[The album] is a thing of unstated, fragile beauty. [Oct 2012, p.104]

Some of the greatest countrified orchestral pop this side of the randy old goats' [Gainsbourg and Hazlewood] heydays. [Feb 2012, p.108]

An extended celebration of shopping, partying, and exercising youthful hormones. [Dec 2010, p.114]

The Keychain Collection isn't far removed from James Blake, though the subtle melodies are all his own. [Apr 2012, p.98]

It's a tough listen--Lotic's aural trademark, a kind of restless arrhythmia, can be exhausting--but pays off with dazzling highs such as Bulletproof, the blueprint for a reconstructed avant-pop paradigm. [Aug 2018, p.113]

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

Solid but somewhat samey. [Jul 2014, p.109]

All 14 tracks here use Yeats's verse, and while it's a natural fit, occasionally, as on The Song Of Wandering Aengus, Scott's over-enunciation can overwhelm. [Oct 2011, p.130]

Sometimes his curious fusion works. ... Sometimes it doesn't. [Feb 2020, p.115]

Godrich's production gives the album exquisite depth but also smothers its soul. [Dec 2012, p.114]

A return to form that shares DNA with Madonna's Ray Of Light, it combines Dido's introspection with meditative electronica. [May 2019, p.111]

At their best, as on Number 6 single 'Facination,' they are an invigoratingly upbeat experience. But too often they crash through the boundaries of good taste into out-and-out cheese. [July 2008, p.98]

A short and sharp, but ultimately shockless, album that would have benefited from changing its tune once in a while. [Feb 2009, p.112]

Hemingway's Whiskey is very much par for the course. [Dec 2010, p.114]

[This fifth album] still sounds refreshingly unconventional. [Apr 2014, p.116]

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]

An album that's as entrancing as it is modestly proportioned. [June 2002, p.121]

With some judicious skipping of tracks this is another eminently listenable set. [Oct 2014, p.109]

Short, but thrillingly witchy and proof that Wolfe can command the quiet as well as she does the noise. [Dec 2012, p.115]

This ragbag of an album suggests the tying up of loose ends before impending reinvention. [Jan 2008, p.118]

Although it holds together better than out-takes album might, newcomers should start elsewhere. [July 2008, p.101]

First album in seven years by dreamy Alabama duo. [Jan. 2011, p. 135]

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]

His first widely distributed release, is no vanity showcase. It's an album of acoustic, guitar-based singer-songwriter pop, although not quite as sparse as that sounds. [Nov 2008, p.107]

Wonder of the Younger shows they're still expanding their songwriting palette with out sacrificing the hooks or pop smarts. [Dec 2010, p.114]

Father Creeper proves ambitious, but it's easy to get lost amid the clatter of African rhythm. [Apr 2012, p.98]

Freakonomics proves they still pack a punch, though. [Aug 2009, p.101]

The majority of Reality Killed the Video Star - a reliably punning title, and this one almost works - seems to have taken its glum atmospheric cue from Morrissey's Vauxhall And I or Rufus Wainwright's less fruity concoctions - without necessarily taking on board any of their melodic or lyrical gifts. [Dec 2009, p. 108]

The lack of an absolutely killer song and an aversion to hooks may yet derail them, but there's hope to spare. [Jun 2014, p.122]

In stark contrast to their finest work (1993's "brown" album, 1999's The Middle Of Nowhere), the magic moments never add up to an epic, morphing whole.

Cull the arrogance, the laziness, the ill-considered ignorance, the (that word yet again) sneering, and there wouldn't be a better album than Know Your Enemy, and not just of this year. Cull the brave lyrics, the moments of inspiration, the songs to treasure and the moments of honesty and, were it available in dogfood form, you wouldn't feed Know Your Enemy to your hounds.

There's the occasional intriguing beat and nods to musical theatre. [Nov 2017, p.111]

If Pajama Club resembles anything, it's a Neil Finn solo album, although Dead Leg and Can't Put It Down Until It Ends are as well-crafted as anything he's offered since Crowded House's pomp. [Nov. 2011, p. 139]

Their forays into electronica work best.... Sadly, there are too many one-dimensional guitar-pop songs that expose Jackson's flat, robotic voice. [May 2008, p.136]

The high proportion of psychedelic plods make this record feel like a missed opportunity--elegantly wasted, but wasted all the same. [May 2016, p.104]

Heaven Before All Hell Breaks Loose is a fine record, but the restraint shows. [Jun 2018, p.115]

This is an album you need to be enveloped by--the louder it is, the better it sounds. [Jun 2016, p.115]

Emily Haines remains a commanding frontwoman, but where once she railed against war and consumerism, here she sticks to wishy-washy reflections on love and life. [Jun 2009, p.127]

Mountain Echo isn't original, but Marie's voice oozes control vulnerability. [Apr 2012, p.98]

It's good, but then again no better than a genuine, crackly, long-forgotten B-side or buried album track that a specialist reissue label might have unearthed. And there, ultimately is the rub. [Jun 2010, p.127]

In the past, they have demonstrated the power to leave people flattened: Valtari, however, just falls a little flat. [Jun 2012, p.94]

The Marge Simpson of nu-soul continues to meander down her own path. [Nov 2014, p.112]

Smooth and intermittently sublime it may be, but their previous weirdness is much missed. [Jun 2006, p.117]

At times it's gently dreamlike and beautiful, but its ethereal ambitions often feel like a lack of focus rather than a statement of intent. [Feb. 2012 p. 111]

Confident in its own weirdness, Love In The 4th Dimension is as enjoyable as the live shows that birthed it. [May 2017, p.100]

Koushik has crafted an album that glows like a California sunset, even though he's actually a Canadian now living in Vermont. [Nov 2008, p.118]

