Smother is deeply sad and lonely, but still a barbed invitation to intimacy; like Coleridge's albatross, an extraordinarily elegant, stunning, (near)-perfect portrait of how terribly bad decisions can turn out.

Gratuitous filth, basically. It’s funny, but also a pity, because Yeezus is so tight, so bold, that with a few tweaks Kanye could’ve made his rock for the ages. As it is, he’ll have to settle for one of the best records of the year.

A record that anyone who’s ever demanded anything interesting from rock music should hear.

One of the most exciting hip-hop releases not only of this year, but in recent memory. [27 Nov 2004, p.61]

A clearly adult, unfashionably sensitive document, all grace and understatement, experimental through what it leaves out, and the effects it plants in the background.

It’s heavenly, in its own troubled way.

It may be titled From Kinshasa, but this record could easily be from the future.

Less has always been more with Smith, and the success of In Colour lies in his gift for melding together very few elements to create songs that are original, surprising and highly effective.

This Is My Hand should see her join him, her other collaborators and St Vincent in the US experimental pop pantheon.

This is an album that leaves you in absolutely no doubt that, at the very least, Pascal Arbez-Nicolas is the best thing to come out of France since Daft Punk. [30 Apr 2005, p.63]

It’s wrought with haunting, high-stakes emotions, but the strength of Scott’s voice means it never feels melodramatic or plainly vulnerable.

Thank you very much, Mr Rubin--The Man In Black is still with us. [1 Jul 2006, p.36]

It's an album of outstanding natural beauty, an organic, wholesome work.

Uniformly excellent.... Few, if any, British bands are making music quite like this right now.

A joyous, celestial celebration of sound.

A diverse but wholly coherent set of songs, this spaced-out odyssey is well worth the trip.

ATDI's latest album has its amps cranked to the hilt from start to finish. Far from being another in a long line of sanitised American punk rock albums, 'Relationship Of Command' sounds REAL.

Their best yet.

Nobody is making music quite like Harding, she is a special, singular artist. Just be sure to take the same approach to interpreting her lyrics as you would to any great work of surrealism; the joy is in the wondering, not the knowing.

It'd be hard not to draw parallels between Calvi and [...] PJ Harvey. Yet while both women ooze an elemental kind of passion, Calvi is unashamedly slicker, especially when compared to Harvey's earlier, grungier work.

What 'Drukqs' never is, of course, is boring. It's also beautifully paced. No track sounds like the one before, even though Aphex rarely strays far from the musical palate that's served him so well in the past.

The TNGHT EP packs five explosive instrumental hip-hop tracks, every one dripping with each producer's trademark sonic flourishes.

One of the most assured debut albums of the last five years.

They’ve made an absolutely magical record--the jagged edges of their past have been smoothed by the sea, making Teen Dream a soft shore gem in the crown of the great chronicles of youth.

My Maudlin Career is the kind of record that exists to reward those both mad, and sad, in love.

Let's Get Ready', Mystikal's fourth LP and his first Billboard chart-topper, is one wholesale fighting muthaf**ker, a full theatre of opportunities to offer the world outside. Women? Mystikal will take you down for one. Or, preferably, two. Reputation? Come see about him. Neighbourhood? You don't wanna go there... Mystikal is the fightingest bastard and his grin's never wider than when he's putting the hurt on.

'Remedy' is probably as good a dance album as anyone from these Isles has produced this decade.

They’re a shaggy-haired, surf’s up pop band and painfully vulnerable all at the same time.