Lust Lust Lust is an accomplished set. [Jan 2008, p.109]

Washington Square Serenade is prime Americana. [Nov 2007, p.137]

At its best when following pop inspirations on Torn Maps or Turtle, it's still a challenge--just less so than the 11-minute jazz-rock freak-outs of old. [Aug 2013, p.95]

The technical proficiency can't make up for the uneventfulness of the material. [Mar 2015, p.104]

False Idols might fall short of such heights [of his debut], but at least sounds like the same person made it to the studio. [Jul 2013, p.111]

Jimmy's Show is filled with richly melodic songs, filled with whimsical lyrics about tea, sailors, table tennis and Ford Escorts. [Nov 2012, p.102]

His personal universe may be smaller, but here Tom Vek opens himself up to a wider world. [Aug 2014, p.114]

She's finally rediscovered what made her so intriguing(the hooks, the sharp lyrics, the energy) in the first place. [Oct 2016, p.113]

The sound of a seasoned crafstman at work, One For The Ghost is a record that radiates his customary warmth and intelligence. [Mar 2018, p.104]

Both enticing and disorientating in equal measure. [Jun 2019, p.116]

Singer Dan Hyndman's mannered voice can get a bit wearing, but once Mush have bedded in, the evidence is here for a bright future. [Mar 2020, p.118]

Shears is now too smart a lyricist to need this sort of cartoonish carry-on. And, bar a smattering of filler, the tunes are unstoppable. [Jul 2010, p.124]

A montage of brief yet expansive instrumentals, it veers from the richly choral to the dissonant, from busy polyrhythms to spare, awestruck synth-symphonies. [May 2020, p.112]

Those looking for the kind of soaring poetry that defined The Smiths will surely be depressed by lyrics that are often boringly solipsistic and prosaically worded. [Jun 2004, p.106]

Even though his wit and word patterns still dazzle, they need a livelier canvas if the Eminem nostalgia experience is to be the thrilling one it should be. [Jan 2014, p.122]

This is a deeply trippy record. [Jul 2014, p.100]

Plenty of opportunities to put your hands in the air, but, ultimately, you may not care. [Nov 2016, p.108]

If It's Never Been Like That sees them rocking out by their own standards, they're still a sweat-free prospect by most others. [Jun 2006, p.118]

Sometimes brillliant, but often baffling. [Nov 2009, p.107]

There's little of the fire and invention that characterised 2000's White Pony. [Nov 2006, p.140]

Rather than radical reimaginations, Lanegan serves up tweaked arrangements within the original frameworks. [Oct 2013, p.105]

In Rolling Waves' most successful songs benefit from restraint. [Nov 2013, p.112]

Curious rather than essential. [Feb 2018, p.112]

Both [HIM and Pray] perfectly distill the vision and boldness of this return. [Jan 2018, p.115]

Shara Worden, aka My Brightest Diamond sings like a female Jeff Buckley on A Thousand Shark's Teeth, a blend of Tom Waits-inspired weirdness, ambient rock and neo-classical textures. [July 2008, p.113]

A modern '70s Motown pastiche, that makes him a serious rival to John Legend. [Dec 2008, p.133]

At times the experimentation verges on the unlistenable but there's enough promising material here to make this an enjoyable debut. [Feb 2009, p.119]

Sawhney's gentle yet eclectic studio skills make everything agreeable enough but the opening song sets a standard he never tops. [Nov 2008, p.120]

Vintage soul styles are duly nailed with his coruscating guitar between funk and psychedelic rock. [Jun 2011, p.110]

Starting at a bass-heavy point where crunch is more important than structure, guitarist-singer Joel Flyger nevertheless knows how to write a pop hook. [Mar 2013, p.108]

Accomplished but pointless. [Jan 2016, p.115]

The sound of a band renewed, Always Ascending fizzes with the energy of a first album and lets Franz Ferdinand start all over again. [Mar 2018, p.106]

The Flower Lane is a collection of hazy but beautifully constructed songs. [Mar 2013, p.98]

Their second album brims with crunching guitars, subtle stabs of synth and--more importantly--a winning line in big, anthemic choruses. [Oct 2013, p.102]

