Another wonderful, intimate love letter to pop. [Sep 2006, p.94]

Taken as a rollercoaster whole, this will blow any right-thinking rock-action believer's head off. [Nov 2015, p.87]

Stand Up blueprinted the sound that would carry Tull ringmaster Ian Anderson and his troupe through the next decade, [Dec 2016, p.105]

13 evocative songs. [Jan 2020, p.84]

There's much to enjoy in his artistic arc. [Mar 2020, p.107]

An often terrific record with unexpected arrangements, Butler's feral guitars and Davies's perfect diction. [Nov 2020, p.83]

Seventy-five non-stop minutes of high-end squawk and groove. [Jun 2021, p.83]

Clara is neither ostentatiously glitchy, nor overburdened by its conceptual heft. [Jul 2021, p.87]

More moments of delicate beauty than before. [Aug 2021, p.90]

The whole of Open Arms is much larger than the sum of its parts. [Jan 2022, p.89]

There's a lot of it, nearly five hours' worth, but you don't need to have a working knowledge of the inside of a Lambretta to enjoy the sharp-suited sounds here. [Mar 2022, p.98]

Capture Jackson at his very best. ... These eight songs are both questing and healing. [Jul 2022, p.89]

There's a sense throughout of Weller, the inveterate seeker, grasping for something tantalisingly out of reach - and, n doing so, creating a record of recurrent intrigue and frequently sublimity. [Jul 2024, p.93]

Each little element of Queen I’s flamboyant, sometimes preposterous excess now has its own place in the sonic firmament, youthful, incomparable Freddie Mercury close enough to touch. Rest assured, though, that the integrity of the original recordings remains. There are no new overdubs. [Dec 2024, p.96]

The impression left by Total Dive is that Brown Horse still have many miles in them yet. [Jun 2026, p.91]

The music is sneakily sophisticated, buoyed on a mesh of relentless guitar tracks and driven by motorik drums toward a golden pyschpunk horizon. [Nov 2008, p.106]

Vivid, touch-sensitive responses to a world unravelling. [Nov 2022, p.90]

If 2018's fragile debut At Weddings tended to become lost in the beautifully abstract mists as the Pastor's daughter explored faith and its losses, I Don't Know Who Needs to Hear This... navigates using sharper corners and edges. [Jun 2022, p.84]

An immersive audio tour that acts as a kind of Baltic analogue to ambient jazz pin-up boy Jon Hassell's more equatorial excursions. [May 2022, p.92]

The group's fusion of emo-core anguish, riot grrrl rancour and bruised indie-rock is the perfect vehicle for songs channelling heartache, rage and betrayal, but the ban's true gift lies in fashioning this catharsis into well-crafted songs. [Sep 2019, p.90]

A DIY epic whose brief sorties into often spellbinding instrumental territory are pitstops in which to muse upon profound, touching or witty lyrics. [May 2005, p.95]

These intimate hushes and lilts would be remarkable even as instrumentals.... Yet it's Nastasia's voice--and the words that it sings--that really sucks the air out of the room. [July 2003, p.102]

Old Ideas remain a quietly surprising album, full of grace, full of sadness, but also, most importantly, full of life. [Mar 2012, p.90]

They've perfected their emo pop. [Jan 2006, p.132]

The whole thing is furious, funny and, not least in the toy-town conscious reggae of Health Is Wealth, deeply loveable. [Jun 2022, p.92]

Ron Mael's lyrics are elegiac, witty and forensically detailed; Russel Mael delivers them exquisitely and they specialise in ear worms. [Jul 2023, p.82]

This time the music is as rich and detailed as [Finn's] wordplay. [Feb 2007, p.100]

[An] extraordinary beautiful debut. [Dec 2015, p.87]