There's no denying its stout hart. [Apr 2006, p.113]

Oracular Spectacular is a triumph of conceptual ambition, a series of fantastic voyages that avoids any of the navel-gazing such notions normally provoke. [May 2008, p.138]

As a 36-song sequel, the album drags at times. But there's buried treasure here too. [Apr 2013, p.112]

Hypnotic electronic grooves. [April 2012, p.90]

He shows off his instrumental chops. [Nov 2015, p.106]

Amok shows Yorke successfully synthesizing his obsessions into a compelling and complete universe. [Mar 2013, p.92]

Richer and more rewarding than their Mercury-nominated breakthrough, Isla still has jazz running through it's veins, based as it is largely around sax and double bass, but the London band have broader ambitions. [Nov 2009, p.111]

He never sounds hurried, but Gentle Spirit overflows with ideas, albeit ones mostly from circa 1972. [Oct 2011, p.131]

Oregon four-piece serve up a conceptual gem. [Oct 2011, p.128]

There's might in their minimalism. [Mar 2016, p.111]

So many genres collide on Aa it can feel like being trapped in a virtual karaoke machine. [Apr 2016, p.102]

Hang is brilliantly ludicrous and ludicrously brilliant. [Mar 2017, p.106]

By turns beguiling and unnerving, at times it feels like an exercise in disorientation. [Sep 2018, p.113]

Sister Wolf and Justine, Misery Queen highlighting the pair's ability to twist their songs into new, potently alluring shapes. [Jan 2017, p.107]

The band's punk credentials are immaculate. But that doesn't make them any more fun to listen to. [Feb 2007, p.99]

All in all, Algiers showcases a band utterly assured and fully aware of their intoxicating potency. [Oct 2012, p.95]

Cellar Door is so gorgeous it could persuade the most hardened clubber to give it all up for a hammock and a cool breeze. [Aug 2012, p.100]

What was often missing was much in the way of engaging, nuanced songwriting. Four alums in, though, there are clear signs of progress. [May 2011, p.121]

Vocal harmonies, graceful pianos and psychedelic guitars keep the eco messages of Light Years and Dreamin persuasive rather than preachy, making Escape 2 Mars an impressive throwback to the "daisy age' of early De La Soul. [Feb 2010, p. 107]

More Than and We Both Know's saturnine piano chords offer a novel contrast to crisp synth-pop such as Somebody Who, where their talent for alluring yet artless arrangements really comes into its own. [Nov 2013, p.102]

The music is terribly dull, like a watered-down Weezer. [Dec 2007, p.125]

HIs fourth album is a step up from the patchy "Awfully Deep." [Oct 2008, p.150]

Frontman Brian Fallon serves up a mostly restrained and as a result more resonant set as an opening salvo for The Horrible Crowes. [Oct 2011, p.123]

It's a minor-chord menace, their darker surf-steeped vibe driven by steady percussion and hypnotic basslines. [Apr 2013, p.101]

A lovely collection of blue-eyed soul that sets out its stall right from 'Take A Chance's' opening parry. [Nov 2009, p.104]

Everyday Roberts is a wonderful record. [May 2014, p.104]

It may be too late for the big breakthrough, but Harcourt has given himself a fighting chancce. [Jul 2010, p.133]

Heaven Is Whenever proves The Hold Steady are capable of messing with the script without diminishing their core appeal. [Jun 2010, p.125]

Arguably his best record in 20 years.

