Stirratt and Sansone combine this all into a scrumptious hotpot of classy, classic songwriting, rich in texture and flavour. [Feb 2014, p.111]

Whilte thoughtfully put together, Push The Heart is hardly a venture into uncharted territory. [Apr 2006, p.119]

This is indie rock with plenty of funk, snaking basslines and wah-wah guitar. [May 2009, p.119]

This impressive follow-up finds him lacing hard-edged techno beats with quirky shifts on tone and texture. [Jun 2009, p.121]

The pair are so full of ideas, there's scarcely a dull moment. [Apr 2007, p.119]

Children moan, accordions groan and Bjork's disembodied voice occasionally growls into earshot. [Sep 2005, p.114]

It's uplifting stuff. [Mar 2015, p.104]

It remains to be seen whether this is a long-term diversion for Oberst. But if the Mystic Valley Band is just a brief stop, it's a hugely enjoyable one all the same. [Jun 2009, p.129]

A slow-burning but deeply impressive debut. [Sep 2002, p.109]

Previous albums threatened to impress but always came with bits missing. This is the finished article. [Dec 2003, p.130]

The feelgood hit of the summer? Quite possibly. [Sep 2003, p.110]

A heavyweight, goth-rock death trip, awash with mangled guitars and horror-film atmospherics. [Nov. 2000, p.113]

Costa's capable of holding her own, making the most of [Prince's and Lenny Kravitz's] skills while imposing her identity. [Sep 2005, p.115]

He's better when he lets the words--and music--speak for themselves. [Nov 2008, p.120]

It's soulful and pristine pop that all seems a little pedestrian in comparison. [Aug 2009, p.101]

Nothing quite matches that burst of bile ['Crying Blood'], but the title track--choir and all--is heavenly. [Jul 2009, p.118]

He's not quite established his own sound, but that will surely come. Meanwhile, Braveface remains hugely enjoyable. [Jun 2009, p.121]

Kill is no great departure, but their sense of mischief and their genuine, Killers-esque power ensures staleness is kept at bay, while The Newark Airport Boogie (not their first airport tribute, incidentally) is bouncier than a spacehopper. [Feb 2010, p. 104]

It's almost worth it for the titles alone. [Dec 2009, p. 136]

Whether a fanbase reared on moshpit anthems is ready for such artful desolation remains to be seen, but as an exercise in skin-shedding and score-settling The Betrayed is brutally effective. [Feb 2010, p. 103]

Though not without charm. thier debut rarely yields anything distinctive. [Apr 2010, p.120]

The resulting brew takes some getting used to, but there;s levitating force behind the rumbling Thunderdrums and Satt Nam's astral harmonics. [Oct 2010, p.112]

At its best, Cadenza is a thoroughly captivating listen. [Jun 2011, p.114]

It's an album that sounds somehow both old and new, resembling Bibio and Yeasayer rewriting Brian Wilson's back catalogue. [Aug. 2011, p. 123]

A charming little diversion from the cares of the modern world. [Dec. 2011 p. 135]

A series of shiveringly atmospheric compositions that will appeal to fans of Godspeed You! Black Emperor.[Jan. 2012 p. 119]

The instrumentals can feel sketchy, but the vocal tracks shine. [Mar 2012, p.106]

Ultimately, 1992-2012 does its job so well that it's hard to see the point of A Collection. [Mar 2012, p.114]

Boys Noize forged a path through the same noisy colours [as Justice and Digitalism] without ever acquiring the cultural baggage. [Nov 2012, p.89]

There is promising variation in places. [Nov 2012, p.111]

Maynard is clearly being primed to take on Bieber. Hence the ultra-pop, super-slick confections he layers his not altogether unpleasant (but not utterly spellbinding voice all over. [Sep 2012, p.105]

To truly get into the spirit, though, you'll need to have an attention span longer than his own. [Mar 2013, p.96]

There's is much self-dramatising talk of "crazy dreamers," but no magical thinking in the music. [Mar 2013, p.102]

Very silly, but with enough invention to sustain interest. [Apr 2013, p.104]

Soppiness has become overbearing on recent records, This eighth LP, though, rediscovers their heaviness. [Jun 2013, p.99]

There are moments the focus blurs. But it's the exception on an album that dynamic, dramatic and remarkable free of self-indulgence. [Jun 2013, p.99]

Subtlety is not their strength. [Jul 2013, p.111]

Although things quieten down on the pseudo-R Kelly front as the record progresses, the squirm factor never totally vanishes. [Apr 2014, p.106]

It's a mixed bag. [May 2014, p.114]

The results ate at once intimate and expansive, layering vintage synthesizer riffs over fidgety percussion. [Jun 2014, p.112]

Rock heritage fetishism at its finest. [Jul 2014, p.114]

An album filled with skill, invention and genrey-defying fun. [Apr 2015, p.104]

Smart, knowing and the right kind of shallow, Spector have moved on to phase two in style. [Sep 2015, p.117]

They're far from failed experiments, but they do reinforce the notion that Necro Deathmort are much better at making atonal soundscapes. [Jul 2016, p.112]

Unfortunately there's no left-field motion, no unexpected turns, none of the twist'n'crawl that separated them from the workaday pack. [Nov 2016, p.102]

It's a real showcase for their strengths. [Dec 2016, p.115]

In short, electrifying. [Mar 2017, p.115]

It's a pleasing collection of multi-layered poo songs in a manner that at times recall Sufjan Stevens. [Feb 2017, p.119]

Lemon Memory is both invigorating and anaesthetising. [Apr 2017, p.115]

Not everything which follows [opening track Overlow] nails the anthemic vibe so successfully, but Elodie's wistful glow and indie-dance groover Follow show they can raise the mood even while they down the drama. [Apr 2017, p.118]

