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

This 20th album is his most overt and conscious attempt to wrestle with specific demons that [diagnosis of being in the autism spectrum] raises up. [Nov 2013, p.113]

No Blues is their best album yet. [Dec 2013, p.109]

Days Are Gone is a pretty impregnable collection of songs, their alloy of golden Fleetwood Mac melodies and liquid R&B polished to a reflective shine. [Oct 2013, p.103]

There's a calculation to much of what's on offer here that undercuts all the other advancements. [#361, p.116]

His songs draw on his folk-rock roots, only to detour down mysterious and memerising byways. [Jan 2017, p.111]

Often ludicrous, Pure Luxury is a brilliant escape. [Aug 2020, p.108]

Truelove's Gutter is a beautiful album. [Oct 2009, p.113]

It may sound less dense, but The Hungry Saw is as dark, mysterious and seductive as ever. [May 2008, p.141]

There are moments when it becomes a bit Baltic Eurovision, but Okovi is as tender as it is tough. [Oct 2017, p.111]

It's both a delight and a retro-soul how-to. [Jul 2015, p.112]

Everything's in flux, subject to change, but Xen is still a record of mood-altering substance. [Jan 2015, p.120]

Footwork newcomers might want to test their stamina with one of Planet Mu's excellent Bangs & works compilations first. [Jun 2012, p.114]

There's nothing here that hasn't been heard before from countless others, but it's put together with impeccable taste and--importantly--a skilled ear for a tune. [May 2010, p.118]

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]

Reconstructed stands as a compelling snapshot of an artist who can't be considered a real game-changer. [Oct 2012, p.118]

In its street-level politics, lucid delivery and hypnotic hooks, Novelist Guy is confirmation that this wave has a lot further to roll yet. [Jun 2018, p.107]

What remains unbroken doesn't need fixing. [Oct 2018, p.119]

Crucuially, though, he's lost none of his songwriting skill, with each song here perfectly capturing a mood of reflective melancholy. [May 2009, p.110]

One Life Stand is the classic pop album they've always threatened to make. [Mar 2010, p.96]

Without resorting to difficult time signatures or moaning about the desperate pain of it all, [Luke] Steele has found a wonky path away from rock's mor restrictive conventions while still engaging positively with the world. [Aug 2003, p.113]

His fifth album is a triumph where his previous efforts have promised but fallen just short. [Oct 2007, p.105]

Tindersticks once again turn the spaces and losses into songs of substance. [Jan 2020, p.114]

Wincing The Night Away is super-smart pop music the way they (Brits, mainly) used to make it 20 years ago. [Feb 2007, p.100]

Their fourth album continues their stimulus for head and viscera. [Jul 2014, p.107]

Anyone who wants a bold new direction from Jeff Tweedy may find Sukierae disappointing. [Oct 2014, p.120]

It isn't any different to where she's been before, it's simply that quality levels remain uniformly high. [Aug 2008, p.139]

Sad to say, The List is an overly polite, lifeless collection of tried and trusted country standards apparently recommended as required listening by her father back in 1973. [Dec 2009, p. 126]

Previously, their appeal was an alien fusion of ferocious single-mindedness and forbidding complexity. Here, Battles often struggle to sound strange enough. [July 2011, p. 107]

The ambition is still there. [Jun 2016, p.114]

An album that seeks to pull you under from the off and that, by and large, succeeds. [Jan 2017, p.112]

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

You have to salute Jaar's ambitious, freewheeling approach, but a little more cohesion would've sealed it. [Dec 2016, p.109]

Entertaining though these tracks are, it's hard not to wish that he could ignore the buzzing irritations of not being universally adored, all the time, forever, and concentrate on the big picture. [Mar 2009, p.90]

Despite some strong material, the relentless gloom gets a little wearing well before the end. [Nov 2016, p.113]

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

Three tracks in you realise with horror that [it] is a concept album. Worse, it's a concept album of kitchen-sink dramas about Tony The Milkman and Doris The Housewife set to Saint Etienne's dated indie disco. [Jul 2005, p.120]

All told, this is a mind-blowing and powerfully emotional album, however you (or she) want to label it. [Nov. 2011, p. 143]

Graduation is mercifully skit-free, but it still feels insubstantial to West. [Oct 2007, p.95]

Their poppiest album to date. [Feb 2003, p.107]

No Time For Dreaming has the gritty feel of the real thing, a man who's known mostly hard times and tells it with a pleading throaty roar and blood-curdling scream worthy of James Brown. A real find. [Mar 2011, p.117]

File besides Peaking Lights as odd couple doing weirdly accessible wonders. [Dec 2012, p.112]

Ou Va Le Monde is twanging Tarantino-bait, Tatiana is a thumping, technophile take on The Velvet Underground, Le Chemin is gloriously woozy and Exorciseur is Gainsbourg-esque. But they're all eclipsed by the closing Vagues, a 13-minute psychodyssey. [Nov 2016, p.108]

Devendra Banhart's singular world remains as intoxicating as ever on the earthy, analogue-sounding Ma. [Oct 2019, p.106]

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

Five albums along and Hot Chip continue to outdo themselves, not to mention most of their peers. [Jul 2012, p.111]

