Complex, original and even sincere, it’s a brilliant new departure.

Shrines is a euphoric treat in its own right, made all the more thrilling by its heady potential.

'Take Them On, On Your Own' is a masterpiece. You should get hold of it as soon as possible.

This is cold-blooded revenge pop that strikes like a shard of shattered plate to the heart.

A joyous surge of drums, guitars, wild brass and potent Spanish-English vocals from powerhouse frontwoman Victoria Ruiz.

The doomed relationship cycle in eternal motion or the sound of a heart that won’t stay mended, Honeyblood is visceral pop music giving its prettiest snarl.

The Go! Team's eclectic soundclash makes us feel deliriously dizzy. [11 Sep 2004, p.53]

Lyrically lucid and sonically exciting. [11 Jun 2005, p.67]

The spontaneous sounding arrangements--topped by Watson's uniquely mercurial voice--are at turns ornate, grand and subtle, but never less than totally bewitching.

The good--no, the astonishing--news is that this constantly engrossing record repays a decade and a half's faith and patience. D'Angelo has scuttled down the digital chimney with an early Christmas gift with long-lasting rewards: not just one of the best records of 2014, but one that will stay with you throughout next year, too.

Glasser's glowing debut offers more melodic and emotional consummation than almost any of her peers can muster, poised in a genuinely transcendent golden balance between the stern, the spacious and the gaudily sparkling. A very precious Ring indeed.

Written around the time Tillman got hitched to this girlfriend, it's a hugely ambitious, caustically funny album about the redemptive possibilities of love, and being heartily sick of your own bullshit.

The Great Pretenders is an emotional, emboldened triumph.

It's like the best bits of every extreme metal subgenre: a deathly crossover of sludgy, blackened thrash that will put hairs on your chest.

King Night is sick. Not just in the sense that it's outstandingly good but in the fact that it seems extremely unwell.

This isn’t so much a progression as a rebirth.

It’s lyrically dark and has the musical aggression to back it up.

Burke delivers as pure and proper a record as you'll hear all year. If you've ever laughed or cried, you need to hear this.

Recovering emos Brand New have taken doing things their own way to the point of invisibility, but their journey into the widescreen ether continues with yet another breathtakingly accomplished record.

Closer ‘Sea Of Trees’ is as impressive, its restrained riff suddenly smothered by an almighty dirge. It’s a fitting climax to a record that unsettles from start to finish.

It’s that sense of twisting bleakness into something that sounds thrilling is what makes the album so effective. Lip Critic take the horror of Kaser’s very personal trauma into something strangely communal and alive.

It's the best thing he's done since his game-changing debut, and heartening evidence to suggest the self-professed Louis Vuitton don is in a good place right now.

[Has] the unmistakable feel of an instant classic. [28 Jan 2006, p.34]

Nielson strides away from the woozy Beefheart-indebted psychedelia of ‘II’ and its self-titled 2011 predecessor, and vividly expands every single aspect of the UMO sound.

The most doubter-defying second album since 'Modern Life Is Rubbish'.

They have returned hungry and wired to shake us out of our digital comas.

It’s a sleeping giant of a dancefloor creeper that will be everyone’s favourite new electro album in approximately six months’ time.

A record with the bleak-yet-redemptive spirit of REM's 'Automatic For The People' and the musical magnificence of a 'Deserter's Songs'. But also a record that - as much as 'London Calling' or 'What's Going On' - holds a deep, dark, truthful Black Mirror up to our turbulent times.