Silver Steps and Slow Cathedral Melt are all howled melancholy, and equally exciting are Triccs' sonic twists and turns, even if they are exhausting, exhilarating listens.

Poignant beyond words... but never mawkish. [Dec 2003, p.140]

In upbeat pop mode, the quintet are impressive, but when slipping downtempo into ballads, Camera Obscura are in a league of their own. [Jul 2013, p.100]

Practically every track on Late Registration is a glorious pop song. [Aug 2005, p.120]

Prairie Wind finds Neil Young on fine creative form and all too aware of the limited time he may have left to enjoy it. [Nov 2005, p.118]

Melodic, understated, yet with much natural warmth too, Ritter's time has surely come. [Apr 2006, p.119]

There's lots here to get lost in. [Nov 2013, p.109]

The results are still as unsettling as they are stunning. [Mar 2018, p.107]

It's his most enjoyable music in two decades. [May 2017, p.112]

The post-punk provocateurs' 13th album finds them straddling post-millennial metal and ritualistic pounding, Jaz Coleman still still roaring like he's the only sane person in a world of fools. [Nov. 2010, p. 105]

A glorious reinterpretation of some of his [Merle Haggard's] finest songs. [Jul 2017, p.104]

This is the sound of a band perfectly balanced and creatively ablaze. [Summer 2020, p.104]

Dream Wife may borrow from the best, but are indefatigably joyfully their own. [Aug 2020, p.113]

Shallow Life finds them adding substance, specifically Evanescence-esque mass-appeal anthems tailor-made for radio. [Jun 2009, p.119]

Ritter's seventh album may not be quite the same league as Dylan's masterpiece, but post his own divorce it does contain all the same edgy recrimination and pain. [May 2013, p.109]

Scott's energy and enthusiasm burns as brightly as ever. [Summer 2019, p.116]

A delicious vision of pop crooked enough to pull corks with. [Jun 2013, p.96]

Studio-recorded, the all-covers Blues And Ballads reels in his wilder live flights to pensive effect. [Aug 2016, p.114]

There's something magical about the rapturous jumble of C86-esque indie, WOMAD rhythms and cooing dual vocals from Alister Wright and Heidi Lenffer. [Jun 2011, p.110]

God only knows how they stay this angry, or this compelling. [Sep 2015, p.110]

Revolution Radio is Green Day back at their best. [Nov 2016, p.104]

[Morcheeba] return to what they do best. [July 2002, p.117]

Blackly comedic, this is a great debut. [Nov 2018, p.112]

It's splendid listening, probably best appreciated horizontally. [Feb 2019, p.111]

Anderson has rarely sounded more desolate. And Suede, for two decades, have rarely sounded this compelling. [Feb 2016, p.106]

A triumph of irregular precision. [Mar 2016, p.109]

It's a diverting blend of gravity and distraction, but at 17 tracks, it arguably commits that historic rap LP crime of filling all available audio space. [Feb 2015, p.105]

He's better when he approaches modern life from more oblique angles. [Summer 2020, p.104]

Forty years after The Stooges' debut album, Iggy Pop is still heading blindly into the unknown. [Jul 2009, p.116]

Vol. 1 is long on quality, variety and versatility, whatever format you choose. [Aug 2009, p.114]

Not since Massive Attack's Blue Lines have a heavy heart and urban dread been so absorbing. [Jun 2013, p.97]

Occasionally the vocals soften the edges, but on a record that feels as if it's trying to catch the moment of changing states - geological and mental - it's dynamism always powers through. [Summer 2020, p.104]

A record that confounds expectations on every level. [Jun 2011, p.110]

Fly Rasta offers no concessions to the new-fangled ways of hip-hop, dancehall and R&B. [Jun 2014, p.114]

Beautiful and inscrutable, it runs very deep indeed. [Sep 2019, p.117]

None of it will scare the horses, but it's certainly the right side of unexpected. [Oct 2019, p.113]

Vespertine quietly proves that cutting-edge production and human contact aren't mutually exclusive. [Sep 2001, p.109]

Dark and greasy, The Other Life is where Shooter's past and present finally come to terms with each other. [Aug 2013, p.105]

This album is as comfortable with skittery beats and strikingly artful arrangements as it is with acid throb and super-sensual disco shudder. [Nov 2013, p.111]

It's the quality of the songwriting that really shines through here: every song is top drawer in melodic terms. [Feb 2019, p.115]

Creation is a tightly focused, instantly accessible and gloriously summery on the surface as its predecessor. [Jul 2014, p.114]

A radiant blast of cosmic rock and intergalactic electro-pop that sounds as next-level as the voice of the spaceship, the brain i n the jar, a full-force astral projection. [Jul 2017, p.105]

An album of satisfying melodic warmth, Down Like Gold is a winter morning headphone treat. [Mar 2014, p.110]

A couple of tracks featuring Kember's spoken word are skippable, but elsewhere such druggily joyous songs as Just A Little Piece Of Me and the triptastic I Can See Light Bend induce pleasant daydream states. [Summer 2020, p.105]

Primal Scream haven't sounded this vital in at least a decade. [Jun 2013, p.97]

The youngsters prove themselves masters of dynamics, in The Mountain's gradually explosive ascent, and the muscular spasms of They Keep Silence. [Aug 2016, p.113]

On these songs and the anthemic "Hard Times," Drew achieves what's he's aiming for: a gritty urban update on '70s socio-political classics by Curtis Mayfield and Marvin Gaye. [May 201, p.119]

The emphasis is on big, radio-friendly choruses, four-part harmonies giving an euphoric dimension to their punk-influenced sound, with less of the earlier complex angularity. [Jun 2010, p.127]

The most successful synthesis of their prog-tinged ambitions so far. [Apr 2003, p.102]

