A blast from start to finish. [Aug 2006, p.102]

But as personal as all of these songs sound, there’s a universality to Small Changes that, as with all Kiwanuka’s records, will emotionally connect with others. Everybody hurts, it seems to say, but this might help. [Dec 2024, p.86]

This is Coldplay getting in, delivering the tune, getting out, influenced by the discipline of cutting-edge R&B but still capable of testing arena acoustics with some supermassive bluster, glitterball lustre and classic Buckland glide'n'twiddle. [Dec 2011, p.46]

Baroness have delivered their masterpiece: an album grounding their cosmic heaviosity with earthbound, compelling drama. [Jan 2016, p.88]

Surrounded by punchy horn and a rhythm section that knows its Duck Dunn and Al Jackson, Jr., this is one Paperboy who delivers. [Jun 2010, p.102]

Ultimately, Mid Air is an ecstatic love letter to love, but also the queer clubs where Romy found validation and her soundtrack to liberation. [Oct 2023, p.88]

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

A delight. [Apr 2020, p.95]

Astonishingly innovative. [Mar 2025, p.89]

Another impressive cocktail of Eastern-inflected drones, mantra-like vocals and thick slabs of empyrean noise guitar. [Dec 2007, p.100]

Although California-based, her echoey swamp sound encompassing bottleneck guitars and cellos recalls the friendly/eerie seductions of Bobbie Gentry or Emmylou Harris's Wrecking Ball. [Mar 2013, p.90]

Post Pop Depression is every bit as startling, both in sound, and end-of-days openness. [Apr 2016, p.86]

With every album, Jacklin is finding more of herself, strengthening her voice. It's complicated, but Pre Pleasure is a joy to hear. [Sep 2022, p.88]

This sequel ups their ante further; there's inventiveness here that rivals Girls Aloud producers Xenomania. [Apr 2009, p.103]

Broken repeats the team-up, but in wider-screen yet, fully evocative of its genesis in the sprawl of Los Angeles. [Sep 2009, p.95]

It's darker and more complex than their debut, but also bigger-sounding. [Sep 2020, p.80]

Walls is an essential slice of art-punk history. It's also a blistering good time. [Apr 2024, p.97]

The undoubted highlight is a completely reconstructed version of Ring of Fire that's guaranteed to stay in your heart forever. [May 2012, p.82]

The Brilliance of I Was Real is visceral rather than intellectual. It lies in how 75 Dollar Bill locate the possibilities of transformation and release, of physical and spiritual abandon, in border-destroying party music. [Aug 2019, p.94]

Arctic Moon does not have the glowering intensity of the band's earliest work, but fans of 1986's Strange Times will appreciate its subtleties. [Oct 2025, p.90]

Ultra Mono is the almighty sound of the do getting done. [Oct 2020, p.82]

A lower case delight. [Nov 2020, p.88]

A sense of closure pervades here. The group's hermeticism-influenced lyrics remain cryptic as ever, it's true, but TSOOL will be missed. [Jul 2012, p.94]

Recorded, mixed and mastered in just two weeks, Chop Chop oozes zest and focus. [Aug 2013, p. 89]

Steer is an astringent, droll, sometimes touching narrator; it's easy to hear why Cocker was so bewitched. [Feb 2013, p.91]

Everything you could want from a wizard, a true non-star. [Sept. 2011, p. 100]

Lightbody's perennnially love-lorn, tear-in-eye songwriting benefits from a more exotic sonic wardrobe than Snow Patrol would feel comfortable in. [Sep 2013, p.94]

Yes, it can be formulaic, but when it's this deadly, bring on the soundalikes. Mar 2026, p.97]