This follow-up takes on a conventional band set-up, but it's as impressive, offering a crisply original take on the classic singer-songwriter approach. [May 2013, p.109]

Led by a yearning frontman getting his Morrissey on, it's a debut that's boyishly and buoyantly charming. [Aug 2010, p.126]

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]

At times her dark warnings about the devil and bluesy intonation sound affected, but full marks for trying out new ground. [Dec 2001, p.127]

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

Part Jewel-with-tunes, part Tori-Amos-without-kookiness, it noodles, but only rarely.

Mostly brilliant and, most surprising of all, never pretentious. [Oct 2003, p.102]

They might have a shelf life shorter than a pint of milk but, with a good tune underpinning each over-egged slice of rock pudding, are all the more thrilling for it. [Aug 2003, p.104]

The effect is spoiled by noodly, indifferent tracks such as We Meet At Last. [Aug 2002, p.128]

{The Birthday party is ] more like an unfortunate scratch on what is otherwise a miniature jewel of an album and one of those rare side-projects that deserves a long life of its own. [May 2011, p.117]

These previously released 28 masters and 27 out-takes are yet another eloquent reminder that contrary to received wisdom, Presley's '70s were no creative desert. [Nov 2013, p.120]

Caustic Love is a truly excellent modern soul record. [May 2014, p.114]

Throughout, his control is masterful: spry on Make It Up, clarion and clipped on Grief Is Not Coming, familiar and uncanny all at once. [Aug 2017, p.105]

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

A mix of '70s art-rock, hipster funk and sleek DeLorean pop. ... Shuman's loss is our gain. [Sep 2019, p.112]

The Big To-Do is the familiar mix of big guitars and off-kilter storytelling. [Apr 2010, p.120]

They're still relentlessly heavy, just less hypnotically so. [Jul 2013, p.111]

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

A massively inventive debut. [Feb 2005, p.104]

Restrained, graceful and poised, the lady remains country music's finest ambassador. [July 2008, p.103]

Impressive and increasingly accessible, this is the sound of a major talent developing. [Jun 2015, p.104]

Yes, there's a touch of the body-painted Glastonbury theatre troupe here, but Let's Eat Grandma's spell is binding. [#361, p.111]

This has a more expansive, almost pop feel. [Dec 2008, p.132]

This time around, though, she's more introspective, less shouty and the result is her most absorbing album since 2005's "Kidnapped By Neptune." [Mar 2010, p.106]

Although comprised of offcuts, it amounts to a great fourth and final record. [Dec 2018, p.104]

In this case, less is more. [Nov 2012, p.106]

It's a clear-eyed first step to turning their ideas into reality. [Oct 2013, p.106]

An lysergic audio treat to sate the hunger of horned nature deities and psychedelic heads alike. [Aug 2015, p.115]

With high-up bassline grooves and synth-psych mayhem oozing from every pore, it's another absolute winner. [Jun 2017, p.105]

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]

Sampling Michelle Obama on No Man Is Big Enough For My Arms feels glib, while Vale aspires to Solange-like authority but, unlike their voices never quite strikes the right note. [Nov 2017, p.111]

A winning combination of party grooves and Bush-baiting politics. [Jun 2006, p.113]

These are big, stately songs, packed with rue as much as brio. [Dec 2015, p.103]

This debut seems to tremble on the threshold between the past and the present, the known and unknown, O'Brien's voice and allusive lyrics displaying a mixture of vulnerability and dexterity. [July 2010, p. 137]

An assemblage of electro-pop, affecting melodies and Dear's sonorous voice, Black City variously recalls Talking Heads, LCD Soundsystem and The Magnetic Fields. [Sept. 2010, p. 114]

It's hugely rewarding. [Jul 2006, p.118]

It's great at times, but far more work than it should be. [Jan 2012, p.127]

The defining album of his career, Wasting Light is the sound of Dave Grohl putting his whole life in context. [May 2011, p.110]

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

The results are frequently riveting. ... A challenging listen, then, but that's its appeal. [Jun 2017, p.110]

This is nervy, restless music for turbulent times. And all the better for it. [Aug 2018, p.113]

In all that attention to detail, there's flair and fire enough to quash the qualms and revel in people doing something over and doing it right. [Sep 2012, p.97]

A quiet storm of a record. [Nov 2015, p.111]

Williams has offered much to admire, and even more to contemplate. [Mar 2016, p.119]

He's back where he really belongs with the T-Bone Burnett-produced Country Music. [Jun 2010, p.132]

At Mount Zoomer finds them making a giant leap forward, its surfeit of innovation defying easy categorisation. [Aug 2008, p.145]

Canadian electro duo's dreamy fourth album. [Aug. 2011, p. 120]

After just six songs and 17 minutes, the future is sounding admirably open-ended. [Oct 2002, p.118]

Extends the with-strings concept of last year's Lead Us Not Into Temptation and is equally arresting in its breadth of content and creativity. [Apr 2004, p.107]

It's essentially ambient comedy cabaret. [Nov 2003, p.117]

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

They've simply honed their sound to an aggressively melodic point. [May 2015, p.104]

A richly rewarding listen. [Jul 2006, p.114]

It's heartening to see a band still in the grip of an ideas overload 11 albums in. [Nov 2012, p.94]

Play[s] the kitsch-folk game with real panache. [Feb 2006, p.101]

Home Before Dark offers a dignified and, yes, hip addition to the Neil Diamond canon. [July 2008, p.110]

