It's an album which reflects its makers' confidence. [Sep 2014, p.116]

What it lacks in earworms--with even the catchiest refrains served with a side of introspection--it makes up for it in its intoxicating portrait of desire. [Dec 2018, p.107]

Yet however familiar its themes may be, they all seem reinvigorated... by Petty's songwriting smarts and fantastically weathered vocals. [Sep 2006, p.110]

Musically adventurous, sonically daring and really rather stunning. [Nov 2014, p.112]

Stirratt and Sansone combine this all into a scrumptious hotpot of classy, classic songwriting, rich in texture and flavour. [Feb 2014, p.111]

The 11-song set is drizzled with plenty of that Minogue jus. [Apr 2014, p.117]

Even if some of the dizzying stylistic shifts will be familiar from his day job, the quirky, urbane character is all Baio. [Aug 2017, p.102]

The best record of her life by some distance. [Jan 2010, p. 122]

This record, however, makes an indelible mark. [Feb 2010, p. 110]

Erland And The Carnival is an exquisite update of the classic folk-rock sound of the late '60s, full of dark and lovely covers and originals starring tramps, carnivals, Derby Rams and death. [Feb 2010, p. 105]

Way more inventive than the garage-blues hordes. [Sep 2003, p.111]

Headphones and a quiet room are essential for capturing the full depth, but the payoff is a sound-world of uncanny resonance. [Dec 2019, p.106]

Foam Island again trashes the template as the duo attempt an ambitious quasi-documentary approach. [Nov 2015, p.106]

There are moments of glorious burning distortion on Solara and Marchin' On, but its real riches are much more subtle. [Dec 2018, p.115]

As intense as music can be, this record may be quiet but it isn't for the faint-hearted. [Mar 2018, p.111]

For the most part, their 11th album is the sound of a band getting back to their best. [Apr 2016, p.100]

Funneling psychedelic sounds through soulful gospel has long been a musical quest.... Matthew E. White's band have nailed the gig with their first experiment. [Feb 2013, p.106]

Emergency is a confident second dose, not a lazy repeat. [June 2008, p.139]

It's transporting enough to leave haunting echoes all its own. [Sep 2011, p.114]

A dream partnership. [Mar 2014, p.110]

Altogether, it's a thing of great beauty. [Jul 2018, p.112]

[It takes a while] for the songs to emerge out of the mist. When they do, they stand among the band's best work. [Jul 2019, p.104]

It seems they've raised their game in hallucinogenic style. [Jun 2009, p.135]

Younge and Muhammad give Ayers a crisp edge that achieves the unlikely feat of dragging jazz-funk into the modern world. [Sep 2020, p.107]

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]

Disarmingly intimate songs. [Aug 2017, p.102]

An exhilarating ride from a group who sound completely revitalised. [Jul 2015, p.108]

Another triumphant reaffirmation of UK dance music's mass appeal. [Jun 2014, p.120]

All That Reckoning hums with barely suppressed threat. [Sep 2018, p.110]

Wilderness quickly makes it clear that the passing of time hasn't dampened down their taste for the macabre mysteries if existence. [Jul 2013, p.105]

Dalle has her bite back. [Jul 2014, p.104]

He's enjoying his music far too much to stop now. And so, for the matter, are we. [Oct 2018, p.106]

Excitingly, War's chaotic punk and the frantic Guilty All The Same are as raw as they've ever been, but The Hunting Party is the sound of Linkin Park coming in from the cold. [Aug 2014, p.109]

Palms is a heavy, explorative listen. [Aug 2013, p.96]

Lovers isn't instant, but perseverance brings great rewards. [Oct 2017, p.100]

With almost every line a zinger, Wainwright's cocktail of satire and over-sharing remains potent. [Sep 2014, p.117]

For all the familiar qualities, the songs here never fall into pastiche or predictability. [Nov 2015, p.112]

It's well worth the wait. ... Boone's smoky vocals fit the desperation of Vlautin's mini-dramas perfectly, the band's country-soul swing evocatively solid. [Feb 2019, p.111]

Everything here is a fantastic hybrid, M.I.A. and her platoon of producers thieving fashionable street sounds from Baltimore hip hop to Brazil's baile funk. [Sep 2007, p.89]

There are moments in early listens of the album when the attention begins to meander, only to be drawn back in by a lyrical quirk, or a sudden musical volte face, so that by the sixth roll about the turntable this seems a wholly differently textured record to when you began. [Mar 2019, p.121]

It's a mess, but a glorious one. [Apr 2008, p.107]

Ultimately you're listening to an increasingly original singer and songwriter. [Oct 2013, p.98]

Stretching his creative wings has worked for Toledo; there's a sense of him pushing outward as well as forward, even as he questions the point of it all. [Jul 2020, p.106]

It's less of an album. more of a grand seduction: sultry, beguiling and entirely irresistible. [Apr 2015, p.98]

Singularity is rich enough to let your mind wander through it. [Jun 2018, p.104]

This confident follow-up is rawer, looser and altogether more agressive. [Apr 2009, p.97]

Chaotic, visionary and righteously pissed off, Wide Awake! feels like the perfect rock record for the times. [Jul 2018, p.113]

Complete with harmonies from Julia Holter, it's an absolute peach. [Apr 2014, p.116]

An incredible album. [Sep 2020, p.111]

East Of Eden is bold and strange, fusing alien-sounding instrumetals woth wide-eyed Scandinavian pop to dizzying effect. [Oct 2009, p.117]

Teeth offers more upbeat songs about downwardly mobile characters, complete with Springsteen-scale musical drama and clever lyrics about dive bars. [May 2014, p.111]

It's possessed and peaceful at once, absorbing and wholly gorgeous. [Jun 2013, p.108]

It's a richly textured record. [Jul 2015, p.109]

The swampy exotica that was draped around both 1995's To Bring You My Love and '98's Is This Desire? has been forgotten: as proved by the likes of Big Exit and the pleasingly frantic Kamikaze, the dominant sound is that of a three-piece garage band, fused with enough production panache to prove that Harvey remains an admirably intelligent auteur.