It shows a band building a new outpost atop the summit of their achievements. [Nov 2005, p.124]

Eccentric as ever then, but there's no denying the continued originality of the sound. [Dec 2012, p.102]

Locked inside Womb is an excellent EP, but stretched out to 10 tracks it can feel predictable. [Jun 2020, p.105]

He's still no Jay-Z, but the roll-call of guests reflects his savvy, anything-goes approach. [Dec 2007, p.124]

Hugely likeable, terribly noisy and cute, as well as being jammed with proper pop songs... [Nov. 2000, p.102]

Kozelek swerves self-indulgence by writing with an arid humour. [Sep 2012, p.112]

Post-hardcore pioneers Thursday have responded to the end of their major-label adventure by producing their most consistent body of work to date. [Mar 2009, p.93]

Despite this concession to orthodoxy [recording in a real music studio], King Of The Beach retains much of his summery charm, the sun-kissed pop-punk choruses concealing lyrics seething with self-loathing, alongside slices of blissed-out pop in style of labelmates Beach House. [Sep 2010, p.123]

A shadowy affair, overflowing with fractured breaks, amoebic bass and emotive, medieval chords. [Nov 2003, p.120]

In Our Trip and Remember Today, the trio manage to strike the right balance between amp-popping fury and pop finesse--unfortunately everywhere else, they don't. [Jul 2004, p.124]

Hardcore fans will probably be disappointed with the amount of rhythmic experimentation which, the messy breaks of Boom aside, is pretty much lacking. [Aug 2004, p.113]

It's a quintessential extra-curricular album, straining every which way, but an excellent and oddly coherent one. [Apr 2015, p.97]

No album with a nursery rhyme like Bongo Bill takes itself seriously, but even when he tackles the titular Persephone having her eternal hippy idealism rudely punctured, there's still a kindly smile on Tilbrook's lips. [Feb 2014, p.121]

A block off the old Chip. [Aug 2016, p.117]

While the album title may echo the Liverpool indie-pop outfit of Driving Away from Home fame, Iron Lung's brooding intensity and Peter Hook-inspired bassline sound as if they've been teleported directly from Factory records circa 1981. [Jan 2017, p.104]

Some of it is a bit too frenetic. But with Trouble On My Mind and All The Times You Prayed, The Staves' gorgeous harmonies shine out in a new setting. [Feb 2018, p.116]

Soundtracked largely by sweet, inoffensive Scandipop flavoured with R&B, EDM and acoustic indie. Occasionally, however, she complements her subject matter with notes of punk and emo ... and produces something livelier and less conventional in the process. [Jul 2020, p.104]

The Black And White album plays their usual garage-rock game with no desire beyond loking hot and sounding cool. [Nov 2007, p.138]

Over 17 similarly sounding tracks it becomes slightly more soporific. [Mar 2016, p.109]

Clever as it is, there's all too little that actually engages the heart as well as the mind. [May 2015, p.111]

The main impression is of a unique voice still raging. [Oct 2015, p.113]

Makes for exhausting listening. [Sep 2006, p.108]

Steadman sounds totally at home. [Aug 2017, p.109]

Sande's second album doesn't always sound quite so revelatory [as her debut]: anguished intensity often masks a lack of musical spark, the draggy acoustic trawl of Give Me Something sounding like her namesake Adele at her least bothered. She is much more engaging when she operates at full-grown throttle. [Jan 2017, p.113]

Revolution Radio is Green Day back at their best. [Nov 2016, p.104]

It is just that, a combination of converging influences, namely Evanescence and The Cranberries, their propensity for choral harmonies ratcheting up the twee factor exponentially. [Oct 2007, p.109]

Roadsinger is an improvement on his patchy 2006 comeback "An Other Cup." [Jun 2009, p.135]

A fascinating trawl through the post-Talking Book period where black pop first embraced electronics. [Aug 2012, p.109]

He creates rich, oddly visual soundscapes while he murmurs lucid dreams of his younger self. [Sep 2013, p.105]

Wilson's fragile vocals dominate, but her sidekicks add musical lightness. [Aug 2017, p.110]

Dillards-quality instrumentals such as Office Supplies keep the whole album zinging along. [Dec 2017, p.106]

