For a "difficult" record, it's an oddly easy sell--an instant, atmospheric disturbance, a tiny portable wormhole. [Aug 2018, p.108]

A collection that feels like a fresh bookend to their first three classic albums. [May 2015, p.115]

'Love Is Free' ambles pleasantly, 'Gasoline' is 'All I Wanna Do' revisted and 'Detours' itself would grace any Best of. [Mar 2008, p.100]

Lynne and Moorer are at their best on the straight country material, but their take on The Killers' My List usurps the original. Sadly, things take a turn for the worse later. [Sep 2017, p.113]

You plug it in your ears in June and three months later you've barely listened to anything else. Highly recommended. [Nov 2013, p.104]

In upbeat mode, he's made of stirring stuff, but the real wonder here is to be found when he drops a gear into hushed beauty and sun-dappled loveliness. [May 2012, p.101]

They strain to resemble the Stooges and mavericks from the Beasties to the Stones but still can't conjure the killer tune. [Oct 20012, p.103]

The surreal stoner wit of vintage Little feat is still missed, but this is perfectly respectable business as usual. [Sep 2012, p105]

Their sixth learns from those mistakes [on their fifth album], sounding rougher, tougher and altogether more like the raucous joy of their live shows. [Sep 2013, p.102]

Its opening five minutes posit the sound of "war machinery" grinding slowly to the point of metallic cacophony, but there are many more intriguing pieces afoot. [Jan 2014, p.122]

Amid too much mid-tempo drear it's left to Rockabye Baby to bring some fire to a n LP that rarely does more than enough. [Jun 2017, p.102]

Dividing their labour between two vocalists and songwriters does much to keep this second record interesting. [Apr 2020, p.113]

He's better when he approaches modern life from more oblique angles. [Summer 2020, p.104]

This instrumental mixtape isn't Jaime Meline's best work, but there's no denying the manic intensity as Meline's machine-gun edits cut together old-school electro and spooked Hammond grooves. [Sept. 2010, p. 117]

What we are left with is a sense of something not quite finished... It makes Ringleader Of The Tormentors feel like a transitional album. [Apr 2006, p.108]

Martsch's hitherto opaque lyrics are more revealing than normal, exposing sentiments of anger and loss. [Mar 2010, p.97]

It's DIY-spirited, non-conformist and humourous, making this punk-war veteran's return a flavoursome treat. [Apr 2011, p.109]

The results are hyperactive and punky. [Jun 2009, p.117]

Me and Armini isn't an immediate record--it's too opaque, too guarded for that--but as it gives up its secrets, it slowly moves its stuff into your mind, a strange cuckoo in the musical nest. [Oct 2008, p.151]

It's claustrophobic, neurotic and occasionally nightmarish. [Jan 2003, p.119]

Though rockier in parts than any of his previous work, this 12-track set houses some of Johnson's most impressive songwriting to date.

New Favorite is pretty much the usual, if still wonderful, music from Krauss and Union Station. [Sep 2001, p.110]

It seems hard to believe that the man who made this album is the same one responsible for the 1984's still splendid Rattlesnakes.

This is complex, dense music that yields a little more with each play. [May 2003, p.106]

While One By One starts like the best Foo Fighters album ever it doesn't deliver track-upon-track. [Nov 2002, p.110]

Throughout, the bouncy enthusiasm of old has become heavier, louder, faster and stronger. [Jan 2003, p.113]

The sort of glorious record Greenwich Village beatniks would make if they'd been hibernating for 40 years. [Feb 2004, p.102]

A smart mixed bag. [Oct 2002, p.106]

Mature rather than groundbreaking. [May 2002, p.122]

Their stall is pretty clearly set out then, yet... Mind Fuzz's most enduring quality is the overriding, Technicolor sense of fun that runs throughout. [Jan 2015, p.128]

A swinging selection ranging from Lonnie Johnson to The Milk Carton Kids, from folk, country and blues to rollicking R&B, stripped down, hot and sweaty. [Dec 2015, p.108]