Completely beguiling. [Aug 2012, p.98]

He doesn't break into this persona often enough, slipping back into ILP's default tone. [Dec 2013, p.109]

Their near-ambient sound abides. [May 2017, p.111]

As twinkly-toed as debuts come. [Aug 2017, p.109]

Ceremonials is quite some achievement: an accomplished pop record infused with intelligence and imagination... It offers the final, conclusive evidence that she's a pop star to believe in. [Dec. 2011 p. 118]

Autolux balance droney post-rock and electronics with rare skill. [Sept. 2010, p. 113]

Shows that they can still craft radio-friendly rock with aplomb. [May 2012, p.93]

Anyone wanting more of the multilayered sense of foreboding afforded by 2016's The Glowing Man, Meanwhile, will be delighted by the pulverising Sunfucker and The Hanging Man. [Jan 2020, p.114]

Air thrive on existing at an otherworldly tangent and their cosmic bent is never far away here. [Feb 2004, p.99]

The world may have moved on but they haven't, so '80s funk backdrops merge with Sweet pea Atkinson and Sir Harry Bowen's classic soul vocals and some biting surreal lyrics. [May 2008, p.141]

For both Grohl and Homme, Them Crooked Vultures isn't a supergroup pitched at the world's stadia, but rather a pressure release valve from their highly successful day jobs, an opportunity to kick out the jams - this is very much an album based around heads-down, brain-disengaged, rock 'n' roll boogie jamming - and revisit the classic hard rock sounds they were reared upon. [Jan 2010, p. 114]

Not a novelty record, then, nor entirely old hat. [Jan 2015, p.128]

This doesn't have the deranged glee of Smash It Up, but follows the streamlined energy of classic 1982 Damned album Strawberries, with a stern rock pulse at a time when their contemporaries would be glad of any kind of pulse. [Jun 2018, p.109]

The projects most diverse and entertaining recording so far. [Aug 2019, p.109]

It's best experienced with the lights out, although as with most film music, it loses some frisson separated from Strickland's lurid images. [Feb 2013, p.102]

Here are songs that only the Pet Shop Boys could record. [May 2016, p.113]

At her best, on the eerie 'Every Path,' she's mesmeric enough to lure ships onto rocks, but come the inevitable 'Later...With Jools Holland' appearance, older viewers may be forgiven for thinking Dolores O'Riordan has changed dramatically. [Mar 2009, p.96]

With genre-hopping abandon he enlists Spanish guitars, jazz bass, reggae horns, rock drums and disco synths, relentlessly asserting that commercial viability and imagination don't have to be mutually exclusive. [May 2005, p.112]

Crowell co-writes the majority of these 11 new songs, covering all the bases from nostalgic regert to downright weepie, highway anthem to cajun-flavoured rug-cutter. [Jun 2015, p.107]

Earle isn't breaking any boundaries here, and he runs out of steam before the closing Goodbye Michelangelo, but he's doing what he does best--and that's better than most. [Aug 2017, p.105]

Princess Nokia's genre-surfing might be attention-grabbing, but it's her honesty, openness and clarity of expression that make her a musician you can really invest in. [May 2020, p.111]

There's months of listening here. [Nov 2012, p.108]

There's much here to justify Alan McGee's awe. [Oct 2008, p.148]

An artist on the verge of a spectacular breakthrough. [Oct 2013, p.107]

At times, strangely purging - and almost euphoric - most of MMXII still sounds like the end of civilisation as we know it. [Jun 2012, p.106]

As always with this gem of a musician, all human life is here. [Sep 2012, p.113]

The Big Other is a pure and unexpected delight. [Apr 2013, p.101]

If there's a touch too much retrospective pastiche, there's also wit and mellifluousness. [May 2014, p.115]

The greatest family jam you'll ever hear and an absolutely essential album. [Jan 2015, p.132]

As ever the brush strokes are broad and the confrontation is intense but it's good to know their fire is afar from undimmed. [Apr 2015, p.95]

Confident in its own weirdness, Love In The 4th Dimension is as enjoyable as the live shows that birthed it. [May 2017, p.100]

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

I Love You. It's A Fever Dream is hardly cluttered, but it's those little details that really lift his fifth LP as The Tallest Man On Earth. [Aug 2019, p.116]

Big, bold and joyful, it's exactly what a great pop album should be. [Jun 2015, p.105]

Hive Mind sounds at once strange and familiar. [Mar 2012, p.100]