It's clear The Architect has elevated her to a whole new level. [Jan 2018, p.109]

His penchant for flyaway drama is anchored by his winning way with a soaring melody. [Feb 2018, p.115]

For such a distinctive voice, disappointingly run of the mill. [Nov 2008, p.123]

An album rich in kaleidoscopic colour to contrast the diluted greys of its sleeve, marked with the expert touch of true masters of their art. [April 2012, p.96]

Monotonous riffs are churned out at a snail's pace. [Oct 2005, p.114]

The collaboration between British singer-songwriter Helena Costas and US hip-hop producer Danger Mouse, for a project called Joker's Daughter, seems unlikely, but it works surprisingly well. [Jul 2009, p.124]

The North Carolina quartet's banjo lopes alongside their classy Americana tunes. [Oct 2010, p.104]

While this maximalist approach might conceivably work well live, on record it often feels overblown, overwhelming and ultimately exhausting. [Mar 2014, p.108]

Blood is all about accentuating the positives, an ambitious and assured album that refuses to move any direction but up. [Aug 2015, p.105]

[The] sun-flecked sense of bliss is present throughout and halfway through they even drop in something approaching a conventional pop song with the cooling breeze of Already Gone. That lightness of touch is the real revelation here. [Jul 2018, p.118]

It can ramble, but their landscape is so compelling, the scenic route is no punishment. [Dec 2018, p.108]

He attampts to reinvent himself again, this time as an unlikely hybrid of Rufan Wainwright and Elvis Costello. The results are surprisingly good. [Mar 2010, p.105]

Sun-kissed, deeply Beach Boys-esque music that will provide comfort to those who wondered what happened to the Wilco of 1999's Summerteeth. [Mar 2003, p.111]

Adds a touch of wistfulness to his usually slurred vocals. [Nov 2002, p.106]

She recalls the emotionally raw folk of... Kristin Hersh. [Sep 2004, p.118]

Exhausting, but borderline brilliant too. [May 2003, p.102]

A melange of preposterously angular guitar exercises, accomplished balladry and portentous doggerel. [Mar 2003, p.111]

[They] have shifted further toward airy accessibility. [Jun 2004, p.107]

Dear John is the album he's been gradually building up to, an ebbing and flowing suite best taken as a single musical movement. [Apr 2009, p.107]

Here honing the bright and distinctively Nordic sound that enlivened 2014's International, they even flirt with becoming a pop group, albeit one wearing its '80s fixation with pride. [Jun 2016, p.113]

The dystopian mood ultimately delivers more chills than thrills. [Aug 2017, p.112]

The Brooklyn trio have delivered an impressively bonkers set comprising three EPs. [Nov 2007, p.134]

They might be old, they might be poorly and they might be running scared from their wives, but on 13 Black Sabbath roll back the years and sound young again--and blacker than ever. [Jul 2013, p.102]

Stylistically, it's all over the place, but he doesn't deserve to fall this time round. [June 2008, p.145]

Trust have a problem in Robert Alfon's unengaging, reedy mid-range quiver of a voice. [Dec 2012, p.114]

Handwritten is pure New Jersey rock, dripping urban romanticism, albeit with extra oomph on the power chords. [Aug 2012, p.105]

Beyond their all-guns-blazing single, Delete, there's little in the way of mystique on these 12 trim tracks, but there is much to savour. [Apr 2016, p.104]

[An] immediately fascinating, a cluttered, three-records-playing-at-once orchestral fantasia that--icing on the art-pop cake--is inspired by Vladimir Nabokov's Lolita. [Jan 2015, p.131]

Basically, it's a Megadeth album; no more, no less, no change. [Jan 2012, p.124]

As impressively deep as the music's pile may be, however, it's Marshall's towering voice that most recalls Elbow. [Dec 2012, p.109]

The shadow of Mazzy Star's drowsy psychedelia still hangs heavily over everything they do. But they do it so persuasively, so single-mindedly, that it's never an issue putting that to one side. [Mar 2013, p.110]

While these midlife blues are never less than absorbing, fans will hope he sees in his half century by upping the ante somewhat. [Nov 2013, p.105]

Broken Down Gentlemen is unshowy and classily-executed folk. [Apr 2013, p.101]