Pearlies has more the feel of a wistful autumnal folk record than any kind of'90s throwback. [Dec 2023, p.92]

This young, Reading rock foursome offer hyperventilated hooks and heart-soaring breakdowns. [Jul 2017, p.96]

What's lacking is the shock factor.... At its best, amid the oceanic dream-wave of melody and surreal verbiage that these reanimated Pixies still essay with style, Indie Cindy is worthy of full participation. [May 2014, p.90]

Aside from a handful of instrumental snatches... Democrazy's main events are six or seven tantalising sketches. [Jan 2004, p.96]

Heat haze indie pop with Brit post-punk lyrical realism in place of slacker zaniness. [Oct 2016, p.109]

On record it’s more the spoken-word sections that grab the listener. [Jul 2024, p.93]

It features the Bright Eyes/Desaparecidos frontman alone with piano, harmonica and guitar, putting down songs never quite intended as an album. This sparseness means that the focus on Oberst is tight--maybe too tight. [Nov 2016, p.90]

Devoid of da funk it may be, but the scale and scope here are impressive. [May 2023, p.86]

The emphasis more on fractured, abstract improv rater than frenetic carousing. Interesting stuff, for sure. [May 2023, p.89]

It's where Elbow and Springsteen intersect. [Mar 2020, p.96]

The first seven tracks are wonderfully lush and mellow, but loses its way on the closing two-song suite, War/Peace. [Feb 2016, p.96]

There's precious little subtlety, but plenty of brutish hooks. [Jun 2021, p.88]

You certainly feel stimulated, but as with those frenzied, uber-detailed set pieces on modern-day CGI animation movies, there's almost too much to process. [Mar 2019, p.91]

Sitting down with this album is like listening to a friend who assumes you know all the same people they do. [May 2019, p.90]

Best consumed in small doses. [Aug 2018, p.91]

Coup De Grace may not radically change skeptics' perception of Kane as Turner's lesser-half. ... But dig deeper and you'll find Kane's finest work so far. [Sep 2018, p.86]

The cumulative result begs a position beyond the band's canon, in an intriguing mini universe of its own. [Mar 2026, p.80]

More a set of unconnected pieces than a single, cohesive whole, while not short on individual charm it's hard not to see this as anything other than a warm-up for the main event to come. [Dec 2016, p.91]

These opaque, often uneasy sounding songs conjure nature's unpredictability and vulnerability as well as its beauty. [Jul 2022, p.89]

Suggesting the sextet have now found their niche. [Jun 2021, p.89]

It's the slo-electro instrumental Grillwalker that steals the day. [Nov 2011, p.103]

Though succinct segues Housing (In) and Housing (Out) have something of the filler about them, State Hospital and December's Traditions are bleakly beautiful portraits of Broken Britain, Hutchinson's fervent vocal letting it all hang out. [Mar 2013, p.86]

Unpredictable and stylistically chameleonic, Deerhoof's clamorous noise and freak-out rifferama seems perfectly attuned to current world flux. Still there is joy here too. [Jun 2025, p.80]

On tracks such as The Day That The Earth Stalled and The Resist Stance, frontman and sometimes professor palaeontology Greg Graffin's folkish lilt and incisive anti-capitalist lyrics ensure Bad Religion never become cartoonish, while guitarist and label owner Brett Gureqitz's frenzied soloing reminds that after 30 years Bad Religion still strive to show those bands who are half their age--and twice as wealthy--how it is really done. [Nov 2010, p.110]

Folie A Deux recalls the high-impact pop oof "Private Eyes"-era Hall & Oates, and that's preferable to sounding like Blink 182. [Jan 2008, p.104]

It's a doleful piece, with many trad Moby elements present. [Jul 2009, p.94]

If there are few lyrical miracles in these scattershot songs obsessed with sex, drugs and shopping, in this intuitive stylist’s mouth the words themselves are often beside the point.

The message songs are delivered from the heart. [Aug 2016, p.95]