skiffle-ish, gung-ho affair built upon driving acoustic guitar and organ. [May 2009, p.102]

Listen too close to the lyrics and you'll often detect a dispiritingly autopilot misanthropy.... Lose yourself in the music, though, and Cherry Bomb reveals a fevered charm. [Jul 2015, p.89]

Though brief nautical ballad Deck Chair is a skit too far here, there's a great bubblegum-pop song fighting its way through the exploded theatrics of Heavy Metal Lover, while silly song of thanks for the six-string We Are The Guitar Men is a virtuosic hoot. [Nov 2019, p.89]

A few clunky lyrics take the shine off. [Feb 2012, p.95]

Spare bayou mirage score for Green's newie. [Nov 2013, p.94]

Oodles of unashamed, unabashed fun, Going Way Out is perfect music to sculpt pompadours to. [Oct 2007, p.99]

Its instrumental first disc a foreboding seas of sputtering synths, dislocated drums and disorienting ideas. Yet rare moments of beauty peak through. ... A similar wilful primitivism pervades disc two. [Dec 2019, p.95]

Accomplished, shiny, but hard to get excited about. [Nov 2014, p.102]

Tge Waves Pt 1's ebb-and-flow is closer to Phillip Glass's pulsing minimalism than anything calming or restorative. [Jul 2021, p.87]

When the opening track of this third album features CSN-style harmonising about hotel lobbies, you wonder if they're trying a little too hard to sound like a burnt-out folk rock supergroup from 1971. [June 2010, p. 92]

Its facinating music nevertheless and extremely psychedelic, with gospelly backing singers, flutes and guitars reaching the listener through a reverb-heavy haze. [Dec 2008, p.104]

He hops from one musical lilypad to the next--arguably a few too many for comfort. [Aug 2012, p.87]

Girl At The End Of The World lacks the hooky brilliance to be James' best, but it's a Top 3 contender. [Apr 2016, p.90]

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

Her voice packs a punch, her songwriting is solid, and the album--while a little over-polished--is bursting with confidence. [Jul 2010, p.94]

Drake's genuinely fleet-footed flows and sly humour prevent his pained introspection descending into a cheesy whine fest. [Aug 2016, p.95]

Nobody's idea of "the new rock'n'roll," certainly, but it rings seductively true. [Mar 2003, p.109]

This is undoubtedly his best record...

An ecclectic addendum. [Jun 2003, p.113]

It feels hemmed in by its own musical limitations. [Apr 2013, p.94]

A music from within. [Mar 2017, p.93]

Before long, these initially detached settings establish a magnetic, narcotic allure, filled with elliptical hooks and images. [Feb 2018, p.97]

The basic Prinzhorn recipe - extra thick bass-lines and super-primitive stand-up drums, woven together with a lattice of spindly guitar and set off with livid bursts of call-and-response vocal -- remains largely unchanged. [Feb 2012, p.98]

There's nothing indistinct about the more congenial, festival-friendly direction of War Room Stories. [Mar 2014, p.95]