It is the most raw and intimate long-player in the 15-year career of this fine Nashville-via-New England singer-songwriter. [Feb 2016, p.93]

On his third solo album, Steve Mason veers dangerously close to that overfarmed damaged-earnest-sensitive-bloke territory, but luckily he doesn't seem capable of schmaltz or emotional cheap-shots. [Mar 2016, p.95]

Highlights are many. [Jan 2017, p.100]

While these tales may have been found in far-flung places, they all ultimately belong to the same deep tradition--and one where unvarnished simplicity enhances the material's uncanny potential. [May 2018, p.94]

Writing her way into a new persona, our heroine emerges as a badass punk with attitude and cutely clever lyrics. [Sep 2020, p.87]

Overall these "ultimate mixes" sound airy and punchy. [Dec 2020, p.96]

Topaz conveys a strong undercurrent of social commentary. [Apr 2021, p.82]

It's a daunting but ultimately rewarding listen. [Jan 2022, p.92]

The Mysterines' raw, gothic debut crawls under the listener's skin, thanks to singer Lia Metcalfe's impressive vocal range. [Apr 2022, p.88]

Throughout there is a sense of making music for the sheer thrill of it. ... This is Newcombe celebrating the moment and at his best. [Aug 2022, p.92]

Strings offers one of his most vulnerable vocal takes yet on John Deere Tractor, a tender note home to a country mom from a son stuck in and troubled by a city; it feels like a letter from the road, hungover and threadbare. And the playing is flawless and charged, from Cleveland’s steam-engine fiddle during Way Downtown to Rob McCoury’s edgy delicacy during Frosty Morn. [Jan 2023, p.85]

There's also a cameo by Ruben Blades on the lively Pajarito Volo, but Ochoa remains the undoubted star of the show. [Sep 2023, p.82]

Top-drawer tunes throughout. [Oct 2023, p.78]

A joy. [Nov 2023, p.89]

There's almost too much to bask in. [Nov 2023, p.91]

Contrasting bleak truths with giddy popsike, bubbling defiance and a rebuff to arts-funding BS. [Jul 2024, p.95]

Morton & Russell rarely overplay their emotional hand, the music colour-changing to match the narrative of damage and resilience. .... Once it locks in, Daffodils & Dirt is hard to shake off. [Jul 2024, p.88]

The feel is sweaty, late-night techno, and while the Detroit clatter and acid squelch is more alluring this time around, it's Saoudi's lascivious persona that really pulls yoyu into the album's nether world. [Feb 2025, p.84]

Hamdan works slowly, but this has been worth waiting for. [Oct 2025, p.87]

This collaboration was always going to produce something sonically elegant. Accordingly, this six-song cycle is built around a drone, its individual tracks manifesting as if in curls of smoke. [Jul 2018, p.93]

Just like McCartneys I and II, III is a confounding cocktail of genius and misfires. [Jan 2021, p.82]

The palette-widening Northern urban soul colours supplied by The Dap Kings' equally convincing playing and arrangements are evry bit as key to their fourth album's sucess....Never unnecessarily flash, Jones is in tremendous voice from start to finish. [Jun 2010, p.102]

Fantastic mix of rare jazz and soul, cut with contemporary electronic meditations from Sarah Davachi, Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith and more. [Jun 2019, p.102]

The restraint, especially from the horn section, is astonishing; the overall effect absorbing to the point of transcendence. [Apr 2019, p.93]

Not for the uncommitted, this is a time capsule to a place where those over-burdened by taste will not want to go. but junk shop superhead/compiler/indie rock Zelig Phil King has reminded us that if we do some things differently in the past, they do other things--thrills, strangeness, escape--the same. [Apr 2019, p.103]

Lyrically, it's Merrick's diary of their delirious reaction to that vast continent, such as the sublime desolation of Somewhere near El Paso, bathed in "a half-lit Denny's sign", or Lily Pad, where Merrick, sounding almost horizontal. [Jul 2024, p.88]

Allelujah! Don't Bend! Ascend! feels simultaneously enormous and tragic; the sound of victory, firmly set in the jaws of defeat. [Jan 2013, p.91]

The mind-boggling multiplicity if voices on Key Markets, the sneaking sophistication, and the beyond-colourful language, serve up a currently unrivaled feast for the mind. [Aug 2015, p.89]