Lyrically, beating the odds and ultra-violence remain fecund topics for Lemmy. [Sep 2015, p.86]

He cameos his way through an album of star-studded but largely by-numbers major label rap/R&B without breaking sweat. Yet jewels lurk amid the imitation pearls. [Feb 2022, p.82]

A sometimes-striking record that suggests new ground without actually reaching it. [Jun 2023, p.84]

The interplay between their vocals is tense and compelling, suggesting early Blonde Redhead. Their lyrics, meanwhile, are mysterious knots of angst. [Jul 2023, p.87]

There are a couple of songs hidden away in the backwaters of their patchy debut which hint at something much better. [Apr 2006, p.88]

Gira's seventh solo outing finds his sardonic-toned vocals little changed however, and lyrically, if he's not "walking through fire," he's asserting the "the scars still remain." So no change there. [Nov 2007, p.104]

Irksome and intriguing, compelling and calculated, Goblin confounds at every turn. [Aug. 2011, p. 104]

These love songs all sound pretty good. But the feeling remains that she has more, which the respectful hands around her haven't liberated. [Jan 2013, p.95]

Mixture of West Africa and Caribbean influences. Oscar Jerome's glowing highlife guitar opens Dide O, a midway tryptic with Soul Searching (Afrobeat) and We Give Thanks. (soul). [Sep 2022, p.96]

The crystalline vocals hint at either uplifting profundity or overblown pomposity--it's hard to say which. [Mar 2013, p.98]

It's as though they've kept the whole catch, driftwood, prize-fish and all, rather than sorting through it. [Oct 2008, p.100]

Though inconsistent, the quartet have siphoned the best of punk and '90s slacker pop to create an album that couldn't be any more Rough Trade if it tried. [May 2016, p.94]

[An] Ubu-sinister psychedelic LP. [May 2016, p.96]

Even with the bright flickers of Kate Bush-like experimentation and excellent Depeche Mode disco, though, these songs tend to lack the high-definition of 2018's Chris, their earnestly fixed intensity never quite catching from pop smoulder to earth-scorching flame. [Dec 2022, p.84]

Yet for all Doseone's phantasmagoria and keening schizophrenia, there's a melodic richness that miraculously sculpts order out of the panicked disco chaos. [Aug 2012, p.85]

There are moments where the charts could bear being much edgier, and the guest spots are variable. ... In the midst of it, Weller himself sails regally on, in fine-grained voice, and the songs are happily, bomb(ast)-proof. [Feb 2022, p.87]

It will either intoxicate or weigh down on you, or both, simultaneously. [Nov 2018, p.91]

This Giorgio Moroder-soundtracking-Black Mirror approach isn't always successful. ... The slick AOR of Something Human suggests their decision to move away from riff-rock isn't wholly misjudged. [Dec 2018, p.84]

Utopia feels like a diversion, not a destination. A nice place to visit--beautiful, even--but you wouldn't want to live there. [Jan 2018, p.89]

The trio's most accessible. song-based effort to date. Thankfully, it's not at the expense of the rattling rhythms and freeform stylings of previous work. [Dec 2016, p.93]

Trouble Anyway is a much more fleshed-out, even lush proposition [than her 2016 debut, Out Of Love]. [Jan 2019, p.90]

Much will be familiar to JBs devotees... but this time their MOR predilections are more pronounced. [Oct 2006, p.100]

The wig-out-in-wonderland title track has a poppy, Donovan approach before its unsettling phased climax. [Apr 2017, p.99]

Preposterous, but this time knowingly so. [May 2008, p.114]

Play sees Nashville superstar Paisley jam with an array of equally adroit pickers. [Dec 2008, p.111]

If not quite an Ironman or Supreme Clientele, this is Ghostface's most unified, coherent work in years. [Jun 2013, p.94]

Freak Out City owes little to Flight Of The Conchords, but much to '70s US songwriters with a kitchen-sink production. [Oct 2025, p.89]

He stomps or sways along in the nu Seattle folk/rockabilly grave-fun way displaying a sing-the-phonebook grace. [Jun 2012, p.93]