His first album in five years is a very musicianly affair, stronger on feel than memorable songs but still a fitting vehicle for one who turns 60 later this month and has nothing left to prove. [June 2008, p.148]

Hedley makes no apology for his love of country's golden age, ad where naysayers might cry "pastiche," plenty more will be happy kicking up their heels on the hayride. [May 2018, p.91]

Here they lean too heavily on space-age boogie-rock. [Jul 2019, p.110]

On this debut LP they layer Britpop cheer with glam, funk, electro and Beach Boys harmonies, in a manner that's both tuneful and arch. [Jun 2009, p.123]

While Heartbreak Warfare and War Of My Life chug pleasantly along in their Police-lite way, and Taylor Swift makes the briefest of cameos on the bittersweet half Of My Heart, true inspiration, as ever, remains a conspicuous absentee. [Jan 2010, p. 120]

Settle Me Down is an elegantly executed ballad and Dark Waltz evokes Creedence Clearwater Revival at their finest, but the unspectacular Another Night gets bogged down in sub-Springsteen-isms. [May 2014, p.115]

Wiggy, long-sought after 1976 LP utilises the trills, parps and hums of the pre-digital modular synthesizer to walk the circuit board between easy listening and ambient weirdness. [Aug 2019, p.119]

The two-part "Metal Bird" is genuinely thrilling. They don't scale such heights elesewhere, but this is still an album that rewards perseverance. [Mar 2010, p.108]

She's A Witch's tumbling harmonies, the tessellating grooves of Dark Star and Bushe's surrealist lyrical skew help cast a dazed spell. [Jul 2015, p.106]

Having been dumped by their label, and in turn voluntarily dumped this scheduled third record's first draft, Simon Franks and Tom Disdale have taken their time, entice Madness's Suggs and Mike Barson into cameos and emergwed altogether stronger. [May 2010, p.112]

The Ataris transcend the four-square melodic thud of their contemporaries with a gentle melancholy and poetic ambition. [May 2003, p.98]

Alternately dreamlike and arresting, they've discovered a formula that realises the sonic sorcery always suggested by their name. [Jul 2014, p.119]

The tracks are all short, sketching atmospheric outlines before vanishing. [Aug 2018, p.116]

If his production has lost a little funkiness it's gained buckets of emotive power. [Aug 2013, p.100]

Snow Bound continues to showcase a jangled set of nerves and guitars. [Nov 2018, p.105]

Its best moments--Around The Bend, Traveller--are all about Wainwright, her elasticated voice and deft melodies. [Jan 2017, p.115]

Much of it is an inventive, hio-hop-inflected delight. [Jul 2006, p.112]

Big Troubles' flair for offsetting a gritty riff with a mesh of melodies is showcased throughout. [Nov. 2011, p.127]

The pattern continues, as vocal tracks alternate with instrumentals, building toward the 33-minute title track, an opus that contrives to be both ambitious and aimless. [Oct. 2010, p. 121]

This good-humoured set is sometimes a little too comfortable, but it's hard to gripe when they play Hoagy Carmichael songs 'Stardust' and 'Georgia On My Mind.' [Aug 2008, p.140]

They try full blown techno, then revert to indie dance type, suggesting they are still too esoteric to cross over, but, even so, this record widen their appeal. [Feb 2012, p.111]

There's a mesmeric quality to the layering of divergent sonic textures. [Mar 2009, p.98]

In other words, the man's a ham, but a terrific one. [Aug 2009, p.109]

Occasionally it drifts a little too aimlessly, as if recorded under the dulling influence of Prozac, but when she gets it right, she can be entirely, weirdly riveting. [Jun 2009, p.131]

Here Mascis's guitar playing remains as distorted--and dextrous--as ever, but here his songcraft burns as brightly as his fretwork. [Jul 2009, p.121]

Veteran art-punks reinvent themselves 35 years on. [Feb. 2011, p. 125]

It is lighter sonically than the Hendrix classics and laced with a handful of instruments that, despite spotlighting the guitarist's jaw-dropping fluidity, might be of limited appeal. [Apr 2010, p.127]

A record of elegantly woozy street-level songwriting that highlights the links between Dire Straits and Television. [Jul 2015, p.104]