Chained as they are to the demands of the dancefloor, there's a little room for subtlety in these frantic mash-ups of Coldplay and Empire Of The Sun, but then whoever did their thinking under strobe lights? [Dec 2010, p.115]

Although they occasionally slip into boilerplate territory, overall Peace are finally dancing to the beat of their own, pared-back, drum. [Jun 2018, p.113]

It retains the same soft, celestial charm that has lit up the songwriter's earlier releases, merging classical strings, gentle guitars and subtle electronics. [April 2012, p.90]

A unique, if impenetrable artists, Vanderslice deserves a wider audience. [Jun 2009, p.132]

It's not ground-breaking, but Piano Ombre is a beautifully off-kilter record to lose yourself in. [Apr 2014, p.109]

Leaving no room for nuance,it's a relentlessly dark wall of sonic aggression. [Apr 2012, p.101]

He is undoubtedly a star, but Sisqo will have to work harder than this if he wants his audience to continue loving him as much as he so clearly loves himself. [Sep 2001, p.117]

As lovely as Do Easy frequently is, the two are often little more than a producer of their favorite records. [Jan 2017, p.115]

This latest offering from former Hare Krishna disciples Taraka and Nimai Larson finds the Brooklyn-based sisters in typically mind-altering mood. [Nov. 2011, p. 139]

The band, however, are a little too gauche to rock out convincingly and fare better on the softer, Beach Boys-influenced psychedelia of Mirror Of Time and Strange World. [Dec 2014, p.118]

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]

After a couple plays, his just-crawled-out-of-bed falsetto and homemade designs start taking root. [Nov 2002, p.102]

A brisk, varied and entertaining little package. [Oct 2002, p.126]

It lacks the spark of greatness, although 'Cycling Trivialities' and 'Killing For Love' trundle along merrily. [Oct 2007, p.98]

It's all over long before the lack of variety can become a problem. [June 2008, p.148]

One nostalgia trip worth taking. [Oct 2008, p.147]

She might be too rude for mainstream fame, but the synthesis of blood and electricity is bracing, even if the title's far less funny than previous albums. [Jun 2009, p.130]

Oozes convention. [Jun 2003, p.98]

It's a sound that can be as unsettling as it is melodic but at its best its hypnotic and all their own. [May 2014, p.108]

A perfect chill-out album for those of an acoustic inclination. [Apr 2002, p.122]

The conveyor belt of vocalists means an album-long identity crisis, but there are good things here. [Feb 2011, p.117]

A rare peep at the methods of a great songwriter. [Feb 2004, p.98]

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

There are some decent tunes. [Nov 2006, p.142]

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

Who could of predicted, then, that Intriguer would be his best work in nearly two decades? [Aug 2010, p.116]

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

Transnormal Skiperoo is as quietly joyful as its title. [Nov 2007, p.148]

Morissette is rarely dull, but she can occasionally be wearying. [July 2008, p.107]

Everything is dislocated, kinked and inhuman. [Jan 2013, p.105]

While their new setting can't quite extinguish their thoughtful charms, it has trampled on their mystique. [Apr 2014, p.103]

His fifth album is typically protean. [May 2010, p.118]

Much of it is lovely, but marred somewhat by the whispery sub-Kate Bush vocals of Kristin Valtysdottir. [Apr 2004, p.117]

Amazingly, this weird, consciously retro amalgam of Van Dyke Parks, Big Star and Queen actually works. [Nov 2016, p.111]

The production lacks the loose-fit liveliness and lightness of touch which was The Dust Brothers' trademark back in the mid-'90s. [Apr 2005, p.114]

Hardly coherent, enough of the disparate strands hang together to make it curiously moreish. [Oct 2011, p.112]

Tracks such as Florida and Pull The Curtains... add a Pixies-ish aggression to their signature bleepy country rock. [Nov 2005, p.124]

Despite there being little opportunity for euphoric release, it's easy to lose yourself in Deleter's darker, more brutal moments. [Mar 2020, p.119]

While Josh Davis has valiantly refused to photocopy his pioneering 1996 debut Endtroducing, this fourth album could use its mystery and cohesion. [Nov. 2011, p. 139]

Not the easiest of listens. [Feb 2007, p.98]

Glover's wit and dexterity confirm he's the real deal. [Jan. 2012 p. 119]

Brooding and complex, Deafman Glance isn't easy to grasp, but repeated listens get you through the sophisticated structures to appreciate some mid-blowing moments, out-there lyrics, and, on Telluride Speed, hard-won prettiness. [Jul 2018, p.118]

The Amazons are much better when they add a little intricacy to their snarling rock. [Jul 2017, p.110]

The country reggae of the title track may be too far for some, but mostly Speer's country art-rock with a side of Southern fried is damn tasty. [Apr 2014, p.106]

Aurally, Super Furry Animals are evolving into a hybrid of Blur and The Cardiacs. (Drawing) Rings Around The World, Shoot Doris Day and Presidential Suite are excellent, most of the remainder pass muster, but there's nothing to change anyone's world.

With regular producer Swizz Beatz virtually absent here, this fourth album is definitely mixed. [Dec 2001, p.121]

Though not what Lopes or TLC will be remembered for, it's a solid effort. [Jan 2003, p.124]

It's by no means a classic but there's enough personality to suggest Hozier will be with us for the long haul. [Oct 2014, p.110]

A small but perfectly formed addition to his [Anton Newcombe's] stellar back catalogue. [Dec 2015, p.104]

They can't quite maintain that standard [in the first three singles] throughout but nevertheless this remains a deeply impressive debut. [Jul 2015, p.108]

Despite some straight-ahead country rocking and blue-eyed soul, it's on the title track, a finely crafted meditation on love's bewildering ways, where she really finds her own voice, setting her apart from the pack. [May 2008, p.136]