Neil Finn's gift for driving songs remains as strong as ever. [Sep 2004, p.118]

Sometimes overly busy album. ... Swift soars when she is most herself. [Jan 2018, p.112]

[There are] some great songs lurking in the darkness of their debut. [Jan 2016, p.111]

[A] palatable solo debut. [Oct 2007, p.101]

Slower tracks such as 'Just Say Yes' and 'Blush' veer too close to blandness, though the power chords of 'Sex Without Love' and humorous idolatry of 'What Would Jay-Z Do?' revitalise. [Nov 2007, p.141]

It leaves less room for their more usual fluid melodies, though both Nails and Best Friends And Hospital Beds recapture their emotive sensibilities. [Feb 2013, p.104]

It's a winningly demented mix of ADHD garage rock, wonky psychedelia and massive, foot-on-monitor guitar riffs. [Oct 2013, p.109]

Phillip Labonte's melodic vocals give the Massachussetts quintet an edge over their contemporaries, and the songwriting and classy production here suggests they're set for bigger things. [Oct 2008, p.141]

Disengage your brain; you might just enjoy it. [Jul 2016, p.115]

Lyrics are of a cut-and-paste nature and largely unintelligible, yet sonically speaking there are layers at work here that deserves to be revisisted. [Nov 2009, p.114]

Recaptures their hallmark bright-eyed power-pop sound while rarely scaling fresh heights. [#184, p.135]

Saloon-bar rockers such as Split Decision sound tired and hackneyed alongside a beautifully downbeat cover of Dylan's Standing in the Doorway... the peaceful life suits her. [May 2012, p.105]

This second LP falls slightly short of its predecessor. [Jul 2015, p.105]

Different is Gender's newfound falsetto, but what Throws truly brims with is a freshly cleansed palate. [Sep 2016, p.113]

His fourth album doesn't really sound like a club set at all. [Oct 2016, p.113]

It doesn't eclipse their finest work, but if Toy is to be their farewell, it's a fine way to go. [Nov 2016, p.114]

A draining, rewarding journey. [Aug 2008, p.143]

Mariachi horns and guitar twang still form the backbone of a striking return to what they do best. [Oct 2008, p.141]

Pleasingly, it's much better, not to mention poppier. [May 2009, p.115]

Other tracks are a little less memorable, but the experiment's still worthwhile. [Mar 2009, p.98]

Perhaps unsurprisingly, this template leaves little room for subtlety, yet what the duo's first lacks in brains it makes up for in sheer noisy exuberance, displaying on Crazy/Forever a common thread with the once majestic ...And You Will Know Us By The Trail Of Dead. [Dec 2009, p. 116]

This still shows renewed ambition, broadening the cool, Eno-inspired palette of his previous work. [Jun 2009, p.124]

It's a tangled combination, but if you've got the patience it's worth trying to unpick. [May 2013, p.101]

Harvieu has an energy in her music that shows that nostalgia doesn't have to chain you down. [May 2012, p.97]

Stelmanis is her own woman and on Lose It and Spellwork there's enough regal clatter to elevate her from being a mere cult concern. [Jun 2011, p.107]

Previously, their appeal was an alien fusion of ferocious single-mindedness and forbidding complexity. Here, Battles often struggle to sound strange enough. [July 2011, p. 107]

Baduizm was a remarkable starting point... It may have been too much to expect her to emulate it, but there's not quite enough here.

It's not ground breaking, but its commitment to creating an authentically deranged vibe could see your fringe grow an inch with every song. [Jun 2012, p.109]

For all their winning ways they lack the songwriting dexterity of the truly great. [Sep 2004, p.119]

Barely rising above the soft purr of a sleepy summer morning, DB are all about mood and ambiance. [Aug 2014, p.103]

It's heroically earnest and not a little preposterous, but the singer's charisma carries it over the line. [Oct 2018, p.112]

A buzzy, incisive Randy Brecker on trumpet adds more than his fair share of excitement, and brings out the best in Summers's quavery delivery.

Sketched out over a dozen songs, the idea doesn't quite hang together. [May 2005, p.114]

It;s the mesmerising sonic weave which provides the intrigue. [Oct 2011, p.117]

Musically, it sticks to bardic folk ramble or--as on the brilliantly bilious Have A baby--bubblepunk aggro, but lyrically, Lewis is still finds new paths zig-zagging through his familiar patch. [Dec 2015, p.109]

At times the '60s girl-group feel can prove grating, but there's enough here to suggest a future beyond the indie ghetto. [Jul 2006, p.112]

This instrumental mixtape isn't Jaime Meline's best work, but there's no denying the manic intensity as Meline's machine-gun edits cut together old-school electro and spooked Hammond grooves. [Sept. 2010, p. 117]

On it's own terms--striving to be more interesting than the standard album--Hvarf-Heim is clearly a success. [Dec 2007, p.114]

London's electronic wunderkind explores just about every other avenue in post rave dance music. [jam 2012, p.123]

My Father Will Guide Me Up a Rope to the Sky isn't all cranium-crushing bleakness, just mostly. [Nov 2010, p.116]

It makes a refreshing change from the studied cool of Moretti's paymasters. [Dec 2008, p.130]

It's all as plush and spotless as hotel bedding--lovely, but it may leave you craving a bit a mess. [Apr 2013, p.109]

By absorbing some of the best bits of The Beach Boys, Super Furry Animals and, at times, Dexy's Midnight Runners, Gorky's Zygotic Mynci have made the perfect album for a breezy, summer afternoon.