Brains and beauty come from the Chicagoan cult-rockers. [July 2011, p. 119]

Del Rey sounds regally removed from the box-ticking modernity of her peers, a one-woman advertisement for the appeal of the unreal. [Aug 2014, p.113]

Extraordinary. [Oct 2017, p.108]

Music Complete is like good architecture: impressive in scale, the layers precisely pitched and the repetition absorbing. [Oct 2015, p.116]

The swagger of Marshall's lyrics indicate a musician luxuriating in her maturity. [Nov 2018, p.105]

When Young's in the spotlight, the set hits the heights. [Sep 2014, p.119]

Keane fans will be happily familiar with the piano-heavy pop-rock, but those who wanted a little more grit will fine it in spades on The Wave. [Dec 2016, p.105]

A sweetly brain-scrambling experience. [Apr 2006, p.114]

The mood change from insurrection to brooding dystopia makes for a less immediate set of songs, but listen long enough and this is another powerful, affecting set. [Mar 2020, p.114]

The sheer oddity of the constituent parts is the thing that provides the thrill in the process, making this another perverse triumph. [May 2015, p.115]

The Coup's sixth album recalls OutKast or The Roots at their boldest, and Riley's an engaging host. [Dec 2012, p.103]

Like a silent movie star who discovered she didn't sound like Janet Street-Porter when talkies came, the overwhelming feeling is one of relief and career continuation. [Dec 2013, p.102]

It's stylistically close to 2012's excellent Interstellar, but on this form, too much of a good thing just isn't possible. [Dec 2013, p.112]

As strident as the MC5 yet as playful as Pavement, White Denim sound like the best rock'n'roll party you've ever gatecrashed. [July 2008, p.111]

A record whose combination of chirpy choruses and sharp, dark lyricism is difficult to resist. [Jul 2019, p.106]

By growing a personality, he's conjured up a low-key gem and a minor revelation. [Jul 2009, p.119]

The production here recalls all those beautifully arranged, rich-sounding Americana records from the '70s, a style to which Healey's mellifluous baritone is well suited. The songwriting, meanwhile, is a large leap forward from his earlier EPs. [Sep 2020, p.108]

It's full of clever rhymes and couplets, overflowing with wit and evocative charm, all set to the kind of arrangements that Harry Nilsson always dreamed of. [Aug 2001, p.142]

The sound is richer and the mood conveyed by Sambol--think a Muppet Show Sylan--is more rueful. [Apr 2010, p.121]

It's an album constructed from the simplest of elements: muted keyboards chords, pained falsetto vocals and Krell's greatest weapon of all: near silence. [Aug 2014, p.108]

Wonderful Wonderful is a glossy indie-pop album with sonics as slick and glistening as a brand-new Vegas skyscraper. [Oct 2017, p.110]

It feels hungry, modern and thrilling. [Nov 2019, p.111]

If you can forgive them their fondness for epic arrangements, theirs is a debut to transport you to a gentler place. [Jul 2005, p.122]

Circles showed his music was reaching new heights. [Mar 2020, p.116]

It's a lush and elevating experience. [Dec 2012, p.109]

Whether psychedelic riffing or crooning over strings, theirs is top-notch garage pop. [May 2007, p.126]

These 10 tracks sustain a brooding atmosphere. [Jul 2020, p.109]

It's worth having--just don't expect the act of possession to be all one way. [Feb 2014, p.110]

Understated but always adult record, but Aves's guitar twinkles across these impossibly catchy tunes and his voice's warmth masks its sometimes barbed content. [Mar 2016, p.106]

Dive in unreservedly. [Jun 2018, p.119]

A tripwire-taut production from pop magus Cam Blackwood ensures these bleak but brilliant punk confessions grip like a vice, even as you fear for Carter's mental health. [Jul 2019, p.106]

MDNA's dirty dozen rank it her best since, in all sincerity, the career high of 1998's Ray Of Light itself. [May 2012, p.88]

Once you've let it grow on you, Sea Change is largely so lovely that you'll forgive him. [Oct 2002, p.98]

Each of the 10 songs are beautifully simple, sounding like they've been passed down in a Welsh oral tradition from generations long forgotten. [May 2012, p.100]

It's to Bailey Rae's credit that never for one second does the album feel exploitative or mawkish, just truthful and real. [Mar 2010, p.94]

Genuinely and heart-stoppingly bittersweet. [jul 2003, p.112]

Her's mine post-punk and new wave with a tasteful restraint, fusing Scritti Polotti's twinkling, slinky grooves with the luminous lugubriousness of Orange Juice to create something that feels distinctly theirs. [Sep 2018, p.113]

There's a wildness to it, a predatory snarl as it bares its teeth and chases down new ways of expressing desire, different ways of being. [Sep 2018, p.112]

An appropriately violent swansong, then. [Dec 2016, p.106]

This follow-up boasts a more cohesive sound but without sacrificing the duo's Eastern-influenced allure. [Jul 2012, p.108]

Field Music honor these songs by bringing the same bold commitment they bring to their own writing. [Dec 2012, p.105]

Resurgent indie icon with added Drums, Cribs and Franz Ferdinand. [Oct. 2010, p. 105]

Possibly the most polished album Adams has produced, Moves is bigger and grander than its DIY indie-rock sound may suggest. [Feb 2013, p.110]

His trademark lyrical honesty and sublime fingerpicking remain at the fore. [Oct 2013, p.99]