It's a mode that has little time for novelty or subtlety but plenty of potential to crowd-please on both sides of the pond. [June 2019, p. 108]

Noel Gallagher-approved Alberta Cross's first offering fulfils the promise of 2007's "The Thief & The Heartbreaker" EP. [Oct 2009, p.105]

Overall, there are more steps sideways than great leaps forward. [Oct 2018, p.112]

Her sense of foreboding remains intact, as does her way with a spooked Portishead-esque rhythm and a keeningly intelligent lyric. [May 2011, p.119]

Full of melancholy instrumentals rich in strings and percussive weirdness. [Mar 2005, p.104]

It's defiantly idiosyncratic and at times genuinely bonkers, yet despite that, Crab Day never once feels willfully obtuse or--that dreadful work--"kooky." [May 2016, p.105]

Joan Baez seems unshakeable on her 28th album. [Oct 2008, p.139]

MTMTMK is even more propulsive than their debut. From Kondaine's digitised kwassa kwassa to the deep-house swell of Rudeboy and Mghetto's dub throb, it thumps with worldly street rhythms. [Aug 2012, p.110]

Retro, sure, but all the better for it. [Oct 2019, p.109]

This 11-song Lp is less freak folk than freak scene, as the trio balances lo-fi guitar crunch with Chris Weisman's adenoidal vocals. [Jul 20120, p.93]

This is a swig of all that's gone before, chased down with much warmer production. [Jan 2013, p.107]

This is music to get lost in. [Dec 2015, p.106]

With the exception of I've Got Reason, the ripsnorting garage rock that enlivened his earlier work has disappeared. Instead, the likes of Shelter and Show Me veer towards ponderous MOR. [Dec 2019, p.109]

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

What stops it from feeling like an exercise in arch, vintage chic fancy dress is the warmth of their tunes and the lively untidiness if the execution. [Sep 2020, p.109]

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

What TEEN have fashioned here is heady stuff. [May 2014, p.117]

It's been a long time coming, but Brit-rap's first genuinely huge album is here. [Oct 2009, p.104]

His septuagenarian's enthusiasm is undeniably infectious. [Apr 2014, p.119]

Chatham County Line's format has barely changed, but it has matured deeply. [Jul 2014, p.104]

Put the whole bag of tricks together and Pulled Apart By Horses have captured their own genie. [Oct 2014, p.118]

Wiggy, long-sought after 1976 LP utilises the trills, parps and hums of the pre-digital modular synthesizer to walk the circuit board between easy listening and ambient weirdness. [Aug 2019, p.119]

It's not hard to see where they're going--or coming from. [Apr 2014, p.121]

Murky depths, glittering enchantment, and the swell of heightened grandeur. [Summer 2018, p.109]

As much as it recaptures some of their buccaneering early spirit, it also shows off some explosive new tricks too. [May 2013, p.108]

Bought To Rot is, then, something of a palette cleanser: both wider in scope and lighter in tone. [Dec 2018, p.108]

It's relentless, totally one-paced, but somehow oddly refreshing. [Aug 2012, p.105]

It's bold, brassy and way more ebullient than a 75-year-old has any business sounding. [Jun 2012, p.112]

They've seemingly ditched their Wicker Man aesthetic for something altogether more contemporary, bringing in programmed with all the glitzy sheen of, in fact, an '80s revival. [May 2015, p.112]

It's Krell's gift, for immersive electronica, like the quivering Burning Up, which keeps him in a class all his own. [Nov 2016, p.108]

If the 17-track Pom Pom does little to un-muddy the waters, within its exploded binliner of '80s FM rock licks, novelty squelch noises and other home-recorded debris, songs of splendour lurk. [Dec 2014, p.106]

Cool Ghouls don't betray the influence of any music made in their own lifetime, but they have a broad enough palette to make their third album more than just a period piece. [Sep 2016, p.105]

The result is a brilliant rewiring of post-rave sonics. [Mar 2009, p.98]

Over 27 unpredictable tracks that run the gamut from soaring Byrdsian harmonic rock to the sound of wind in the trees played backwards, Black Foliage is a marathon.