It's a beautiful thing--its 10 songs have a drowsy, mizzled feel, reminiscent of the Cocteau Twins. [Aug 2017, p.103]

If they're undone by anything, it's their puppy-like, kids-in-a-sweet-shop enthusiasm for their prowess. [May 2016, p.104]

It's intoxicating listening that demands repeated attention. [Oct 2012, p.102]

Their former high-speed heedlessness has been supplanted with a new awareness of song structure, grown-up texture and non-red-zone pacing. [Mar 2013, p.94]

If it sounds oh-so-ironic, it isn't; the Handsomes may exisit on country's oddball fringe, but they're no comedy act. [May 2009, p.112]

This effervescent debut seems determined to shake off the tragedy. [Oct 2008, p.150]

It tails off slightly with too much frosted minor chord melancholy and some monochrome male vocalists, but there's nothing to suggest creative exhaustion. [Jan 2015, p.129]

Just think how much more she could do with that glorious voice. [#180, p.112]

You might not easily hum its tunes, but you can often salute its good taste. [Oct 2004, p.121]

Lyrical delights lurk round every turn. [Dec 2003, p.132]

They make often wistful, often wry, but always intelligent pop.

A fine album which often suggests Elliott Smith wreaking merry havoc in a library of sound effects. [May 2001, p.116]

The Casadys' knack for sifting vivid, dreamy songs out of harrowing subject matter is no less potent here. [Jun 2013, p.96]

The singer's greasy, street pimp-talking vocal style is sometimes at odds with The Sadies' cleaned-up garage vibe, but if you can reconcile a 70-year old drug addict growling: "I like my rum, cos I got no teeth, I let it flow over my gums"... with fiddle-led folk rock and surf guitar, then Night & Day will push all your buttons and then some. [Aug 2012, p.111]

They're unpleasantly listenable. [Jul 2012, p.103]

Despite Our Differences bustles with invention, righteous anger and the typically sunshine harmonies. [Apr 2007, p.120]

Going Back Home packs all the vital joy that R&B-powered rock'n'roll should, but rarely does. [Apr 2014, p.118]

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

Another quixotic foray into New Age vibrations, all hazy Balearic moods and flashback to '50s exotica. [May 2018, p.112]

It doesn't work, such superior pop items as 'Just A little Lovin'' and 'The Look Of Love' being reduced to an uninspired yawn. [Mar 2008, p.107]

Clearly, motherhood has only improved her sense of fun. [Oct 2007, p.106]

The shoutiness that made their previous two albums a tiring listen hasn't been entirely banished, but they have taken it down several notches, while also dialing down several notches. [Jun 2010, p.133]

American producer conjures up dazzling electronics. [Aug. 2011, p. 123]

Too often, when Janet needs Jam & Lewis to "gimme a beat," they don't. [Dec 2015, p.108]

Pithy stompers such as 'Short Fuse' and 'Drugs' tell their own story, but the spooked death rattle of 'The Drop I Hold' is at least proof that the experimental mind-set of 2007's " Good Bad Not Evil" wasn't a one-off. [May 2009, p.107]

While this record might ultimately be a mere palette cleanser for the next stage in PJ Harvey's journey, it suggests her mouthwash tastes sweeter than most others' fine wine. [Apr 2009, p.101]

A wonderful album. [Jun 2012, p.104]

It makes you feel like you've stepped into a funhouse built by Picasso out of neon light and awesomeness. [Jun 2012, p.106]

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

A record of rivers and trees rather than streets and skyscrapers, it's a blissful and quietly cosmic experience. [Sep 2013, p.98]

There are funk-pop uplifts too, but it's when he slows the pace down that Eastgate really comes into his own. [Summer 2020, p.101]

This is a fine follow-up to 2005's "No Wow." [Apr 2008, p.108]

It's as unsanitised as ever, then, and , as such, makes Mudhoney's continued existence a cause for celebration. [Nov 2018, p.111]

The mid-paced mellowness is too omnipresent and stifling. [Oct 2012, p.97]