Their debut positions itself somewhere sonically between the avant-gardism of These New Puritans and Siouxsie And The Banshees at their most stridently gothic. [Feb. 2011, p. 114]

While Martyn's voice has dropped an octave and lost a few notes along the way, that merely adds to the beaten and beating heart of these songs. [Jun 2014, p.114]

Despite the gentle, plaintive Sticks Not Twigs and the lugubrious Dead At The Wheel, it's Albini in excelsis: a super-fast, super-loud cathartic howl, but this being The Cribs, it's leavened by their trademark way with a manly melody. [Sep 2017, p.106]

At times it can feel a little lightweight. [Sep 2016, p.106]

These are skewed, disturbing, beautiful songs...

A few more laughter-lines wouldn't have gone amiss. [Aug 2014, p.112]

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]

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

The Information... is hamstrung by the sensation that, though Beck likes rapping, he has little to say beyond smart-alec one-liners. [Nov 2006, p.138]

This is a refreshingly dark take on a tired format. [Feb 2019, p.112]

Their latest is in constant motion. [Mar 2018, p.108]

With no track under six minutes in length, some editing wouldn't have gone amiss. [Jan 2013, p.107]

At times, effortless winsome... yet it comes with enough textural twitches and scuffs to underline its well-developed sense of wary melancholy. [Feb 2015, p.106]

The sunny hooks of the title track and Disco Kid's funky backsbeat display similar flair, though indulgent wig-outs such as Don't Blame Yourself could do with an edit. [Jun 2017, p.105]

Rakei's gently wistful tone fits the general mood, though it's something of a relief when he shifts gears. [Summer 2019, p.115]

[She] remains comically kooky. [Aug 2006, p.116]

Music that strives for knitted-brow intensity. [Jan 2018, p.110]

Their third album is their most developed yet.... What's missing is that sense of real emotion, the euphoria or misery that makes for great pop. [Feb 2016, p.108]

Enigmatic, but still worth puzzling over. [Feb 2016, p.111]

Slurrup follows last summer's Korp Sole Roller and tones down the ornate arrangements for a more straightforward '60s British beat boom approach. The problem is it makes him sound pretty ordinary. [Feb 2015, p.110]

Too busy and extreme for some tastes, this is still a dizzying proposition. [Mar 2015, p.105]

An album of hidden depth, then, even if some of them require firm resolve on the listener's part. [Jun 2017, p.105]

It's too entrenched in the past to take Costa forward, but there's nobody relighting the old fires with such authenticity. [Mar 2009, p.96]

For his eigth studio album he's gone over the top politically. [Feb 2009, p.116]

Undeniably bold and ahead of its time, it also remains rather easier to admire from a safe distance than to actually like. Or listen to. [Nov 2008, p.121]

Simon Ratcliffe and Felix Buxton have retrenched, recruited a slew of vocalists and made the sort of uptempo record they were doing at the turn of the century. [Oct 2009, p.107]

Orthodoxy is dispensed with here, with varible results. [Nov 2009, p.103]

The only annoyance is the production, which seems to believe that America will only buy rock by a Scotsman from London if it's laden with stadium-pop Waterboys/Mumfords/Titanic Celtic cack rock. [Jun 2013, p.101]

"Listen to the silence" goes the repeated refrain from first single Always. Sometimes that wouldn't be a bad idea. [Aug 2016, p.112]

While Molly O oozes foreboding, Meet Me In the Alleyway is eerily reminiscent of The The and the Grammy-nominated This City is a genuine gem. [Jun 2011, p.114]

It's that sense of doing just enough but no more that permeates this album, at times rendering it laid back to the point of disengaged.

