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]

Don't bet against them lighting up the indie firmament in 2011. [Mar 2011, p.106]

There's talent here and with a slight upping of the serotonin levels next time round, Real Lies could yet be onto something. [Dec 2015, p.112]

There's a luxurious, albeit sometimes cloying, warmth throughout. [May 2017, p.100]

Although its lyrics and concerns are more mature than debut album Life As A Dog, it occasionally feels a bit like reading your teenage diary: a cringe or two amid the catharsis. [Jun 2017, p.109]

It struggles to impart much buoyant energy, with individual songs tending to sink into soporific mass of breathy vocals and mellow riffs. [Aug 2019, p.116]

Packed with lovely, unusual and attention-grabbing intros. ... Less heartening are his lyrics. ... Much of the record consists of its maker bragging about his sexual conquests with a dead-eyed disdain. [May 2020, p.106]

The Fleetwood Mac-tinged 'Touch Me I'm Going to Scream Part 2' overcomes the overall air of pastiche. [July 2008, p.108]

A set of modestly sparkling gems. [Dec 2006, p.147]

It's less emotionally instinctive LP than his debut, but over time those new pop hooks prove hard to shake. [Feb 2017, p.116]

The novelty soon fades and the collision of styles rarely coalesces into anything approaching a song. [May 2011, p.120]

Knapp can be as shrewdly sweet as Paul Simon or as drippy as a Sarah Records house band, dissecting heartache in teen-diary fashion--but the music is consistently grown up. [Dec 2008, p.108]

It still comes from within a hydroponic fug of sedated beats and mumbled vocals. However, there's also a renewed sense of self. [Nov 2014, p.119]

A very respectable pop-punk debut. [Oct 2005, p.121]

A startling fusion of ethereal singing with churning, computer-generated beats and ambience. [June 2002, p.110]

Hanson's second studio album is better than the first.

They often strain too hard to showcase their musicianship. [Apr 2008, p.112]

Willfully schlocky, surprising witty. [Sep 2010, p.113]

Second album is polished, though its anthemic pop-metalcore suffers from thinking its better than it is. [Aug. 2011, p. 119]

Hayes has a tendency to wisp but this is offset by more exciting tunes such as the Cure-y single Keep running. [Dec 2012, p.106]

There are unexpected pleasures in the margins. [Oct 2015, p.105]

Too many of the remaining songs sound more like sketches than fully realised songs. [May 2016, p.116]

Many of the early tracks feel over-packed with ideas, musical styles , thrusts of synth, bongos, spoken word and chemtrails of jazz. Later, though, when he settles into sparser ballad territory, there is a sense of him drawing into focus as an artist. [Aug 2019, p.116]

Their most coherent statement yet. [Feb 2005, p.100]

No help coming consequently offers a welcome contrast to murder-ballad reciting neo-folkers. [Jun 2011, p.116]

Fresh-faced wunderkind aces his debut. [Oct 2011, p.118]

Ambient meditations and busy electro picaresques like Glow Hole add variety to a record that doesn't exactly reinvent the wheel but at least paints it in bizarre colours. [Oct 3012, p.98]

One for rainy afternoons, or a bottle of red in the small hours. [Jun 2012, p.109]

McLamb's vocals still sometimes fall the wrong side of the impassioned/histrionic divide, but this is a far more coherent album than its predecessor. [Sep 2013, p.104]

Devoid of Hannon's penchant for the smugly esoteric, this is by far his most approachable album. [Aug 2006, p.111]

Scintilli slowly builds an all-absorbing world, [with] tension between fear and beauty. [Nov. 2011, p. 139]

Two good albums, then--but more editing could have produced a single excellent one. [May 2017, p.104]

Album number eight from Zakk Wylde sees him cranking up the macho guitar heroics to superhuman levels. [Oct. 2010, p. 103]

Not always easy to decode, but worth the effort. [Jun 2014, p.103]

Imagine David Axelrod producing The Beatles, and you get an idea of The Earlies' ambition and musicality. [Mar 2007, p.111]

