The sheer relentlessness dilutes that thrill factor, but there are shades, notably on the stately opener 2022 and the closing Sleep Cult. [Feb 2023, p.91]

Always Tomorrow sounds like a last laugh - elegantly modulated, slightly hollow. [Apr 2020, p.88]

Yet more caustic politico cold-funk disco grooves. [May 2019, p.96]

Jade Bird's compelling voice is the deliberately uncontested focus of her no nonsense debut. [May 2019, p. 93]

The new wave veteran's magic touch has left his current charges' blend of plaintive pop and indie-punk edginess a tad shinier but otherwise safely intact. [Apr 2015, p.92]

Tellingly, Al Jardine and David Marks return here, their harmonies shining in the gorgeously dreamy Whatever Happened. [May 2015, p.93]

Cavernous drones suggesting messages from a reverberant brutalist cathedral somewhere out in the California desert. [May 2014, p.96]

Although Four may strike some despondent notes at times, it's a high point for Harvey's career. [Jun 2013, p.88]

With the skeleton of a dance beat on Daydream, you can picture Powers doing a little skip around his bedroom, momentarily escaping the sad, hermetic beauty that characterises his record. [Jan 2012, p.96]

There are so many tricks twirling for your attention that the effect is a little like wearing all your clothes at once. [Jun 2005, p.100]

Eighth LP settles into a classic rock groove. [Jan 2016, p.98]

Vocals are stretched and warped, beats submerged into icy baths. [Dec 2012, p.94]

Striken, sorrowful balladry is the meat of this fine album. [Feb 2008, p.102]

The Pretties turn in a brand new album of mostly original material recorded the righteous way on analogue gear, displaying considerably more energy and invention than most what's around today. [Nov 2007, p.108]

For all the florid curlicues and crescendos, Welch's second album is light on true beauty, real idiosyncrasy. [Dec. 2011, p.94]

In all, a tad more mannered and staid than you'd expect from these former experimentalists. [Mar 2013, p.94]

Though the ingenuity of the project occasionally outguns the quality of the songwriting, Darnielle's spadework has resulted in a zesty, spontaneous-sounding record. [Sep 2022, p.95]

From thrilling and ecstatic to confounding and even infuriating-- Bailing Man's A Day Such As This, and David Thomas's vocal freakery throughout, is all of these--post-punk Ubu is one of a kind. [Apr 2016, p.104]

The band sound like they're striding into the mainstream, leaving Desveaux sounding more of a sweet, upbeat pop-rock songstress than she should. [Apr 2009, p.109]

Cumulatively, the combination of Ashworth's sub-Bill Callahan levels of vocal animation and the mid-paced songs with tolling chord changes can err towards the enervating rather than the enigmatic, but funkier beats and mellotron give White Jetta a lift. [Jun 2009, p.96]

Wildly uneven, sporadically awesome. [Jun 2015, p.92]

A promising diversity of ideas, tempo and riffs. [Feb 2018, p.97]

Solo he's more ruminative. [Apr 2020, p.91]

Much of the airbrushed pop-metal nous that elevated 1983's Pyromania and 1987's Hysteria back in evidence. [Feb 2016, p.92]

If the imagery on this album is often solemn--ice, looming meteorological disaster, remote canyons--it isn't melodramtically so. [June 2008, p.109]

Though her fellow Willies may not possess her audience-pulling ability, they lack nothing in the way of talent. [Feb 2012, p.94]

It's just a shame his parochial worldview is often at odds with his music's overreaching grandstanding. [Mar 2013, p.94]

This extended family Sunn))))/Boris supergroup opt for cross-referenced influences. [Apr 2013, p.98]