On his incredibly busy album, Light, there are signs of diversification too. [Jul 2010, p.140]

The songs sizzle merrily, but the whole is less than the sum of its parts, and the relentlessness becomes wearing. [Oct 2008, p.139]

A pointed dig at modern Nashville's dull production line, Sleepless Nights is a collection of covers from a lost era of Patsy Cline and The Everly Brothers, Loveless's classic voice knocking pretenders into a cocked Stetson. [Jan 2009, p.120]

Things calm down in the second half; You Of All People and Join are an angelic two-step, providing a welcome respite to end the album on a hopeful note. [Jun 2018, p.116]

Touring with Coldplay have clearly done little to dim the scale of Meiburg's ambitions. [Mar 2012, p.112]

Their kooky appeal wanes over the course of an album, reminding you that sometimes cults stay that way for a reason. [July 2011, p. 106]

It loses its way in the last quarter, but not before you're convinced there's a unique talent at work. [Aug 2004, p.115]

It often feels as if Aitchison's nasal croon and counter-intuitive toplines are the least interesting bits of her own project. [Nov 2019, p.116]

When the formula gels, it can make for a potent cocktail, even if the arrestingly noirish production and twisted production often turn out to be more striking than the songs. [Aug 2014, p.112]

There are hints of Shoes' mentor Dilla in the woozier beats, and grittier curs such as Nails show where his reputation comes from. [Sep 2012, p.107]

This one is stranger than most. [Oct 2012, p.117]

With Permo, they display a self-starting urgency that keeps them up to speed with the turbulent here and now. [Jan 2018, p.114]

Sounding suitably big and blustery, it's also stuffed with lots of positive thinking and hopes for a better tomorrow. [May 2006, p.128]

Tidy enough indie pop, though the glowstick remains unwaved. [Feb 2007, p.99]

Beyond the just-add-tears euphoria it also shows a band capable of a rawness that their self-created, slightly precious, image masks. [Dec. 2011 p. 135]

Orb nostalgists will find much to savour. [Mar 2008, p.108]

A simple, joyful late-career bloom. [May 2013, p.106]

The resulting clash of classicial forms and electronics is a startling mix of chance and design. [Oct 2009, p.108]

One to be enjoyed in small doses. [Jun 2015, p.110]

Their fifth long-player finds them back at their corrosive best. [Apr 2011, p.102]

This instant familiarity is their strength but also the source of the mild disappointment that nags through the rest of the record, since it mostly amounts to variations on a theme, few of which scale those initial heights. [Apr 2010, p.116]

Teeters between over-studied perfection and heavenly pop glory. [May 2004, p.101]

Finds him in fine rhyming form... even if the beats aren't always there to back him up. [Mar 2005, p.104]

What makes it even more interesting is that the themes and execution are unashamedly grown-up throughout. [Oct 2014, p.116]

Impossibly energetic, joyously extreme and a little bit exhausting. [Jan 2018, p.114]

A move to [Spain] has imbued Rouse's songs with sunshine. [May 2006, p.130]

Not so much a wholesale reinvention as an impressive readjustment. [Feb 2018, p.112]

The Straight Hits! feels so unlike 2011's exquisitely miserable Last Of The Country Gentlemen. Pearson wrote the LP according to five songwriting "pillars" and the constraints, paradoxically, have freed him up. [Jun 2018, p.114]