An album drenched in familiar swathes of charm, pathos, elegance and black humour. [Dec 2015, p.90]

It's pleasant enough, it hardly transcendent, and feels--whisper it--ever so slightly old fashioned. [Feb 2017, p.95]

Instrumental rhythms and all manner of sound effects are used to colour in these morbidly compelling stories. [Apr 2017, p.90]

It's largely stripped of their loftier excesses. Instead, the tone - meditative, inward-looking - coalesces around Circle Of Trust's tender electro, Ride Or Die's minimal escapist lullaby or the tech-U2 of She Cries Diamond Rain. [Jun 2025, p.80]

It's an all-instrumental, but through eight focused tracks bringing to mind the non-vocal aspects of Eno's Another Green World, Vini Reilly at his most hard-edged, and mid-period Popul Vuh. [Jun 2018, p.91]

The band's bluegrass, country-folk and doo wop-informed debut packs a front porch charm. [May 2014, p.89]

Their second album is a bittersweet indie-punk chaser. [Jun 2015, p.96]

Simple, homespun arrangements shift between folk pop and folk rock with an emphasis on bittersweet. [Sep 2020, p.85]

No one sounds like they are having much fun on this follow-up and his rearrangements of the classics on piano add nothing new to the songs. [Jun 2013, p.84]

Prolonged exposure to this scattershot approach can be exhausting. In smaller chunks, however, Free Humans is exhilarating, and unpredictably so. [Nov 2020, p.89]

By focusing on the temporal, he reduces himself to simple protest music rather than timeless folk. [Aug 2005, p.104]

The revivified Bush Tetras prove No Wave's not dead. [Sep 2023, p.86]

It leaves a prescribed set of more or less familiar songs, sequenced randomly with in some broad chronological parameters. [Jul 2010, p.108]

Emotions unemoted can work, but Good Advice feels too disciplined/stylised. [Mar 2016, p.98]

At odds with the folk-pop quirk of her 2012 debut Yours Truly, Cellophane Nose and the angular, raw and rocky approach of albums two and three. [Jun 2021, p.85]

The Ottawan's new record abounds with moments most arresting for the crazy chutzpah with which she'll shoehorn a line of verse into a line of music whose rhythm puts the stresses on all the wrong words. [July 2008, p.104]

Nude With Boots alternates between their trademark, skin-crawling sludge rock, and more accessible, almost anthemic moments. [Aug 2008, p.106]

Edmunds has always delivered, whatever the age and circumstances. And this batch of originals and covers, recorded in full do-it-himself mode, doesn't change that. [Feb 2014, p.91]

You could muse on the dignity of 40 year olds having a rave revival but when the 303 synth squelch kicks in on soulful closer 'Stand Up,' it's all more pukka than moody. [Mar 2009, p.105]

Tracks recorded with Cyndi Lauper and Primal Scream suggest some pruning might have made for a more impactful listening experience. [Jun 2016, p.88]

An album that falls between traditional and progressive country stools. [May 2014, p.89]

OFWGKTA are talented, if not as ground-breaking as they think. [Jun 2012, p.85]

Like most homage platters, the affair is only as strong as its weakest moments. [Nov 2002, p.113]

While there are enough inspiring moments on here to suggest Beck hasn't yet run out of ideas, it demonstrates that the best way for him to revisit former triumphs would be to travel somewhere new. [Apr 2005, p.92]

This is cerebral yet genial fare. [Oct 2012, p.91]

A beautiful waste of time. [Sep 2005, p.88]

No Tourists may be an open-topped bus ride around a familiar sonic landscape, but it's also a lot of fun. [Dec 2018, p.84]

Too much of My Soft Machine is too smooth by half. [Jun 2023, p.95]