Fans of experimetal electronica will be [happy], though Radiohead devotees should exercise caution. [Jun 2010, p.124]

It's annoyingly catchy. [Sep 2016, p.113]

It veers back to the more melancholy, washed-out experimentalism of their first records, while occasionally seeking to beak new territory. [Nov 2016, p.111]

It's far from perfect but still worthy of investigation. [Oct 2012, p.97]

It's playful rather than facetious, and the combination of sweet pop tunes and mean distorted guitar is as winning as it ever was. [Nov 2012, p.104]

Ultimately, only the flintiest hearted won't respond. [Jan 2016, p.111]

A record that feels dates, despite its archly poptimistic style. [Jun 2019, p.112]

Self-parody has lately been The Cure's greatest enemy: here, happily, it's not the main attraction. [Jan 2009, p.113]

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]

The Stand-In succeeds in sounding expansive without losing any of its intimacy. [Apr 2013, p.109]

Before The Frost... is as comfortingly familiar as one of Chris Robinson's kaftans. [Oct 2009, p.108]

Mostly this is the swingingest easy-listening country you can shake a cocktail at. [May 2010, p.127]

The Eastern motifs on Infinty are trite. Ultimately, it's not enough to derail this engrossing record. [Jun 2011, p.116]

The first 25 minutes are exhilarating if a little one-dimensional, but eventually they rein in the noise slightly. [Aug 2014, p.107]

They're at their most effective, however, when they allow their songcraft to dictate the swirl, rather than vice versa. [Nov 2016, p.115]

In the main this is a richly rewarding collection of lovingly realised songs. [June 2002, p.121]

A superbly stealthy assault on the ears, stroking and unsettling in equal measure.

His latest is a nicely varied set. [Oct 2012, p.97]

Those familiar with Oberst's method... will find much to admire in the direct ranting on display. [Jan 2006, p.127]

The fun and fake snow does wear off after a few songs though. [Jan 2016, p.112]

Nocturne hasn't shaken its overriding influences but Tatum gently pushes these songs beyond elegant pastiche. [Oct 2012, p.114]

The overall impression is one of a garbled sonic soup. [Oct 2013, p.110]

While Coco Sumner certainly makes her mistakes, not least a stumbling cover of Neil Young's Only Love Can Break Your Heart, she's her own, electro-poppy woman. [Nov 2010, p.112]

Red Flag is both consistent and memorable. [Jun 2016, p.108]

He's smart to pair Angel Olsen with a beat from the understated end of Queen's playbook, but it doesn't always work with Camila Cabello sounding oddly generic on Find U Again. [Summer 2019, p.116]

It works surprising well. [Apr 2010, p.120]

The Open Road restates his credentials, mostly with fleet-footed aplomb. [Apr 2010, p.111]

It's the interplay of textures and surfaces that facinates, only faltering on the choice of guest vocalists. [Jun 2010, p.120]

At their worst, Pearl Jam witter on pointlessly.... When Pearl Jam gel, though, it's close to special.

Theyesandeye articulates a positive, only slightly idealised ecosphere of the sea, birds and vegetation. [Sep 2016, p.111]

It acts as a skilled and timely reminder of his own uniquely vulnerable vision as a songwriter. [Oct 2015, p.102]

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]

Drifting, dreamy and at times, driving, it's further proof of the Swede's eclecticism. [Oct 2011, p.120]

This is ultimately comfortable listening, befitting folk sounds of a resolutely un-freak variety. [Oct 2012, p.96]

If the songs themselves sometimes seem to float by without fully grabbing the attention, when the melodies rise above the textures, as in The Blue Nile-style ache of Send Me Home, Lanterns On The Lake give us a glimpse of what might make them truly special. [Dec 2015, p.109]

Avonmore doesn't quite match 2010's fine comeback solo album, Olympia. [Jan 2015, p.125]

Holly Ross and David Blackwell's heaviest record in years. [Apr 2018, p.111]

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]

She makes the most with what she's got, along with a decent strike rate for pulling radio-friendly hooks out of the hat. [Sep 2010, p.122]

They run short on tunes during the album's second half, but by powering through 10 songs in 33 minutes they at least opt to burn-out rather than fade away. [Oct 2013, p.110]

While accepting that his odd but beguiling hybrid of rap, country, folk, and Butthole Surfers/Tom Waits-weirdness will never eclipse 1998's platinum "Whitey Ford Sings The Blues" he's injected impetus into what threatened to become a stale formula. [Oct 2008, p.142]

The jarring throb of HIQS aside, it's an album of subtle charm that rewards repeated listening. [Mar 2013, p.95]

Music of the mid-00s is undergoing a revival. London-based Sports Team are the fresh case. [Jun 2020, p.107]

Clocking in at a shade over tow hours, there's room for fans of all vintages to find something of value. [Apr 2013, p.94]

Graffiti On The Train is a powerful attempt to drop their meat-and-potatoes image. It doesn't always work, but it's to be applauded. [Apr 2013, p.110]

Post-industrial punk with little to smile about. [Aug 2004, p.110]

A tasteful and delicate record--but one that not quite as much fun as it first seems. [Aug 2018, p.116]

These are genuinely moving, but a change in pace wouldn't have gone amiss. [Oct 2012, p.98]

An LP that, on balance, really is just for Christmas. [Jan 2018, p.113]

Mostly Strapped is unified by a fuggy atmosphere, likeably odd guitar details and some immediate choruses. [Nov 2012, p.105]

It could have been full steam ahead here, but Pure Mood instead chugs forward gently. [Jan 2016, p.112]

Whether Faust is actually music has been debated since their 1971 debut, but whichever side you take, it's brilliant to have Peron and Diermaier still asking the question. [Jan 2015, p.125]

It's business as usual rather than a breakthrough. [Nov 2007, p.138]

Without scaling any great heights, it's a sweetly engaging mix of lo-fi indie-rock and '60s girl group innocence. [Sep 2010, p.122]

A hit-and-miss affair that sporadically hints at what the man is capable of. [Oct 2013, p.111]