Many will be quick to dismiss this as a shadow of 3 Feet High, but it's their loss when hip hop's as infectious and intelligent as this.

This stands up as a decent album of far-out wandering in its own right. [Jul 2014, p.101]

Fado is a harder sell, a stronger taste. Still, Lina's voice has an irresistible dramatic heft, and combined with the smudgy ambient arrangements, all dark wood and bitter coffee, she and Refree could fill a gap that non-believers might not know they had. [Apr 2020, p.111]

Despite [their] obsession with the everyday... The Rakes are never mundane. [Sep 2005, p.118]

Their eighth LP brilliantly snaps together everything. [Mar 2014, p.117]

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

Destroyer attempts to shoehorn more incongruous elements into an already busy mix. [Summer 2019, p.108]

Brun's incredible voice - direct and moving - is at the centre of everything. [Jun 2012, p.117]

Liberated from Elbow's obligation to write at least a few songs big enough for arena stages and radio playlists, Garvey revels in lovingly crafted intimacy. [Dec 2015, p.102]

The two troubadours don't miss a trick bringing sepia-tinged majesty and tragedy back to life. [Nov 2016, p.102]

This is a joyful and respectful collection. [Feb 2013, p.107]

DMA's aspirations here are elite-class: Life Is A Game Of Changing channels New Order circa Republic, while Silver evokes peak-period Verve's reassuringly expensive shuffle. [Aug 2020, p.107]

It's a diverting blend of gravity and distraction, but at 17 tracks, it arguably commits that historic rap LP crime of filling all available audio space. [Feb 2015, p.105]

Fans of Gonzalez's intimate solo bedroom folk may be taken aback by the kaleidoscopic bells and whistles of Fields, but the rest of us should be thankful the sales of those two previous releases have given Gonzalez andd his mates the freedom to indulge every whim. [Oct 2010, p.109]

There are 14 tracks in total and three fewer would have made for a tighter set--but it's hardly a deal breaker. [Jul 2012, p.112]

It's a sound they now seem utterly at ease with, and the album is all the better for its confident, super-relaxed approach. [Apr 2015, p.111]

Relatively speaking Home Economics finds a much warmer and more colourful band at work. [Jul 2015, p.112]

It might be falling apart, but it comes together beautifully. [Feb 2019, p.115]

Nocturne hasn't shaken its overriding influences but Tatum gently pushes these songs beyond elegant pastiche. [Oct 2012, p.114]

[It has] abundant warmth, melodiousness and spontaneity--and fewer full-tilt stylistic shifts than earlier records. [Jan 2012, p.127]

Their best and most cohesive album since 1999's "Vertigo." [Mar 2010, p.111]

While 'Caskets' and 'Coats Of Ice' evoke Eels at their most melodic, the tedious 'Gillian Was A Horse' belongs in the knackers' yard. [Nov 2008, p.117]

Both Ways Open jaws is just smug enough for you to wish it was wired shut. [Dec. 2001 p. 125]

While there are few surprises, there is much to enjoy. [Feb 2013, p.101]

Sticking largely to the budget yacht rock, hazy indie sounds of its predecessor, Another One finds our hero circling the plughole of heartbreak, with stop-offs into anguish, pique and confusion. [Sep 2015, p.110]

Everything comes dripping in portent and seems too in love with its own seriousness to excite any emotions. [Mar 2003, p.106]

If a brace of previous albums hinted at genre-defying transcendence, Obrigado Saudade attains it. [Mar 2004, p.107]

LoveHateTragedy is a compendium of modern rock styles, glued together by Papa Roach's exuberance and Shaddix's outsized persona. [July 2002, p.119]

It's [an album] whose tricks... we've heard done before. [Aug 2004, p.115]

Full of beautiful pop songs, The Photo Album is just that--a collection of vignettes. [Mar 2002, p.118]

Ultimately, it's Tool's experimental, borderline progressive, edge that proves most rewarding. [Aug 2001, p.141]

Midway through, the sound of Lowery and co's batteries running down becomes almost audible.