[Francesco Turrisi's] accompaniments, often on old/unusual instruments, add a strange, delicate beauty to Giddens' solemn, powerful soprano. [Jun 2019, p.89]

Lyrically it's one of Cohen's least ambiguous albums... Musically it's melodic and memorable. [Nov 2004, p.96]

The sound of a man stretching out... What breadth of vision McCaughan has. [Nov 2021, p.86]

Life In The Dark constantly threatens to fall apart at the seams but the Felices miraculously hold their world together, the greatest campfire band imaginable. [Aug 2016, p.93]

Their music is an improbably addictive miasma of chopped-up spoken-word fragments and spectral electronica. [May 2011, p.110]

What with that album title, a wistful opening waltz, entitled Oh, The Divorces! and a beautifully resigned lament called Singles Bar ("Can you tell how long I've been here? Can you smell the fear?", the theme of mid-life crises hangs heavy over these 10 simply arranged vignettes. [June 2010, p. 92]

There's taut New Wave (Tiny Moves; Jesus Is Dead), but mainly moody electronic balladry (think Streets Of Philadelphia), with Del Rey turning up to fulfil the intend of her one repeated line ("I'll make it darker") on Alma Mater. [Jun 2024, p.82]

Blom's buoyant indie-rock - a perfect vehicle for the everyday anxieties that power her songs - quickly proves hard to resist. [Nov 2021, p.84]

A heartily uplifting brew of scruffy street style, swear words and stammering pop tunes which sweat musical history. [Sep 2001, p.99]

The gauzy seductive songs feel like euphoric conjuring, chinks in the doors of perceptions that reveal another hidden capital, a misty tapestry of late-night idylls, laced with a rapturous melancholy magic. [Oct 2017, p.91]

A culturally rich and generally wonderful 72 minutes of little-heard revelry. [Oct 2024, p.94]

Arular's irresistible blend of crafty refugee chic and subversive digital skipping rhymes will do very nicely for the moment. [Jun 2005, p.108]

Caracal is nothing less than one of the best pop albums of the year. [Oct 2015, p.90]

Their clearest vocal to date, not from a guest, but from guitarist/mouthpiece Stuart Braithwaite. ... Yet another high water mark in Mogwai's irresistible ride. [Mar 2021, p.83]

Signs of life: abundant. [Aug 2023, p.82]

The trio's approach naturally invokes comparison to their forebears, but pleasingly, Night Beats are distilling a strong vintage of their own. [Feb 2016, p.92]

With Heartworms James Mercer has produced another fine crop of pop. [Apr 2017, p.88]

So does the pairing work? The answer, from the first, strutting beats of Modern Guilt's opener, 'Orphans,' is a gleaming Yes. [Aug 2008, p.104]

10 wistful, tender songs. [Feb 2014, p.98]

Aficionados will hear a master ambient craftsman in his element. [Dec. 2010, p. 95]

In trying to make an album that pointed to where he wants to go as an artist, Hawley has taken the best parts of his past and uploaded them onto one sublime record. [Jul 2019, p.90]

V comes as a spellbinding corrective. [May 2013, p.95]

This debut long-player has been greatly anticipated, and does not disappoint. Skating an agreeably fine line between conscious dancehall and complex nu-roots, Chronixx delivers 15 deeply personal explorations of Jamaica and the challenges it faces.

Expansive and coherent, yet always subterranean and claustrophobic, this is easily Fearless's finest hour. [Aug 2016, p.94]

The moving Electric Shock incorporates joyous synths and Headcase is berserk thrash-pop brilliance. Dizzying closer, Mortals, meanwhile, might have been a Top 10 hit in the early '80s. [Oct 2019, p.86]

Malone draws the listener into the unique interior timbre of the pipe organ, like the idling breath of a large machine at rest; a music of worship, where the object of spiritual veneration is the inner space of the instrument itself. [Oct 2019, p.89]

The LP's title might suggest the randomised poetry of google translate, but Low Probability Of A Hug speaks a language everyone can understand. [Oct 2019, p.85]

Both energy and melodies hold strong throughout, and, suitably topped off with Ballad Of Mott-style self-chronicling finale Born Innocent, Redd Kross is these Angelenos’ defining epic. [Aug 2024, p.86]