Almost the equal of 'Ordinary People,' 'No Hidden Path' again demonstrates that when the contary old buzzard plugs in and really goes to work, it's still a thrill like no other. [Dec 2007, p.113]

Euphoric and uncompromising, Folly us up there with KOD's best work. [Nov 2013, p.109]

It's a powerful record that reconfigures the classic mnid-90s New York sound more skillfully than anyone's done for some time. [Feb 2013, p.103]

Loneliness and melancholy rarely sound this positive and on more upbeat tracks such as Two Cold Nights In Buffalo, Andrews happily confronts and owns her life choices. [May 2018, p.104]

[Placebo is now] sounding modern and sneakingly world-beating. [Oct 2013, p.109]

Amygdala is the sort of wonderfully slowed-down and spun-out electronica that suggests DJ Koze should get himself into the studio more often. [May 2013, p.104]

This is rock'n'roll at its most direct, fun and stupid-yet-deadly-serious. [Aug 2020, p.105]

Bleach's grooviness is intrinsic to its enduring appeal, just as much as the cankerous layers of noise. [Dec 2009, p.128]

As musically dazzling as Midnite Vultures often is, the one criticism that can be still levelled at Beck is that his songs remain strangely soulless, failing to ever really grip the emotions or stir the soul.

Weatherall gleefully proves there's life for house music beyond four-to-the-floor bangers. [Aug 2018, p.114]

His rap style isn't as distinctive as Ja Rule or DMX, but as the singalong Many Men (Wish Death) shows, with Eminem on his team, there's no stopping him. [May 2003, p.98]

Naysayers may write this off as a derivative mash up of early-'90s indie moves, but on Empire Kasabian have become bigger than the sum of their record collections. [Oct 2006, p.116]

It confirms the suspicion that Bugg really could go all the way to the top. [Dec 2013, p.106]

It's clever, effortless and very likable. [May 2020, p.110]

It's an invitation that's hard to resist. [May 2017, p.113]

It all adds up to an impressive first step that ticks plenty of the right boxes, as does Duffy herself. [Apr 2008, p.100]

Throughout, chunks of ska and pop ensure an absurdly cheerful atmosphere. [Oct 2013, p.110]

A thrilling record of an artist in his element. [Jun 2019, p.115]

A lovingly crafted, deeply satisfying step forward. [Mar 2013, p.110]

For all its characteristic lyricism and stylistic restlessness, to say there is never a dull moment on Notes on a Conditional Form would be a slight overstatment. [Jul 2020, p.103]

On Word Of Mouth he's finally built a viable path between those old and new worlds. [Mar 2014, p.115]

An enthralling, multi-layered listen. [Aug 2020, p.109]

An inventive reworking of Squeeze's "Up The Junction" and a caustic cover of the Sex Pistols' "EMI" are reminders that, 15 years on from "I Should Coco," their passionate (Brit)pop still crackles with energy. [Apr 2010, p.112]

Parquet Courts are a charmingly old-fashioned band, transmitting cryptic, collapsible songs to an anyone who can build a receiver from Guided By Voices-coloured vinyl and Pavement fanzines. [Jun 2013, p.104]

There's something almost rave-friendly about their effervescence at times. [Aug 2014, p.102]

Mischievously sexy. [Aug 2013, p.94]

There's a lot going in here, but it's delivered with an effortless charm that trusts listeners to pay due attention in their own sweet time. So far, so swimmingly. [Aug 2012, p.94]

Rhythms skip and play seemingly without touching earth... These are manifestly the labours of a man still with something to say. [Nov 2000, p.109]

The dense plot might be confounding on first listen but the MC's high-speed interplay and Younge's cinematic arrangements, recorded entirely live and analogue, make for a breathlessly entertaining masterclass in classic hip-hop storytelling. [Oct 2014, p.121]

A strange, spooked and deeply involving record. [Jul 2012, p.105]

While he has never sounded quite so full of empathy, this is a grumpy old record. [Oct 2006, p.114]

The qualities that make M.I.A. a tough sell is the same one that fuels her restless, hungry, inspirational music. [Dec 2013, p.100]

As a statement on where the UK's urban scene is headed in 2017, it demands to be heard. [May 2017, p.109]

Showing his mastery of modern music in all its form. [Jun 2020, p.98]

A return with soul and fire. [Oct 2013, p.110]

This latest installment unearths yet more rare and diverse dancefloor gems. [June 2019, p.119]

Warm and beautiful music. [Mar 2014, p.117]

The Velvet Trail finds him firmly on home turf: sparkling glam-noir and sumptuous balladeering. [Apr 2015, p.85]

Few rappers think to use words like "polyocular;" fewer still manage to make them funky. [Nov 2008, p.111]

A little indie olive branch, Dove is as welcoming as it is welcome. [Jul 2018, p.108]

It does thrillingly refine the group's electric explorations of numinous spaces both minuscule and gigantic. [Jul 2019, p.114]

With too much hip hop content to recycle cliches of its own making, it's exhilarating to discover someone out there is still willing to test the limits. [Jun 2009, p.132]

The music matches the rhetoric, and it's an undeniable triumph. [Jun 2016, p.109]

They're intriguingly ambivalent, but the conundrums are so beautifully and hauntingly put, you'll want to revisit them. [Jul 2009, p.125]

It's a pleasure to get lost in. [May 2012, p.99]

There are meandering moments on Skying--closer Oceans Burning's day-trip into prog palls after a while--but it continues The Horrors' fast-forward evolution from their dark larval form into lepidopterist's delight. [Aug 2011, p.110]

A masterclass in mixology. [Jan 2020, p.113]