These songs aren't as charcoal-stark as her earlier solo work, but the aura of breathy acid-folk enchantment can leave the feeling there is too much atmospheric smoke, not enough revelatory mirror. [Aug 2015, p.104]

Strawberry Jam sounds as if it was a blast to make; happily, the fun doesn't stop there. [October 2007, p.94]

Their weak spots (feyness, smugness, shallowness) remain. [Nov 2003, p.104]

There's little revelatory, but it's another fine record to add to their cannon. [Oct 2009, p.119]

It may do little to make non-believers go his way, but Get Up! sizzles with intent from the off. [Mar 2013, p.102]

In modern jazz terms, a masterclass. [Mar 2014, p.116]

Sometimes, these stresses and strains seem to swallow her dreamy synth-pop whole, but there's at least a striking EP's worth here. [Aug 2017, p.108]

Second album confirms sonic wizard's wizardry. [March 2011, p. 116]

Packed with intriguing melodies. [Mar 2005, p.99]

There's a significant talent emerging here. [Aug 2012, p.100]

Old dogs, old tricks, but when the tricks are this good why would you want new ones? [Dec 2015, p.106]

There are clear parallels with Factory Floor, Mica Levi and early Grimes, but Owens has clearly found her calling. [Jul 2017, p.111]

In The Future has enough ideas to last several albums. Mostly, they work. [Feb 2008, p.98]

Mind games worth playing. [Mar 2013, p.107]

A powerful work, noble in both intent and execution. [Nov 2004, p.110]

The winter to Johnson's eternal summer. [Jul 2012, p.95]

A powerhouse of big riffed rock 'n' roll drenched in '70s sunshine. [Sep 2012, p.110]

There's a renewed focus and a hitherto undetectable oomph, both achieved without jettisoning their trademark subtlety. [Nov 2013, p.116]

Despite the dark moments, Lost Domain keeps the flame. [Dec 2014, p.119]

She's A Witch's tumbling harmonies, the tessellating grooves of Dark Star and Bushe's surrealist lyrical skew help cast a dazed spell. [Jul 2015, p.106]

In its focus and eccentricity this debut keeps Khan's own vision front and centre. [Sep 2018, p.114]

It's a multilayered, detailed affair, which proves that 27 years after their debut, their edge is still keen. [Aug 2017, p.108]

Vibrant and outward-looking, the record has a buoyant, dancified energy that flows. [Oct 2017, p.103]

Their stance is still refreshingly at odds with the mainstream. [Oct 2009, p.105]

A proper treat for aficionados of the laugh-out-loud lyric. [May 2004, p.106]

An album that's as entrancing as it is modestly proportioned. [June 2002, p.121]

[His] new-found security has enabled Weller to refine his art in the manner of Travis and all those accused of making the same record over and over again. [Oct 2002, p.113]

There's something rather pinched and prescribed about this weirdness.

Kozelek's sparse, haunting delivery can render even the basest material achingly affecting...

The result is a superbly off-kilter record, from the new wave guitar jerks of Each Time Is A New Time to the strident harmonies and shifting melodies on All You'd Ever Need To Say. [Mar 2010, p.101]

It's an album that will send you to sleep, and to dreams of another dimension. [Jul 2016, p.114]

His fourth LP proves his strongest to date, a mesmerising meditation on uncertainty and unease, which bridges the gaps between urban poetry, post-rock and brooding electronica. [Sep 2017, p.117]

It's by no means awful; it's just as if Nirvana had recorded 12 versions of Territorial Pissings for Nevermind. [Apr 2014, p.105]

It isn't perfect but it adds up to an intimidatingly assured opening shot from a major new talent. [Dec 2013, p.108]

Homebrewed splendour. [Mar 2006, p.110]

For the most part, the duo's fourth full-length curbs their indulgent tendencies. [Jun 2011, p.114]

The songs here bode well. [Jan 2005, p.128]

Mothers marks this once unremarkable band as real contenders. [Oct 2015, p.115]

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

Impressive but so unblinkingly stern. [Oct 2013, p.101]

'Scare Easy,' the single, and 'Bootleg Flyer,' reminiscent of Petty's classic 'American Girl,' are the standouts on this collection of rough and ragged, feel-good country-rock. [July 2008, p.107]

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

II is propelled by Segall's forceful energy. [Jan 2016, p.111]

It's a winningly fluid mix of on-trend beats, intriguing cameos and subtle, Eastern-influenced melodies. [Aug 2019, p.113]

While there's throat-shredding fervour, it becomes a crazily overextended blur of goofy anthemics. [Sep 2015, p.117]

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

Electric is a first-class showcase for Thompson's spine-tingling solos but not the consistent song collection that was 2010's Dream Attic. [Mar 2013, p.110]

This is a record that opens up the time and space to think, picking up echoes, melting them down into something new. [Aug 2020, p.102]

10 tight tunes of heart, soul and intricate craftsmanship. [Dec 2016, p.105]

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

While lyrically Kings Of Leon remain underdeveloped, how they've grown musically. [May 2007, p.119]

Redeemed, revived, irresisitable: it seems R.E.M. were only sleeping after all. [Apr 2008, p.99]