Osaka pop-punk veterans release their 17th record. [Aug. 2011, p. 126]

Ultimately, this is dour stuff reminiscent of a yogic Sting. [Dec 2006, p.138]

Despite a few lapses into gross sentimentality, Lucky One sucessfully maintains that allusion [that the past 50 years or so never happened] thanks to some spot-on period arrangements. [Apr 2009, p.107]

If anything the sisters take too traditional an approach, and where their live shows are freewheeling and fun, Tell Tales sounds mannered and prim. [May 2012, p.95]

His first album since 2008's Ninja Tuna marks a radical shift, ditching both fishy puns and vintage soul samples in favour of swarming basslines and stuttering electro beats. [Jun 2014, p.116]

The distance from here to early triumphs Entertainment! and Solid Gold seems like a long one. [Jun 2019, p.112]

This record will quicken the pulse of no one, but then chin-stroking does require a certain musical mellowness. [Jul 2009, p.127]

Highly evolved it may be, but that doesn't make it any more listenable. [Apr 2010, p.112]

Flawed though it is, this brave and canny album hits the reset button and buys her a future. [Jan 2017, p.105]

An expansive journey into a singular imagination. [Dec 2018, p.107]

Ultimately, Iradelphic never really amounts to more than the sum of its parts. [May 2012, p.94]

It's a thrilling snapshot of a young rock'n'roll band bent to no-one else's will but their own. [May 2014, p.105]

A sweet and heartfelt love letter to his own adolescence, mining a long-gone era of poodle hair and shiny Spandex for inspiration. ... Aficionados will have fun spotting the references, but there's emotional heft beneath the screaming solos. [Jul 2020, p.112]

Despite its spacious and minimal approach, the album is -- in typical Anderson style -- a demanding piece of work. [Sep 2001, p.106]

It's the kind of record you hate yourself for liking. [Dec 2003, p.132]

It's an album that suggests You Me At Six are trapped between three, possibly four, different idea of who they want to be. [Mar 2017, p.115]

Whether they can carry with them a rebirth of indie as characterized by debuts by Suede, The Strokes or Arctic Monkeys before them remains to be seen. But there's more than enough here to justify their talk-of-the-town status. [Apr 2011, p.96]

The best Nelson set since 1996's Spirit. [Dec 2006, p.138]

For newcomers to Smith's wonderful and frightening world it's a good introduction. [Mar 2007, p.111]

Ambition aplenty, but spread too thinly. [Apr 2020, p.111]

Their slow, brooding, impeccably delivered songs exude menace and promise drunken but regrettable sex, while the symphonic closer 'Waves' suggests they have the wherewithal and inclination to evolve. [Aug 2008, p.145]

Not quite the step forward he needed. [Sep 2001, p.122]

It's this kind of unresolved contradiction -- not to mention the flashes of self-deprecating wit -- that makes this return from the brink so fascinating. [August 2011, p. 112]

Campbell's voice seems to have been recorded in a lift shaft, rendering her too murky. [Dec 2006, p.133]

Producer Joe Henry has softened the originals' raw edges without compromising their acidic content. [Oct 2008, p.152]

This third album is more in the same gold-standard, singer-songwriterly vien. [Dec 2008, p.130]

It's certainly not a consistent album, but the best of it is unique and intriguing. [Apr 2009, p.102]

The duo have remained one of the few constants in UK dance music. [Oct 2010, p.120]

Tracks such as Celebrate and Push lack the euphoric uplift necessary for dancefloor dominance, while the relationship angst hinted at in strobe Light comes masked behind a dreamy production gauze. When they hit the sweet spot, however, the results are sublime. [Jun 2017, p.110]

A moribund collection of ragged but never rugged songs. [Jan 2004, p.114]

A winning mix of melody and melancholy. [Aug 2006, p.111]

Throughout, chunks of ska and pop ensure an absurdly cheerful atmosphere. [Oct 2013, p.110]

