If Hard Bargain doesn't quite hit a career high, it runs close on tearful eulogies to Gram Parsons and Kate McGarrigle, and the stunning My Name Is Emmett Till, a Cash/Dylan-esque civil rights songs. [Jun 2011, p.116]

They sometimes teeter on the edge of bovver-booted self-parody, but this still counts as a welcome evolution. [Sep 2018, p.117]

It's very difficult to see the tough-talking Devils Night as anything other than a slightly tweaked re-run of The Marshall Mathers LP. [#180, p.100]

Big Talk are less grandoise and more low-key than his dayjob, thought, and these 12 tracks do sag in the middle when this eponymous debut takes a detour into pub rock with No Whiskey and Girl At Sunrise. [Sept. 2011, p. 103]

Far out just got further away. [Sep 2013, p.102]

They're at their best when they keep it succinct, as on I'm Still Believing and Another Dimension. Their longer songs are less successful. [Dec 2016, p.115]

Williams should inject more urgency to his sound. [June 2008, p.148]

It's when Hozier tries to do throwaway, good-time tracks that the record falters slightly. [Apr 2019, p.119]

Compliments Please may be spirited, but it isn't the most cutting-edge take on poptimism. [Apr 2019, p.116]

While it doesn't measure up to such great break-up albums as Beck's Sea Change or Blur's 13, Social Cues still possesses emotional heft. [June 2019, p.108]

Ferry has covered so much ground that it's hard not to repeat himself. [Apr 2002, p.112]

This band aren't about confrontation, and to those attuned, this is exactly their strength. [Jun 2013, p.109]

It sometimes sounds like it was prodded out on a tablet. At other times, the production and the plus-sized pop tunes are perfectly matched. It's an ongoing struggle between DIY and deluxe, with the latter just about winning. [Aug 2017, p.109]

The Grocery [is] riveting. If Manchester Orchestra are guilty of being a tad too serene elsewhere, it must also be noted that sounding beautiful is a good problem to have. [Sep 2017, p.113]

Omori hits the sweet spots--butterfly-inducing money notes, wistful minor-key switch-ups--but rarely excites more than cordial admiration. [Sep 2018, p.117]

She has good songs, but no great songs. [Aug 2003, p.105]

It's got some fine, graceful tunes. [May 2006, p.128]

Jukebox might not be the jewel in her crown, but it still catches the light and imagination. [Feb 2008, p.91]

It's an undeniably chin-stroking effort, songs revolving with quiet, Dire Straits-ian grace around a pedal-steel guitar, while a variety of vocalists take his musical atmospherics and run with them. [May 2008, p.135]

With ace guitarist Marc Ribot on board, it's rockier than her three previous outings--but in a good way. [Nov 2008, p.121]

The overall sense is that for all its unhinged eclecticism, Control is the product of a fiendishly inventive mind. If he can find focus, he'll be a real force. [Apr 2015, p.99]

If it sounds oh-so-ironic, it isn't; the Handsomes may exisit on country's oddball fringe, but they're no comedy act. [May 2009, p.112]

A collection of songs that are either from or reflect different eras of his work--all linked by his idiosyncratically engaging vocals and melodies. [Jun 2013, p.108]

Yet while the sound of these songs is often great, the bad news is that most of the songs themselves leave little lasting impression.

She's convinced an army of writers and producers... to furnish her with above-average R&B to pant suggestively over. [Sep 2006, p.108]

Slightly wan and wispy. [Feb 2016, p.119]

The results are anything but fluid, instead capturing the lawless, conflicting thrills of cultural anarchy. [Apr 2019, p.110]

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