It doesn’t sound like the work of a band who might inspire legions of fans (among them, apparently, Kristen Stewart) to get tattooed with their logo, but these world-weary yet radio-friendly ballads imply the band might achieve longevity after all. Three chords and the truth never gets old, and ‘Marigold’ vividly paints the knottiness of adulthood.

Blips aside, ‘Rare’ is a beautifully confident return from one of pop’s most underrated stars, and a quietly defiant wrestling back of the narrative surrounding her.

Playground misogyny aside, ALLA is a thrillingly focused follow-up that betrays its anxieties even as it mostly makes do with extolling the virtues of vice.

It’s difficult to share the singer's awe when the musical backdrop sounds so tired.

An underground delight. [13 Nov 2004, p.57]

Songs begin fully-formed before spiralling into abstract drum loops punctuated by slicing guitars and vocal drones (‘Mess Your Hair’). At other times, the most perfect moments of Small Faces psychedelia or Velvet Underground basement pop will emerge from the most unlikely formless squalls (‘Sitting’; ‘Heart From Us All’).

Valuable remainders from last year’s Ferndorf sessions, these playful-yet-stark instrumentals beckon us invitingly into the terribly clever worlds of Terry Riley and Steve Reich.

Can you hear it? It’s here! Biffy finally make that sprint-burst into the rock stratosphere and trample over the competition like badly tattooed elephants smashing through dead branches.

The songs compiled here were the public face and sound of that--all-inclusive, heroic and, for the most part, bloody catchy. As eulogies go, it's not half bad.

A gloopy cheese-feast of sprightly psychedelic pop, served with a dollop of wanton James Brown funk on the side.

Johns’ 10-track debut solo album is a placid but gutsy amble that pitches him as Bill Callahan dealing with a lazy hangover the morning after a pub crawl with Guy Garvey.

This is folk music transmitted from the far corner of the universe.

A dusky delight.

The cream of their output is undeniable--the Air-like stringed beauty of ‘Les Nuits’, gut-wobbling soul wailer ‘I Am You’ and early singles ‘Dextrous’ and ‘Aftermath’--but there’s an awful lot of so-so wallpaper here, especially for a Best Of.

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

Two Door’s fourth effort is far from a wall-to-wall success, but for a band who could so easily continue to tread their affable, well-worn path around arenas and festival main stages without a sideward step (as many of their indie contemporaries have and will continue to do), the risks and experimentation here are very welcome.

The result is a fulsome, heroic thing.

Throughout the album, Fredo doesn’t necessarily get as deep or introspective as audiences may demand. That isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but it does create superfluous tracks across the project.

‘Back In Love City’ refutes that assumption [being past their prime] emphatically, presenting instead a band still at their very best and still brimming with ideas, invention and – most importantly – a knack for writing great songs.

‘Sunburn’ still acts as a love letter to the place he was raised in, however, allowing Fike to return home not only to the relentless humid state but to himself.

‘Altar’ is a beautiful portrait of working out what you’re willing to give up and how to keep pushing yourself forward despite the aching within you.

It's more chillout room than chillwave, all dub and little step, and the better for all of that.

Ultimately this is an album to dance, not cry, to.

Throughout, you get the sense Greentea is defiantly doing everything in her own sweet time. Lucky for us, then, that her sense of timing is in sync with the universe, because this hazy set is ideally suited to the long, lazy summer days.

These sparsely arranged folk songs are hauntingly pretty. [19 Mar 2005, p.59]

If the Dutch producer's last album 'Great Lengths' was an exercise in contemplative, spacious dubstep, then Ghost People is instinctual; muscles tensed in observance of the cerebellum's basest of commands.

This is an incredibly sharp return.

[M83] create some of the freakiest European-horror-movie soundtracks ever to see the light, all covered in Warp Records futuristic electro-plasm. [22 Jan 2005, p.50]