It's a welcome return. [Jul 2012, p.104]

An enjoyable conflation of nose-rock influences, mostly tracking back to the post-hardcore scene of the late '80s. [Mar 2017, p.112]

Magic's problem is that the two Bruces don't sit together comfortably. [Nov 2007, p.132]

There's almost a manic feel to it. [Jul 2017, p.114]

The familiarity of the material is offset by the uniqueness of the approach. [Aug 2017, p.104]

Food is grown-up, womanly, but for all the hearth-and-home warmth, it doesn't forget the way to a listener's heart is through their ears. [May 2014, p.109]

Her sense of foreboding remains intact, as does her way with a spooked Portishead-esque rhythm and a keeningly intelligent lyric. [May 2011, p.119]

Derivative/ Certainly. Mesmerising? Definitely. [Jul 2012, p.104]

At times they resemble a pumped-up Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, but it's not all "you want some?" antagonism. [Mar 2019, p.120]

The opening first half of their fifth album is hard work, constructed songs high on atmosphere but lacking memorable tunes, easy to admire, difficult to love. Thankfully, they contary buggers save the best til last. [June 2008, p.138]

There's still the odd detour into eerie atmospherics, but essentially this is electronica for people who fine The Knife hard going, with recent Kylie collaboration, Whistle, providing a final dusting of pop sugar. [Oct 2013, p.106]

Filth's fondness for combining high-minded conceptualism with base British humour is actually their strong point. [Dec 2008, p.123]

Staying true to a 20-year career of uncompromising extremity, it will take commitment to breach this seventh album's walls of noise. [Dec 2009, p. 113]

He'll never repeat Play's monumental success, of course, but he's building a might back catalogue. [July 2011, p. 116]

The harsh tones and minimal melodies may not carry universal appeal, but then Kuperus and Miller have always preferred to dance in the shadows. [Jul 2013, p.99]

The album's slow, soporific pace can mean it sounds similar from song to song, but Okumu's voice pivots everything. [Jul 2012, p.104]

Even if the songwriting... doesn't always match the musicianship, there's something addictively funky going on here. [Feb 2007, p.102]

The occasional clunker's certainly not enough to take the shine off a solid, consistent album. [Jan 2013, p.110]

As always, Scott overdoes it--and frequently--but when Modern Blues is good, it's very good indeed. [Feb 2015, p.117]

His approach provides an intriguing adjunct to other boundary-pushing talents from further down the coast such as Vince Staples. [May 2017, p.111]

Uniquely weird, as usual. [May 2008, p.130]

Public Service Broadcasting stitched archive audio footage into evocative instrumentals. [Mar 2015, p.114]

It's clear Russell was a true renaissance man, as at home with thoughtful guitar pop as he was with New York disco. [Dec 2008, p.143]

Like his dad, he's more of a declaimer than a singer, but that's still plenty good enough to get his politicised sloganeering across. [Dec 2008, p.130]

Love Is Dead's songs, however, don't so much burrow into your brain as thwack you over the head, and the band's tendency to fashion refrains from little more than the song titles means some tracks are memorable simply by dint of merciless repetition. [Jul 2018, p.114]

Horehound's strengths are also its weaknesses--the rush with which it came together, the sense that it amounts to Jack White playing to type. But like Jack White, too, when it's good, it's very, very good. [Aug 2009, p.102]

Log 22... finds them in familiar ground, each song dipped in its trademark melancholy no matter how frenzied the guitars get. [Jul 2003, p.100]

This isn't quite their peak (not least since it seems to have been recorded in a shed next to a motorway), but when they hit their stride it's clear why they're so revered, most thrillingly on the anthem that is, 1,2,3, Partyy!, the stentorian Forget Yourself or the beguiling closer, Slow Faucet. [Jan 2010, p. 122]