Poetess-godmother of punk compiles own Best Of. And she's still sustaining. [Oct 2011, p.137]

A giant leap from their 2016 debut. Critical is the discovery of drummer Aaron Frazer's falsetto voice, leading six of the 12 songs, he's doubled the band's stylistic and emotional range. [Apr 2019, p.113]

Fittingly complex. [Summer 2020, p.107]

A concept record about femininity that finely balances intelligence with accessibility, The Witch gets better and better with repeated listens. [Jul 2017, p.112]

Poignant and sincere, this is a Bill Callahan we could do with more of. [Jun 2003, p.104]

It's wall-of-noise stuff, but consistently they manage to either build a decent tune into the squall or else engage the listener through exhilarating power alone. [Nov. 2009, p.101]

Fannypack might already be sick of the Beastie Boys comparisons, but it works on too may levels to be ignored. [Oct 2003, p.104]

[A] blistering debut. [Sep 2015, p.109]

Fabulously vivid fourth solo album. [Nov 2018, p.106]

Dawn Chorus is quietly, but righteously confident. [Jan 2020, p.109]

System Of A Down remains the one metal band non-metalheads can enjoy. [Dec 2005, p.156]

Best skip Stray Cat Blues though, a track so problematic it's a wonder Operation Yewtree haven't opened a file on it. [Jan 2019, p.117]

Their debut LP serves as an impressive case for why--a mingling of youthful bombast and strikingly mature ambition, the songs here are anthemic, introspective, delightful. [Jun 2017, p.102]

Quietly, and confidently, Two Door Cinema Club march on. [Summer 2019, p.116]

This genuinely feels like a fresh start rather than time-killing. [Mar 2003, p.100]

Settle may be a lot less rowdy than Basement Jaxx's bellwether 1999 album Remedy, but it pulls off a similarly timely coup by pulling together a number of clubland threads, imposing a keen pop sensibility and idiosyncratic vision, and riding the crest of a rising tide. [Jul 2013, p.104]

A lot to take in, then, but a lethally brilliant concoction. [Aug 2013, p.107]

It makes a great introduction to an oft-overlooked band. [May 2011, p.133]

What gives the routine anew life is Knox's very modern talent for hiding barbed insults under lovely orchestration. [Feb 2019, p.112]

If World Eater has an ear for the end-times rave-up, it's also not going anywhere gently. [Apr 2017, p.111]

Their thrillingly angry seventh album is a more furious companion piece to "American Idiot," raging at both social injustice and the self-righteousness of the punk underground. [June 2008, p.138]

The results defy you to even care whether it's real or fake: it rocks, end of story. [Apr 2015, p.107]

These are languidly addictive songs that barely seem there on first listen but soon emerge from the mist to take up residence in your life. [Jul 2017, p.107]

Provides a stirring reminder of how cross-cultural encounters spark new musical forms. [Aug 2020, p.107]

Shaka Rock avoids critical flak, however, by harnessing their Stones-age rock with a groovy undercarriage. [Oct 2009, p.114]

It's hard not to be drawn into their occult world. [Jun 2013, p.99]

They're sparkling again. [Aug 2018, p.111]

Her innate spikiness keeps the schmaltz in check. [Oct 2019, p.108]

Surprisingly heartfelt. [Mar 2020, p.114]

Aventine does not reveal its atmospheric charms instantly and the brief instrumental Tokka is a reminder she can veer too close to chamber music, but repeated listens unfurls all sorts of wonder. [Nov 2013, p.113]

Melnyk's compositions wobble and hesitate, as if embarrassed by their beauty. Brief moments of optimism strike a philosophical tone, his notes dancing around an equilibrium that never quite arrives. [Feb 2019, p.112]

It all peaks on Raw Language, distorted saxophone and choral voices speaking together with thrilling intensity. [Jul 2017, p.107]

It shows that whatever life brings her, Case can turn it into something startling. [Jul 2018, p.108]

A third-eye dilator to be sure, but surprisingly easy to groove to. [Jul 2009, p.131]

Wilson never forgets the melodies or real sentiment. [May 2013, p.113]

It takes a while for these hushed, subtle songs to change the mood of a room, but when they do, it's as striking as sun through the blinds. [Summer 2019, p.108]

This is a quietly adventurous coming of age, as languorous and fuzzy around the edges as a summer afternoon.

For all the troubled lyrics, these songs pack punches. [Jun 2011, p.111]

The thumping drums and syncopated string throughout still channel the 1980s, while Good News (Ya-Ya Song) harks back to the summer of 1999, all clipped guitar and MTV beats. [Oct 2019, p.114]

Nu-folk starlet shines ever brighter on third outing. [Sept. 2011, p. 100]

10 years if touring, recording and a recent divorce have provided enough grit, soul and burr with the sort of peculiarly exquisite pain that's grown up enough to register life's grand futilities. [Sep 2013, p.101]

Quite unlike any other record you'll hear this year. [Nov 2013, p.116]

Not so much a comeback, more a welcome back. [Nov 2013, p.114]

Punching way above her 20 years, like a wild child Loretta Lynn, it's the sort of country music that belongs in those dives where they've got chicken wire to stop the flying glass. [Nov. 2011, p. 142]

It packs copious groove, Monument Valley-scale riffs, decent songs, and an Al Green homage which only lacks a Premier League singer to take it to the heavens. [May 2019, p.119]

Impressively, she pulls off both sympathy and empathy. [Oct 2008, p.138]

This unashamedly adult collection drags Feist deeper still into major talent territory. [Jul 2017, p.107]

It's their artless harmonies and feel for rhythmic space that lift the songs to another level. [Aug 2017, p.107]

If you haven't bought one of his [Mark Lanegan's] records for a while, this is a great place to get reacquainted. [Jun 2013, p.100]