Sounds something like a male-fronted Cardigans... [Aug 2001, p.141]

Stuff with hooks, freakishly frisky and using everything in the producer's cupboard... Up! contains 19 new tunes that play shamelessly to the gallery. [Feb 2003, p.109]

This fourth is no less essential for fans than the previous three. [May 2013, p.117]

When he desists from inserting solos in the middle of otherwise palatable songs, his work can be engaging, even moving. [Oct 2005, p.115]

There are times when it can feel a little festival theatre tent. Even so, the musical chemistry is clear, and at best, captivating. [Feb 2017, p.112]

Its highlights pick up where the EP left off, the likes of Bad Friend and 4AM fizzing with energy and seemingly perpetually on the brink of collapsing into thrilling chaos. They're less sure-footed when they try to broaden their palette, however. [Mar 2019, p.118]

Their former high-speed heedlessness has been supplanted with a new awareness of song structure, grown-up texture and non-red-zone pacing. [Mar 2013, p.94]

For album number three he's assembled a trio of multi-instrumentalists and vividly succeeded in realising some of his early "Spectorian" ambitions. [Oct 2008, p.149]

This is largely Arab Strap on familiar ground: filmic guitar atmospherics backing an extended bout of post-coital melancholy.

It's 10 tracks are produced by veteran Chicagoan No ID, who provides a consistently soulful feel for the rapper's reflection on family, fatherhood and fidelity. [Sep 2017, p.110]

It's all done with a cheeky girl's charm. [Jun 2014, p.115]

Thomas doesn't completely capture the fleet shimmer of the best pop, but his songs are too much fun not to be taken seriously. [Aug 2016, p.108]

The spindly riffs and skiffle-y arrangements are as tightly wound as ever, while Bid's mocking lyrics have seldom been so waspish. [Oct 2016, p.109]

Shiny, but oddly inert. [Oct 2015, p.111]

A vigorous, if patchy comeback. [Jan 2020, p.114]

Despite operating in the between-floors world of indie R&B, it connects both sonically and melodically and as such engages the listener rather than, as in the past, totally overwhelming them. [Feb 2018, p.116]

This is a record of stormy intensity, hauling its emotions up to the mountainside to expose them to the elements. [Mar 2018, p.115]

Almost every song is blasted with canyon-sized quantities of reverb. [Mar 2013, p.95]

The over-sauced, finger-wagging Naughty might take the joyful retribution to far in the panto direction but I Will Survive update Me Without You and joyful dancefloor rebirth Rare prove that Stefani has lost none of her pop spirit. [Jun 2016, p.117]

A constant sense of discovery makes Colored Emotions an easy record to keep returning to. [Apr 2013, p.107]

His third album keeps the momentum going, even if its utilitarian construction is probably better live. [Oct 2009, p.118]

Apart from the slow-burning, spine-tingling opener Electronic Performers, though, the duo seem reluctant to exploit their remarkable gift for melody, and tunes are too often mangled or left to fizzle out.

Though not without merit, the reliance on other people's melodies (and words on the Caroline Says-pilfering Distortions) can become trying after a while.

Occasionally... it cloys. [Mar 2007, p.110]

There are questions over his naive writing, which often relies on hokey wordplay, but the horn-filled arrangements, his driving Stax-fuelled band and that voice carry him through. Just. [Jun 2010, p.131]

And so, yet again, Prince remains an artist in sore need of an outside editor. Still, if your attention span as a Prince fan has been sorely tested, HITnRUN Phase Two is a good point to reconnect with him. [Mar 2016, p.113]

Amazingly Brain Thrust Mastery manages to be both calculating and emotional in the same breath. [Apr 2008, p.117]

Locked inside Womb is an excellent EP, but stretched out to 10 tracks it can feel predictable. [Jun 2020, p.105]