He's carved out his own island. [Apr 2016, p.104]

A return to form have they made. [Oct 2018, p.115]

This follow-up proves a slightly less ramshackle but equally engaging electro-powered soundclash that even finds Bell adding the odd new twist. [Oct 2011, p.130]

It's frustratingly patchy. [Aug 2016, p.114]

Silvery two-part harmonies, cello and snare rolls combine to excellent effect on Light Out, while Drummachines lopes along, a fuzzy bass loop and booming drum kicks offset with mildly Auto-Tuned vocals. [May 2013, p.103]

Varshons succeeds thanks to an inspired breadth of material. [Jul 2009, p.125]

Quarter-hearted anthems such as Winner fail to recapture the desperate glamour and delicate optimism of their best work, making Elysium the definition of a mixed bag. [Oct 2012, p.104]

They may not quite manage sustained quality, but they're getting closer. [Apr 2017, p.118]

It mixes experimental sketches and DIY electronica with Animal Collective-like Peel Free's meditation on a life quixotic. At times Aokohio plays like a TV randomly switching channels. [Sep 2019, p.116]

Lyrically trying to hard, and musically under-achieving, it amounts to no more than a shonky indie take on something that, when the pairing is right, can be truly magical. [Feb 2013, p.105]

A rhythmic assurance helps Muggs navigate the flabby portentousness that has hampered Massive Attack of late. [Apr 2003, p.113]

An eyebrow-raising mish-mash of cheap keyboard and guitar sounds and DIY grooves..... an awkward, yet occasionally beautiful listening experience.

A high-risk strategy, then, but one that largely succeeds thanks to Fink's languid delivery. [Apr 2011, p.103]

A Hundred Million Suns is just what their hordes demanded, similar enough to uits predecessors to be identifiably Snow Patrol but sufficently different to suggest progression. [Nov 2008, p.106]

Perfectamundo explodes into glorious Technicolor. [Dec 2015, p.107]

He retreats too often into dull AOR choogling. [Mar 2007, p.114]

A sumptuous record that leans heavily on familiar Floyd themes. [Apr 2006, p.111]

The suspicion is that, in parts at least, No World was more satisfying to make than it is to listen to. [Mar 2013, p.104]

Licensed to offend, he's as pumped-up and provocative as ever. [Nov 2008, p.121]

A touch more light amid the shade, though, and this would be a more redemptive listen. [Aug 2013, p.95]

Imagine a less florid Rufus Wainwright , or Paddy McAloon without the lyrical smarts and you'd be getting close: he even claims Prefab Sprout - along with A-ha - as a key influence. [Dec 2009, p. 116]

Margo Timmins gives haunting, basilisk voice to the songs ... even familiar listeners will be intrigued. [Dec 2011, p. 125]

His best since 2001's Here Be Monsters. [Jul 2006, p.114]

Fizzes with poppy yet streetwise energy. [April 2012, p.94]

It's the sinuous, propulsive bass of Malka Spigel (Newman's wife and co-founder of the Swim~label) that takes centre stage, never more so than on instrumental opener Faster, the first of several tracks to invoke the ghost of New order. [Jan 2010, p. 119]

It just about lives up to the hype. [May 2008, p.136]

Beautysleep veers from the exquisite (Keeping You) to the frustratingly bland (Moonbeam Monkey), with single The Storm the main highlight.

The production is pitched halfway twixt Adele and Bastille, and All I need feels like the album that will kick Foxes up from the second tier to the A-lists and playlists. [Mar 2016, p.110]

The sonic invention---fast-cuts between moods and styles, washy layers of aural colours--never gets in the way of the songs and the result is a triumph. [Nov 2019, p.116]

The Archer Trilogy were exercises in electronic indie that were sparsely fragile (pt. 1, mostly) or verging on Europop (much of Pt. 2). The final installment manages to combine both and is all the better for it. [Jul 2013, p.101]

A record that unfolds like a collection of short stories, occasionally hokey but more often affectingly vivid. [Feb 2014, p.108]