They excel most on energetic, darkly comic songs. [Jun 2017, p.110]

She's sometimes bogged down by her own weightiness, but Paradise won't stall her slow but steady climb. [May 2017, p.104]

An understated but always involving affair. [Summer 2018, p.116]

The result is intense, fractured and uncomfortable. However, by continuing the trajectory of Mess, only deep-diving further into abstract electronics, it also reveals itself as a strangely exhilarating listen. It's a shame they didn't have time to explore it further. [Aug 2018, p.113]

The results are pleasantly bouncy rather than riotously fun. [Aug 2018, p.114]

Dizzy might feel wobbly on their feet, but Baby Teeth gives them an impressively solid foundation on which to build. [Sep 2018, p.110]

While I Got You's rock-solid funk shows they know how to work up a sweat, the emotional themes don't always connect with equal force, Hatcher sounding most impassioned on 306, an ode to his ageing Peugeot hatchback. [Sep 2018, p.114]

They pull it out of the hat in quite an extraordinary fashion here. [Jul 2012, p.94]

A few more songs like the kaleidoscopic Beyond The Deathray would've broken the relentless pace but on the whole this is another shape-shifting evolution in a career full of them. [May 2015, p.103]

[The new sound] works well on single 'Cities Burning Down,' which glides by catchily with a curious mix of muscle and lethargy, but it's less welcome on the cod-psychedlic 'Let's Be Kids' or the trite 'Golden Web,' both which are cosmetically seemless, but lack depth. [Apr 2009, p.105]

A collection of loose - in fact, very loose - rock-n-roll with at least one foot in the '60s. [Dec. 2011 p. 136]

The threesome do manage to build up a decent head of steam on the motorik Just To Play, but Olivier's bored tones guarantee the feeling is fleeting. [Mar 2005, p.104]

They still sound a little too arch and buttoned-up to make a convincing transition from lab to club. [Jun 2014, p.111]

Her fifth solo album mixes positive-message R&B, hip hop and funk with variable and often unsubstantial results. [Mar 2010, p.110]

It's stunning stuff. The bar for the next Grizzly Bear album, already high after Veckatimist, is raised another notch. [Nov. 2011, p. 128]

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

A lovely, tender album. [Jun 2015, p.110]

The results are comprehensively bemusing, but Swedish is an exquisitely lulling language to listen to, and so the whole effect is oddly hypnotic. [Nov 2008, p.118]

Every track on Tender Madness sounds like it's been chiseled out of Mount Rushmore. [Jan 2014, p.124]

The virtuoso musicianship largely eclipses Henry Tremain's insipid vocals. [Feb 2013, p.112]

There's nothing remotely new here--and his hyper-ventilating yelp won't be for everyone--but it's a rollicking 40-minute ride. [Apr 2018, p.108]

One can't shake the feeling that This Is Acting was compromised from the start. [Mar 2016, p.114]

At his best, Jean writes great tunes that don't give a stuff for anyone else's criteria of cool, but amid the overlong skits/underlong songs of Ecleftic, and despite the super-silly brilliance of It Doesn't Matter, the lasting impression is of a talent at sea, cut off from his roots and uncertain of the path ahead.

The band's ability to rock out at the drop of a hat proves a pleasant surprise among the dopey reverie. [Jun 2006, p.115]

Highly intriguing. [Oct 2013, p.97]

The rest lumbers by in a blur of anaemic vocals and dull soundscapes. [Aug 2010, p.117]

Ditch square ideas of substance and solidity, though, and Hamburg Demonstrations is studded with wonderful moments, even some grander stretches. [Jan 2016, p.102]

The magic isn't totally absent, but this self-conscious debut falls just short of the hype they've garnered on US blogs. [Oct 2010, p.111]

A muscular piece of work... [but] a tangible sense of genuine passion is, ultimately, absent. [Jul 2005, p.112]

Not the new sound of now, perhaps, but they play with enough fury to make the ancestors proud. [Sep 2015, p.117]

This second effort even has the edge on 2012's The Light The Dead See, with an extra-dazzling cinematic sweep to its orchestration, a poleaxing depth to its existential sorrows and a fabulously redemptive uplift in the climatic My Sun. [Dec 2015, p.107]

It's all overly familiar in the most reassuring way. [Jun 2009, p.125]

This is a collection of grooves rather than songs, but there's depth. [Sept. 2010, p. 113]

'Society' suggests therr's always been a hippy survivialist under the grunge plaid. [Dec 2007, p.124]

The best songs have some serious bite. [Apr 2015, p.108]

As a covers album, this is about as good as it gets. [Mar 2010, p.104]

Simple, yet irresistible. [May 2010, p.118]

The sense of creative retreat is disappointing. [Jan 2003, p.118]

There's a bolder choice of material.... Her playing has loosened up too. [Jun 2004, p.100]

On occasion, Ludacris fumbles the ball... but he can certainly mix it with the big boys. [Jan 2002, p.104]

Yet, for all the dumbing down, they have much going for them. [May 2007, p.122]

Rock this clinical just isn't exciting. [Nov 2012, p.103]

[Heaven's Ladder, performed by Beck is] so good, though, that it makes the rest of this complicated exercise seem like a waste of time. [Oct 2014, p.108]

Pleasantly pointless. [Aug 2006, p.116]

Solidly enjoyable though Uno! is, they might have been wiser to mix things up fro the start. [Oct 2012, p.92]

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

The Ghost Of The Mountain is the sound of a band trying to settle on a style. [Sep 2013, p.105]

It's unswervingly catchy stuff. [Aug 2010, p.116]