There's clarity on The Haunted Man that comes from the sense of physical boundaries being pushed, of personal space being tested to its limits. [Nov 2012, p.97]

A sense of dread pervades throughout. [Mar 2013, o.101]

As much an art piece as it is a pop record, EWAB would make the perfect accompaniment to an afternoon flat on your back at a sun-strafed festival. [Jul 2015, p.106]

It's hard to recall specific songs once they're over and the tracks not sung in French puncture the atmosphere a bit, but overall, oil lamp projector-lit vibe is an enjoyable one. [Jun 2016, p.113]

All in all, the treatment effectively lights these already great songs from fresh angles, revealing hidden depths and added poignancy to what was already a strikingly powerful set of songs. [Sep 2019, p.116]

Cover Two shows no dimming of eclectic tastes or interpretive skills. [Jul 2020, p.108]

Atmospheric and richly layered, their best moments tap the same ecstatic eclecticism of fellow travellers Sufjan Stevens and Beirut's Zach Condon. [Nov 2008, p.114]

The results are psychedelic, frequently surreal and occasionally brilliant. [Mar 2008, p.99]

It's not all politico-provocation; pretty duet Honeysuckle and minimalist piano ballad The Oldness counterbalance the more outspoken moments nicely. [April 2012, p.107]

What could easily have sounded contrived instead works wonderfully. [Jun 2013, p.96]

It's magical stuff. [July 2011, p. 116]

As armistice appears to exist on this sixth album; the more ethereal elements of the band's sound have been reined in, but so has much of the agresion, resulting in a smoother ride that allows Moreno's melodic ear to shine and seduce. [Jun 2010, p.123]

A bit of a gimmick maybe, but one that pays off, with Mellencamp relishing his role as grizzled troubadour steeped in the rootsy traditions of America's rural South. [Oct 2010, p.111]

Beams is more expansive and vulnerable that the nightclubbing menace of 2010's Black City. [Sep 2012, p.99]

This is a record of stormy intensity, hauling its emotions up to the mountainside to expose them to the elements. [Mar 2018, p.115]

The first section--an intoxicating invocation of sea voyages and Bacchanalian rites--is richly instrumental, the second an otherworldly swirl of chants and ecstatic song that couldn't have been made by anyone but them. [Jan 2019, p.106]

It can occasionally cloy, but on The Prettiest Curse, Hinds are on fighting form. [Jun 2020, p.100]

She plainly knows the meaning and benefit of brevity. [Apr 2013, p.110]

When it all gels, you can forgive the occasional bout of navel-gazing self-indulgence. [Jun 2005, p.120]

Want Two isn't an immediate album, but what it lacks in pop hooks in makes up for in ambition. [Mar 2005, p.92]

It is still a loose affair, but it allows the quartet to explore the far reaches of their songs rather than just wander folk's outer soloar system. [Nov 2009, p.103]

Mariachi horns and guitar twang still form the backbone of a striking return to what they do best. [Oct 2008, p.141]

From the anthem-like 'Ode To LRC to the sanguine finale of 'Window Blues,' this is beautifully paced and utterly beguiling. [Dec 2007, p.112]

United as a trio, their talents flare up to blinding effect. [April 2012, p. 94]

At its best, Other Worlds is sublime. [Nov 2012, p.106]

There are songs here which recall protestant hymns, others full of Kurt Weill cabaret humour and slick, modern white blues that suggest an energised, liberal attitude to the traditions in which he's working. [May 2013, p.101]

A bold step, especially as the songs slow-burn rather than star-burst. [Jul 2015, p.105]

Stanley Park, Hornets and Magpie carry a wistful, charming nostalgia about them, but maybe it's a generation too removed making In The Magic Hour's nods to tradition often superficial rather than tapping into the music's deepest heartbeat. [Feb 2016, p.115]

What A Boost sounds like somebody trying to make a confusing world slot together in a way that ultimately makes sense. [Jun 2019, p.115]

What could've been an album of self-pity is transformed into a record of optimism and hope. [Sep 2019, p.111]

Their fourth album proves more than just a trendy daliance, placing them at the cutting edge being honed by Dirty Projectirs and TV On The Radio. [Nov 2008, p.117]

Eternally Even retains James's parent band's mystery and washes of sound, but it's underpinned both by his conspiratorial, intimate vocals and a new-found, tacit anger on an album brought forwards to coincide with the US election. [Jan 2017, p.114]

While album two adds flavours from the Mediterranean and Iran, the fundamental intent is the same with less-is-more funk beats and bass providing an opiated shagpile foundation for Mark Speer's light-touch guitar lines. [Apr 2018, p.111]

For all the fraughness there are unpredictable but always apposite moments of beauty. [Jun 2010, p.128]

Alt-rock supergroup create new genre: stoner AOR. [July 2010, p. 132]

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

Themes of displacement, disillusion, and druggy ennui speak of a band who are no longer enjoying themselves. A shame, because when singer Andrew Savage shakes himself free from the torpor, his anger becomes an energy. [Jul 2014, p.112]

Silence Is Wild may be willfully idiosyncratic and prone to self-indulgence, but it's also refreshingly imaginative, sexually upfront and impossible to second guess. [Mar 2009, p.101]

It's not an earth-shattering account of the last year, but maybe the most affecting in its ordinariness. [Jun 2004, p.102]

Different Creatures is a beast of a record. [Apr 2017, p.117]

Casually unique and an unbounded joy to listen to, it's the quintessential Baxter Dury album. [Nov 2017, p.105]

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