Hearing the acoustic demo for In The Heat Of The Morning, you have to feel for Bowie. Without the fussy grooviness of the studio version, it finds him in revelatory, limbering-up-for-Ziggy mode. ... The most significant discovery is Goodbye 3d (Threepenny) Joe ... soft-voiced and 12-stringy, it's a tail-between-the-legs yarn with choruses sung with a hard-boiled intimacy worthy of John Lennon. [May 2019, p.103]

Long Island is alive and involving, creating a world of its own. [Mar 2013, p.87]

It's all propelled by an energy exclusive to debut albums, the five-piece pulsing with post-punk fervour. [May 2019, p.89]

Rich in sonic detail à la ’90s Outkast, ’00s Roots and present day Flying Lotus (whose fluid bassist Thundercat performs another star turn), Lamar undercuts his densely layered messages with acerbic ruminations on his newfound celebrity status that may prove polarising, but are never less than enthralling.

Ultimately, you suspect that their natural habitat are shoegazey guitarscapes like Everyone I Ever Met and Forever The Bridge, which marry controlled noise, atmospheric arrangements and subtly insidious melodies. Either way, it works. [Feb 2011, p.104]

Scott continues to ring changes elsewhere, hence the gung-ho title track channels Robert Parker's '60s Mod classic Let's Go Baby (Where The Action Is), and Right Side of Heartbreak (Wrong Side Of Love) brings sweet soul hooks. [Jun 2019, p.91]

What they bring to the table is a living, breathing sence of the organic. [June 2009, p.109]

Jackson is in magnificent voice throughout. [Oct 2021, p.88]

Promise of Love's cyclical episodes unravel at an amenable mid-pace, each one allowed just enough time to establish a mood bfore halting as over-familiarity threatens. [Jul 2003, p.101]

Blk Jks's own voicee is utterly compelling. [Oct 2009, p.107]

While the music is a combination of old Smog and new... there's a freshness here, a sense of change, and most remarkable, a real empathy on display. [May 2003, p.89]

Featuring a previously recorded vocal by Davy Jones, who died in 2012, it’s a match for any of their ’60s hit 45s. It also features all four Monkees, the only song of the 13 here to do so. The remainder, penned by the group, musician fans and long time cohorts, feature Tork, Dolenz and Nesmith and for the most part recapture the enchantment of the original group.

[Evokes] sun-baked panoramas. [May 2012, p.89]

Sung with his steamrollered Mancunian vowels intact, Garvey's allusive, playful lyrics are as golden as those of your Bermans and Caves here, drawing on Wordsworth, but also name-checking Leo Sayer and The Jungle Book's affable bear, Baloo. [Apr 2024, p.82]

There's an engaging sense of uncertainty running through these songs. [Mar 2010, p.96]

Things can get twee--but this feels like a tiny church in that forest, sacred and touching. [Jul 2015, p.92]

Hayden's delicate little songs are potent, precious things indeed. [Oct 2004, p.110]

Here never becomes too cosy, there are also plenty of sparkling textural buzzes and blips to ensure that Teenage Fanclub's traditional consistency remains impressive rather than soporific. [Sep 2016, p.91]

[A] slower tempii dominate the first half of Emma Jean, leaving the lapel-grabbing soul struts until the second half of the record. [Jul 2014, p.89]

If modern folk music needs its own OK Computer, its own The Dark Side Of The Moon, or indeed its own F#A#∞, this may well be it. [Apr 2023, p.80]

With its own low-key sparkle Archangel Hill stands testament to a musical third act every bit as engaging as anything that went before. [Jun 2023, p.91]

Defiantly mainstream. Still, it's certainly not weedy, relying on big Nashville arrangements filled with swelling strings and modulated Hammond organ. [Mar 2021, p.82]

When ghost-dub closer bathed In Grey plumbs its valedictory depths and suggests a young Matt Johnson, the loose-but-precise whole seems starkly impressive. [Oct 2013, p.87]

As with everything Morrissey does, ROTT's resonance will elude those not hitherto fascinated by its master's voice. A shame, for in terms of pure musicality, ROTT is possibly his most ecumenical solo album, his most welcoming and loveable. [Apr 2006, p.89]

Some of the catchiest Deadbeats tunes to date. [Jan 2019, p.92]

With no weak link, you can drop the needle anywhere. [Jul 2006, p.106]

Straight and true, without a trace of rear-view-mirror sentimentality. [Nov 2014, p.92]

Franz Ferdinand's first album since 2018's Always Ascending finds them re-invigorated, if not wholly reborn. [Feb 2025, p.88]