Compared to the mulch churned out by far too many, Contra will cut through most of the stuff on the radio like sunshine through clouds. [Feb 2010, p 100]

Very possibly, an even better album than Elephant. [Jul 2005, p.108]

Like a quieter, more thoughtful Sheryl Crow, Scialfa is a daughter of the city and her charms reveal themselves slowly. [Jul 2004, p.122]

Hugely exciting one minute, unlistenable the next and far too much to handle in a single sitting, Thirlwell's noise addiction can still make Trent Reznor seem like a pussycat.

Doom's bizarre raps prove a good match for Danger Mouse's eclectic approach. [Nov 2005, p.123]

There's a brief slump with One Last's fey melodies, but it's not enough to derail proceedings. A serious talented young band. [Jun 2010, p.119]

Bewitching and hugely ambitious. [Apr 2011, p.110]

Smart, anthemic and often desperately moving. [Dec 2011, p.137]

Near-perfect "Prairie Gothic". [May 2012, p.96]

Storm Corrosion deserve to reach a wider audience than their CV, record collections - or suspect band name- would imply. [Jun 2012, p.112]

On his strongest album yet, Jackson Jr deconstructs the back catalogue of comedian/musician Rudy Ray Moore, star of blaxploitation movie Dolemite. [Sep 2012, p.106]

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]

One of the albums of the year to date. [Oct 2014, p.118]

What's The Sound? is an intimate, lavishly layered collection topped by Woolhouse's worried vocals. [Jan 2017, p.115]

What really elevates the songs though, is the underlying weave of Latin-influenced percussion and subtle string arangements which draw deftly on Garzon-Montano's French-Colombian roots. [Mar 2017, p.108]

At times, they sound like Black Sabbath might, if Tony Iommi had ever misplaced his genius for memorable riffs. Far better is when they harness their power more constructively. and fragments of tunes emerge from the sludge. [Jun 2017, p.112]

Green Twins is high on sonic invention. [Jul 2017, p.108]

Sweet Kind Of Blue may shock people who only know Barker through her theme tune for Kenneth Branagh's Wallander, but it finally set out her true claim for stardom. [Jul 2017, p.104]

These ate anthemic, headlining songs from a band that is fast becoming one of our finest. [Nov 2017, p.110]

Overall Open Here is joyful and reliably brilliant. [Mar 2018, p.108]

This is a beautiful, soul-searching record and the one that Joan Wasser has spent her whole life building up to. [Mar 2018, p.110]

This is menacing, magical stuff. [Apr 2018, p.116]

The music itself remains more in debt to Blue Note classicism, but the palatability is alluring. [Summer 2018, p.113]

Old Rockhounds Never Die is ceaselessly exciting. [Sep 2018, p.118]

An album that is one of 2018's gems. [Nov 2018, p.102]

Ultimately Sola's muse remains rooted in the nocturnal. [Jan 2019, p.113]

This is a soul-baring and lovely record. [Dec 2018, p.108]

If it's occasionally all a bit much, it's also unlike anything else you'll hear this year. [May 2018, p.111]

If the instrumentals can occasionally feel a little lounge-comfy, Turn To Clear view is ample proof of why UK jazz's horizons keep expanding. [Nov 2019, p.108]

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

In short, Beck Hansen has properly re-acquired his mojo. [Mar 2014, p.106]

The experimental approach drifts into plain old messing about more than once, but when he gets it right, it's superb. [Aug 2013, p.99]

While Booker plays with a certain fury on this self-titled debut, he sings with a leisurely cool. [Sep 2014, p.105]

It's a punishing listen. ... But this is not a record for the faint-hearted. [Nov 2019, p.111]

It's a restrained record that doesn't suffocate its epic songs with epic instrumentation. [Jul 2019, p.114]

McKenna's charisma and melodic sense ensure it's a delight nonetheless. [Sep 2020, p.113]

It's like a broken radio stuck between frequencies, at once disorienting, woozy and supremely psychedelic. [Nov 2010, p.112]

It's a brilliant record, without question their best to date. [Sep 2014, p.107]

He'll never be an easy listen, but for now Actress has found a happier role. [Jul 2017, p.104]

Wordy troubadour's sixth and finest effort. [Sept. 2010, p. 118]

It might just be Everything Everything's most human record to date. [Sep 2017, p.107]

Shah isn't doing anything especially new here, but she is blending 2017's concerns, with unalloyed fury and genuine musical craft. [Oct 2017, p.108]

Beautiful stuff. [Jun 2020, p.94]

The folky reworking off The Raconteurs' Caroline Drama is an improvement on the original and the stark version of Love Is The Truth, originally written for a coke ad, outweighs the bombast of the released version. [Nov 2016, p.117]

Now in his 78th year, all that know-how has been meaningfully brought to bear on this collection of vintage, Depression-era blues. [May 20009, p.112]

Smart audio trickery and intriguing atmospheres draw the listener in and, overall, it's a real beauty. [Sep 2020, p.111]

It's a place where sweet harmony vocals and extreme rock meet, like Crosby, Stills & Nash through an art-punk shredder. [Dec 2005, p.148]

There is plenty here to treasure here. [Apr 2011, p.111]

There's a lack of clutter to songs such as To The Open Spaces and the title cut, with its barely-there brass arrangements, which makes them simple pleasures, and among the best songs of her career. [Jun 2003, p.102]