There aren't any bad songs here, there just aren't enough brilliant ones either. [Sep 2017, p.116]

It may be a little too low-key for its own good--Four Tet explores similar territory with more urgency--but it's full of dog-eared charm. [Jul 2013, p.104]

A strange dream state, then, with not a smiley or glow-stick to be seen. [Jul 2014, p.100]

Brain-melting return from digital hardcore heroes. [Sept. 2011, p. 103]

Not for the unquesting. [Mar 2005, p.101]

They retain enough of their own identity to sound fresh. [Nov 2013, p.114]

While Wonderful Crazy Night lacks a truly great Elton John song, he sounds more driven than he has in years. [Mar 2016, p.108]

Come On Give Up bottles the album's slacker vibe, but Ratworld is more nuanced than most garage rockers could ever manage. [Feb 2015, p.111]

The genre pinballing can work--Brock pulls out his carney Tom Waits voice for Sugar Boats--but it's also uneven, unsteadying. [Apr 2015, p.94]

While there is plenty here that's impressive, the odd change of gear wouldn't go amiss next time around. [May 2009, p.110]

Bipolar Texan tunesmith Daniel Johnston will never be more than an acquired taste. [Dec 2009, p. 126]

It's the cat-on-an-electric-hot-tin-roof cartoonery that makes Perrey such a joy. [Aug 2017, p.110]

Musically, these tracks take in '60s flavour Farfisa-sounds, abstract electronica and, on Citizens Nowhere, the neglected style clash of hip hop and glam rock. [Jun 2003, p.98]

Hardly groundbreaking, but there's heft, heart and humour here in spades. [Oct 2014, p.107]

24 Karat Gold appeals because it's a new Stevie Nicks album that sounds just like an old Stevie Nicks album. The downside is that the modern-day Stevie faces some stiff competition from her younger self. [Nov 2014 p.110]

None of it should work, but it does. [Sep 2016, p.105]

It's all very melancholy and mysterious, as you'd imagine, but the production has a pleasingly seductive, 12st-century sheen. [Dec 2013, p.103]

Far out stuff indeed, but very listenable. [Oct 2007, p.101]

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]

Breezy, fitfully arch--if ultimately untaxing--indie rock is the order of service here, while the odd dappling of analogue synths does little to suggest it was recorded this side of the millennium. [Apr 2019, p.116]

It's confessional late-night fare but the warmth of Fink's soulful voice is captivating. [Jun 2009, p.121]

More cultured chill-out from the East London alchemists. [Feb 2012, p.110]

10 ready-made, slightly wonky theme tunes. [May 2013, p.113]

This debut is dip-dyed electronica for the Tumblr generation. [Jun 2013, p.103]

Third album Fake history is a whirl of clattering hardcore, gymnastic screaming and raw-edged, blazing riffs. [Jun 2011, p.114]

Songs such as the Psychedelic Furs-recalling The Second Summer Of Love and the Bowie-like Sell Your Soul show McBean's keener on examining his adolescence in the alternative '80s,, alongside other rock'n'roll mythology. [Jun 2014, p.118]

Takes the first steps towards some sonic nirvana.... But overall, it's still not quite the record you know they could make. [Jul 2004, p.116]

Completely beguiling. [Aug 2012, p.98]

The neverending quest for bangers leads Hurts to lean heavily on foot-stomping choruses to carry songs, but it's to their credit that Desire has a lighter touch than previous albums. [Nov 2017, p.108]

It's slightly more accessible than his previous work. [Sep 2013, p.102]

They share a love for the kind of heady jams previously lost in the mists of the '70s psychedelia, Shadow's On Behalf's shimmering harmonies and loose-knit rhythms drawing inspirations from such exponents of starry-eyed soul as David Axelrod and Rotary Connection. [Oct 2011, p.130]

It's mainly successful: co-written with Ed Sheeran, new acoustic single Say You Love Me may ebe a relation of Extreme's More Than Words, but elsewhere stories are told more vividly, with non-showboating vocalist Ware infusing the songs with restrained emotion. [Nov 2014, p.114]

A cheap production slightly undermines, but the world is hers. [Mar 2007, p.111]

Lonely, Dear offers another helping of sweet melancholy on Hall Music. [Nov. 2011, p. 142]

Move over, Devendra Banhart: there's a new bunch of bohemian music kooks in town. [Apr 2008, p.115]

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]

Dark and pummelling, making it hard to digest in one sitting. [May 2016, p.116]

