The result is an album that goes far beyond emulation or pastiche to capture the emotional heart of a strange and elusive film, soaring from rapturous highs to quiet, introspective lows, vital romantic life undercut by a melancholy twilight sadness. [Apr 2018, p.89]

SFA's first truly flawless album.... Sad, lush, romantic, beautiful, heartbroken, crazy, this is an album powerful enough to make you shout out loud in public or cry alone at night. [Aug 2001, p.96]

Fantasy Empire buzzes, drills and throbs with a brutal power that is relentlessly, terrifyingly exciting. [Apr 2015, p.89]

The fabulous final versions of these songs often haven't travelled far from their rougher cuts, possibly because Harvey's voice, matured into a sumptuous growl, anchors the mood in enough grandeur. [Nov 2020, p.94]

Sensitively remixed and remastered--like cleaning stained glass for brighter colours--and in combinations of formats, here's a masterpiece that lives up to its legend. [Oct 2018, p.106]

[They] have made an evolutionary leap in rock. [Jun 2005, p.108]

Have One on Me is a very mature work indeed, even its resonant, discursive themes are underpinned by Newsom's usual playfulness. [Apr 2010, p.90]

A jarring and gorgeous reminder that our suffering is neither new nor negligible. [May 2021, p.79]

There's much to digest here but absolutely no filler--each song is a priceless gem. [Jan 2004, p.110]

Some of the songwriting is exceptional. [Dec 2003, p.114]

The result is fittingly breathtaking, a singer destroying his own work, yet creating something more elegiac and profound in the process. [Aug 2016, p.90]

Pollock might not take up space often, but when she's finally front and centre, you don't want the lights to go down. [Nov 2025, p.83]

What Dizzee Rascal has done with this record is find his own - profoundly satisfying - balance between grime's digital vortex of ringtones and car alarms and an older more contemplative electronic tradition. [Oct 2004, p.104]

Elephants On Acid finds Cypress Hill not only recapturing the dynamism and urgency of their early-90s heyday, but also taking that energy somewhere completely new. [Nov 2018, p.84]

A richer feast, from more humble ingredients, could scarcely be imagined. [May 2012, p.82]

Less exotic perhaps than the West Coast, Brazilian, German and Franco-Italian musical forays of the past, but even more remarkably musical, intriguingly textured and affecting. [Nov 2003, p.130]

Luminous and alive, Dear Scott is just what Mick does: Head music, straight from the heart. [Jun 2022, p.82]

Great songs and renewed relevance aside, Woody at 100's greatest bounty may still be Guthrie's own sketches and illustrations, beautifully reproduced in the book. [Oct 2012, p.101]

His rare talent for corralling emphatic musicians into his rhythmically intense, entrancing vision adds a whole new spin to the Indo-jazz continuum. [Aug 2019, p.91]

In a way, Trampin' is to this decade what Horses was to the '70s: a repudiation of its time, and the promise of a way forward. [Apr 2004, p.98]

All this may seem so exhaustive as to verge on the absurd, but fear not. It is the most fascinating document imaginable. [Dec 2016, p.100]

Her reading of Anthem makes Leonard Cohen’s hymn to resilience and resistance feel like a bespoke gift from another writer who knew about life in the shadows. .... It’s as that distant flickering light, illuminating the path to better times, that Staples excels. [Dec 2025, p.76]

[An] alarming intimacy is the bedrock of Devils & Dust. [Jun 2005, p.92]

The quantity and quality of the songs they have unearthed that didn't make it onto Deja Vu is pretty amazing. [Jun 2021, p.99]

Snocaps might plan on melting away as quickly as they formed, but here, at least, they've left an indelible mark. [Jan 2026, p.80]

New stuff for him every bit, from pain to process, and consequently unprecedented in his previous work is the sweet melancholy measure of his voice. His songwriting, too, emerges liberated, lyrics forged, melodies flowing. [Apr 2013, p.86]

Intense, painfully frank, hysterically funny,and in the end, exultant... OSIGTS isn't always an easy listen, but it does offer a fearless experience that invests pop with more theatricality than the form can usually tolerate. [Jul 2012, p.80]

Isolation doesn't get more splendid than this. [June 2008, p.100]