Here they find wonderful refuge in stability. [Nov 2014, p.102]

Cenizas creates the precious illusion of space and motion. [Jul 2020, p. 109]

Whereas on record the songs tended towards the delicate, here they're fleshed out, with a richer sound that evokes The Zombies or Love. More vital, is how the set-up re-imagines earlier material. [Jun 2019, p.116]

The singer hits new highs and broadens her pop horizons. [Mar 2014, p.118]

The result is an impressive but super slick collection of post-hardcore floor-fillers that's increasingly more "post" than "hardcore." [Jul 2009, p.117]

With gospel tinges and road-dusted melodies, this is high-end Americana and piano balladry, his brothers' loss is everyone else's gain. [May 2014, p.110]

Back in the real world, fans of the disconnected Callahan know what to expect. They're a loyal breed who puzzle over his dryly funny lyrics and file the CDs next to Mark Eitzel and Nick Cave... His best yet.

[Producer Mutt] Lange proves an excellent match. Never before have Bellamy's guitars sounded so terrific. [Jul 2015, p.110]

Hardly groundbreaking, but heartfelt all the same. [May 2011, p.116]

It's engagiing enough that even the happily perplexing nine-minuter "The Well" breezes by with no danger of outstaying its welcome. [May 2010, p.117]

Her penchant for acid blurts and seductive basslines rings throughout this characterful collection, drawing constellations between electro glitz, darkwave gloom and post-punk austerity. [Aug 2018, p.111]

This is a beguiling breeze of an album that never loses its cool.

Beautifully low-key, gently life-affirming. [Sep 2018, p.110]

You don't need an encyclopaedic knowledge of LA-based folk-rock to enjoy the rough-hewn vocals and gnarled, grainy guitar play of these London-based chums-of-Mumford. [Jun 2013, p.107]

Excellent, although not quite the epoch-defining triumph its hype suggested it might be. [Jan 2004, p.108]

As the set progresses, the trademark Nirvana sound begins to take shape. [Dec 2004, p.152]

It proves gloriously uninhibited. [Sep 2014, p.117]

The threesome's Orcadian tribute is a remarkable modern-yet-ancient mini-musical. [Jul 2012, p.105]

[A] terrific fourth album. [Nov 2014, p.102]

It seemingly exists in another dimension entirely and by the end of the album you feel as if you've just emerged from a a nightclub in Atlantis. [Dec 2013, p.102]

A consistently impressive record. [Dec 2013, p.111]

Women & Work strikes a party-hearty country-soul vein. [Feb 2013, p.103]

The Stepkids' sense of fun and pop nous makes Troubadour a constantly entertaining listen. [Oct 2013, p.112]

Challenging yet compelling. [Feb 2014, p.110]

Beautiful stuff. [Jun 2019, p.116]

There are flashes of greatness here. [Apr 2013, p.110]

His debut album is extraordinary. [Apr 2009, p.110]

[Noody's Fault But Mine is] A career-high in an album of highs. [Jul 2018, p.111]

The whole set is sumptuously produced and is the trio's most fully realised sonic adventure yet. [Summer 2020, p.98]

Campbell's gorgeous, heartbreaking and--well--maudlin songs deserve to be heard by an audience far wider than Camera Obscura's current cult- indie-pop devoteees. [Jun 2009, p.119]

[They sound] pissed off, over-amped, just the right side of sloppy, shorn of the brass grafted into recent outings--i.e. exactly like themselves. [May 2013, p.106]

Lorde's biggest achievement is retaining her emotional insight into herself and her generation despite her utterly transformed life. [Aug 2017, p.100]

They've bottled the lightning in an album of satirical wit, edgy intelligence and what fans crave most of all, raw power. [Jun 2013, p.105]

This is a fantastic record, one of the year's best, but perhaps one that suggests that Murphy has said what he needed to say. [Jun 2010, p.122]

Slick, wonderful album. [Aug 2018, p.114]

Morrissey, at 58, once again proves himself a pop provocateur of enduring efficacy. [Dec 2017, p.100]

They have made an amazing album about how amazing pop music can be. [Jul 2012, p.106]

Throughout, the sense of a man finding his own path is convincing. [Nov 2014, p.111]

Forget the usual, constricting alt-country tag, this is simply a wonderful record. [Mar 2007, p.116]

A record tremblingly alert to the darkness, it flickers like a candle in the gloom, a victory for the forces of good against all odds. [Dec 2013, p.107]

Fourth effort Combat Sports combines their early impish exuberance with English GGraffiti's more polished musicality. [May 2018, p.114]

[The album blurs] genres with the same ease it blurs expectations. [Oct 2013, p.109]

A major breakthrough beckons. [Mar 2014, p.120]

A strange, intoxicating and utterly brave record. [Apr 2015, p.86]

Quietly intoxicating, it's equal parts brain and beauty. [Jul 2018, p.111]

It contains some of the band's most beautiful, idyllic songs to date. [Apr 2014, p.117]

The overwrought Fall From Grace is the only bum note: otherwise Singles is a brilliant, bewitching album. [May 2014, p.110]

All 11 tracks on the album jump, shout and twang the heartstrings, albeit with a knowing wink. [Jun 2013, p.105]

The sentiment of the latter is clearly that the doubts and fuzziness of the past have gone and the future is now dazzlingly bright. On the strength of this sharply-focused, wholly impressive record, that much is certainly true for Guillemots. [May 2011, p.113]

It's her devastating voice and ear for the smallest details that ultimately makes all the difference. [Jul 2013, p.104]

A career-best mind-melter. [Sep 2018, p.117]