When they equal their best source material, they're brilliant; but when that material is merely daft, they're less good. [Jun 2013, p.104]

Their trad arrangements of others' songs are bewitching, but it's a pity they don't pen more original songs. [Nov 2009, p.112]

Alas, for all its genuine charm and the way the two Johns genre-hop without leaving footprints, The Spine lacks the spark of true greatness. [Aug 2004, p.119]

Loewenstein's debut is pretty impressive. [Aug 2002, p.128]

Though more than pastiche, it's not pop genius yet either. [Aug 2006, p.114]

Her solo incarnation is finer-framed, a collection of country-dusted ballads and Laurel canyon laments run through a Kurt Vile filter. [Feb 2019, p.115]

It would be a solid album for someone like Annie, For The Ting Tings, though, it suggests there's no way back from Nowheresville. [Nov 2014, p.118]

Free Somehow has its moments, but as ever, there's something missing. [May 2008, p.141]

The results may inevitably resemble a compilation, but the calm, luxurious and emotional Dive Deep is their most satisfying outing since they stopped being famous. [Mar 2008, p.107]

Polica have made another good record, but there may never be a Polica album as good as the one inside your head. [Mar 2016, p.112]

Full marks for originality, then, but it's definitely something you have to be in the mood for. [Mar 2015, p.116]

On a concept album about felleing sad and lonely in clubland, and the instrumental flash is balanced out by forlorn lyrics. [Oct 2008, p.149]

What really fascinates is the way Davidge pulls the musical strings throughout. [Mar 2014, p.111]

Their fifth album builds on 2007's well-received "Abandoned Language," with MC Dalek's rhymes playing second fiddle to producer Oktopus's darkly imaginative soundscapes. [Mar 2009, p.96]

There's plenty of classic rock sodge, but Communion's execution alone feels admirably daring. [Sep 2009, p.95]

Having given himself just eight tracks to play with, Broder ends up with more ideas than he has songs to fit them into. [Jul 2016, p.106]

It makes for a meditative, transportive listening experience, exemplified best on the elegiac piano and swelling strings of opener Haar. [Jul 2019, p.109]

Slideling ditches the Bunnymen's arch neo-psychedelia in favour of four-square indie-rock. [May 2003, p.110]

The woozy G-funk of 2 Minute Warning and 1800's crunk rat-a-tat show his trademark drawl has lost none of its subtle menace, though too often it's left to guest cameos to supply the spark - rising R&B star Jazmine Sullivan brushing her host aside on soul-powered highlight Different Languages. [Jan 2010, p. 118]

A straightforward, warm-sounding album. [Dec 2004, p.138]

It's still fun scuzzy garage rock, and that'll do for most for now. [May 2012, p.98]

Covering Blondie's Sunny Girl in a straight '70s power-pop style seems strangely redundant, but easy listening standard Hold Me, Thrill Me, Kiss Me suits She & Him down to the ground. [Jun 2013, p.104]

If Hard Bargain doesn't quite hit a career high, it runs close on tearful eulogies to Gram Parsons and Kate McGarrigle, and the stunning My Name Is Emmett Till, a Cash/Dylan-esque civil rights songs. [Jun 2011, p.116]

They sometimes teeter on the edge of bovver-booted self-parody, but this still counts as a welcome evolution. [Sep 2018, p.117]

It's very difficult to see the tough-talking Devils Night as anything other than a slightly tweaked re-run of The Marshall Mathers LP. [#180, p.100]

Big Talk are less grandoise and more low-key than his dayjob, thought, and these 12 tracks do sag in the middle when this eponymous debut takes a detour into pub rock with No Whiskey and Girl At Sunrise. [Sept. 2011, p. 103]

Far out just got further away. [Sep 2013, p.102]

They're at their best when they keep it succinct, as on I'm Still Believing and Another Dimension. Their longer songs are less successful. [Dec 2016, p.115]

Williams should inject more urgency to his sound. [June 2008, p.148]

It's when Hozier tries to do throwaway, good-time tracks that the record falters slightly. [Apr 2019, p.119]