A pleasure, featuring some of his most winging music since [Roisin] Murphy's Ruby Blue. [Jul 2006, p.118]

It's an impressive feat of engineering, but one that anyone other than ardent fans will struggle to find a way into. [Oct 2019, p.114]

It works exceedingly well. [May 2017, p.108]

The Brooklyn trio rein in the misery. [July 2011, p. 106]

It's fantastic stuff. [Sep 2006, p.107]

For all its moodiness, Careful is a glorious coming-out. [Mar 2019, p.112]

Platform is always engaged and engaging, the questions it raises never merely academic. [Jun 2015, p.107]

Your Future Our Clutter is the Fall's finest in years. [Jun 2010, p.133]

Though you might struggle to dance to it, Punish, Honey is an unexpectedly saucy missive from the serious electronic underground. [Nov 2014, p.119]

Jesso's winsome melodies and gorgeous chord changes never fail to hit the spot. [Apr 2015, p.103]

Not exactly immediate, definitely rewarding. [Oct 2013, p.109]

Words are what sustain Push The Sky Away. [Mar 2013, p.97]

There are missteps, but consistency was never their selling point. [June 2008, p.138]

The Violence is ambitious in Hayman's homemade, almost hesitant way, but his vision goes far beyond any other current independent artist, and is a true treasure. [Jan 2013, p.105]

Lese Majesty is a trip to be sure, but the destination remains unclear. [Sep 2014, p.114]

Old fans will be delighted: new recruits may be seduced. [Nov 2017, p.112]

What could be desperate instead dazzles, thanks to a combination of shiny pop smarts, hands-aloft anthemics and, in the case of Freddie Mercury-alike singer Luke Spiller, the kind of unembarrassable charisma they rarely manufacture any more. [Dec 2018, p.114]

Throughout, Fields's gutsy vocals are utterly undimmed by age. [Jul 2019, p.109]

These crafted confessionals are a reminder that Murphy couldn't write a bad song if he tried. [Aug 2020, p.109]

Jim O'Rourke's solo work comes to mind on tracks like Leaders, but there's more emotional depth here. [Feb 2005, p.102]

As a calling card, it's as close to perfection as the title suggests. [Jul 2016, p.109]

Unusually welcoming entry point. [May 2020, p.92]

If there's a fault, the self-consciously retro production doesn't push her far enough. [Jul 2013, p.106]

Variously heartrending and uplifting, Lateness OF Dancers is enriching stuff. [Oct 2014, p.110]

On I Speak Because I Can, her great leap forward after 2008's captivating Mercury-nominated debut, Marling deploys an archaic folk patois with convincing gravitas. [Apr 2010, p.118]

The fifth album actually proves refreshingly unburdened by fashion. [Nov 2012, p.101]

While Hinton's selections vary wildly in style, the production is both fluid and empathic. [May 2016, p.114]

This is guitar music at its most acerbic and romantic. [Aug 2017, p.110]

It hasn't got all the best tunes, but this bullishly self-titled album hits the target like a hair-dyed, tattooed William Tell. [May 2013, p.111]

These renditions, however, also stress how undeserved their reputation for tea-and-cakes twee was, using Stuart Murdoch's lyrical sharpness and the radio sessions' rough edges to draw blood. [Jan 2009, p.126]

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

Like Moon Safari-era Air, unleashes shimmering, cinematic musical waves that gently wash over you but eventually suck you in entirely. [Nov 2002, p.113]

Predictably claustrophobic listening.... When they come up for air, Interpol have the tunes to match all the mannered gloom. [Sep 2002, p.107]

It could be horribly contrived, yet Bird has the rare touch to make it sound as natural as breathing. [May 2007, p.125]

Elevated throughout by Garcia's immaculate phrasing, this is music that fuses he tradition and modern with real purpose. [Sep 2020, p.110]

Illuminate is a powerful, sometimes overwhelming debut that pushes all the right buttons. [Jul 2014, p.103]

He more often turns the spotlight on himself, raw and uncompromisingly direct in a way that only an album recorded in a few short days can be. [Feb 2016, p.115]

This restless, shape-shifting experimentalism might have been something Mason's been working on now for two decades, but it's rarely sounded better than it does here. [Mar 2016, p.118]

It all makes for a remarkable second album. [Jul 2016, p.110]

This inventive debut mixtape continues the journey with no previously released tracks but much ammo for his claim to the capital's diasporic underground. [Nov 2018, p.111]

Even when they do go a bit hippy-dippy, it's rarely at the expense of something you can hum along to. [Summer 2019, p.115]

The sense here is of two artists drawing creative sustenance from new light. [Jul 2018, p.112]

It's good, but then again no better than a genuine, crackly, long-forgotten B-side or buried album track that a specialist reissue label might have unearthed. And there, ultimately is the rub. [Jun 2010, p.127]

It's clear where this record's from, but where it's at remains an alluring mystery. [Mar 2017, p.112]

Explores the furthest reaches of what its creators have christened "junk-shop glam." [May 2019, p.119]

Such willful awkwardness means they're never likely to rise above cult status, but this is still a very welcome form. [Jan 2013, p.105]

It's angry, piss-yourself funny, bursting with ideas and endlessly quotable. [Aug 2015, p.107]

It's all quite ridiculous and lots of fun. [Jul 2018, p.111]

Years & Years currently seem unconcerned with idiosyncrasy and edge, but it's hard to mind when they've hit a pop spot this sweet. [Summer 2018, p.112]