Not a bad record, just one that needs to get out more. [Feb 2019, p.116]

Even when the centre spins out, Lennox's naive melodies make his indulgence sound strangely inviting. [Mar 2019, p.116]

Even when the music threatens to sag into MOR dullness, as on Slow Burn Love, Almond's unmistakable voice - equal measures of defiance and fragility - lifts it up high.[Mar 2020, p.114]

If the songwriting isn't quite up to the standard of 1992's high-water mark It's A Shame About Ray, The Lemonheads marks a welcome return. [Oct 2006, p.122]

Only Break's lapse into unreconstructed arena-rock strikes a jarring note. [Jul 2016, p.107]

A 1991-2001 covers record is an odd move after just two solo albums, but he carries it off with unusual choices and twinkling instrumentation. [June 2008, p.137]

Gentle, droll and - bar the disappointingly immature Oh Shucks - mercifully free of knob gags, Minor Love is charming. [Feb 2010, p. 108]

Still Corners show that they're not just marking time and counting sheep. [Jul 2013, p.110]

Long Wave seems like great fun for Jeff Lynne, less so for the rest of us. [Dec 2012, p.111]

Kelis is blessed with a unique voice. [Nov 2006, p.143]

The songs themselves, delivered via polished neo-soul and roots-reggae arrangements, seldom push beyond the retro comfort zone. [Apr 2012, p.98]

As always with the finest of Eels albums, Everett's loss is the listener's gain. [May 2014, p.110]

What Sun Structures lacks is a bit of fire in its belly. [Mar 2014, p.109]

Hard to pin down, and all the better for it. [Jun 2012, p.111]

Thir second album is suitably heavy on post-adolescent angst but, for all frontman Andy Hull's best efforts, singularly lacking it's own voice. [Jun 2009, p.134]

Until the follow-up to 2006's excellent "The Crane Wife," this makes for an adequate stopgap. [May 2008, p.136]

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

It all makes for an engaging and frequently charming solo debut. [Nov 2010, 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]

The music is let down by clunky lyrics. [Feb 2011]

It's a heady, exuberant mix, although the mystifyingly reduced vocal contribution of Jamie's husband Derek in turn reduces their uniqueness. [Nov 2008, p.123]

To a drumless folk palette of voice, guitar, piano and cello, he deftly blends his own compositions with covers of The Psychedelic Furs, Roxy Music and The Doors into a sweetly morose song suite that examines the heartsick mature male, post-love affair, wondering what it's all about. [Oct 2014, p.110]

Weird and wonderful. [May 2006, p.129]

While no disaster, the enterprise does smack of Vonda Shepard's coffee shop warbling. [Jan 2003, p.121]

Stealing the riff from Sweet Jane wholesale as the basis of a song would seem to speak of a band who aren't exactly pushing the envelope or alive to the possibility of change. [Aug 2001, p.128]

Seal The Deal opens with a rollicking piano intro that's longer than the rest of the song, guitars are abandoned in favour of exhilarating keyboard riffs, and the background use of birdsong and bagpipes is commonplace in Quasi's world. And it's a better place for it.

Their now drab and dense psychedelia has been "updated" with the occasional drum machine but is still populated by willowy, damaged girls called Esmeralda and songs with "chrome" in the title.

Nellyville doesn't really have any side streets unexplored by the previous Country Grammar, but it's all so good-natured it's hard to object. [Sep 2002, p.111]