Heaven Is Whenever proves The Hold Steady are capable of messing with the script without diminishing their core appeal. [Jun 2010, p.125]

Barrera's vocals lack the sneer to carry the heavier moments, and a couple of songs are little more than lame US rock-lite. [Oct 2003, p.106]

More of the same firework riffs and vexed vocals. [Sep 2016, p.102]

There's nothing groundbreaking here, but these songs will surely be lots of fun to play live. [Dec 2016, p.115]

At its worst, it's tired and turgid, but neither is it hopeless or without hope. [Dec 2016, p.109]

His masturbatory approach to the stroking of his muse is very nearly obscene. [Apr 2006, p.114]

Mixes his distinctive whinny toothlessly low. [May 2006, p.131]

Long thought missing in action, it's good to report that his first album in more than a decade finds him in surprisingly rude health. [Nov. 2011, p. 128]

Here his long-established yet lumpy backers The Blokes too often impede his thoughtful lyrics. [Apr 2008, p.102]

Their new album features more jangling indie-pop than before.... But when the similarly inclined Too Far Gone To Know and closer Fall Out Of Love suddenly stir as the Krauty riffing recommences, you're left pondering. [Jan 2014, p.125]

At times brilliant, as on the 10CC-gone-disco title track or Belgian pop cover Without Lies, which features California wild-child Sky Ferreia, there are also one too many homages to '80s Italian disco and Euro-trash soundtracks. [Oct 2010, p.103]

There is a whiff of leftovers to You Don't know Anything's six songs. [Feb 2014, p.120]

By the time Campbell opens penultimate boozer ballad Every Hour That Passes with "You can be the perfect bitch to my bastardness," you'll find it hard not to succumb. [Apr 2011, p.101]

There's a wobbly quality to La Havas's toplines that means they can get lost in the more densely instrumented tracks, yet the sparser finger-picked guitar numbers give her songwriting space to shine. [Aug 2020, p.108]

Despite its spacious and minimal approach, the album is -- in typical Anderson style -- a demanding piece of work. [Sep 2001, p.106]

With measured assistance from pianist Huw Warren and melodeon Maestro Andy Cutting, it seems almost rude to suggest it's probably too one-paced and cheerless to really warm to. [Mar 2011, p.115]

Hanson's second studio album is better than the first.

Hopefully they'll focus on [their country roots] next time. [Nov 2015, p.104]

Precisely assembled, melodic songs that shiver with emotion. [Sep 2006, p.107]

While the country-slanted Keeper doesn't stray far musically from what's gone before, the mood is more upbeat. [Nov. 2011, p. 128]

In a sign that they've struggled to progress since [their debut], almost every song on this fifth alum similarly ends with Willett combusting into a figure of angst. [Dec 2014, p.108]

There's nothing so prosaic as choruses, but there's warmth to spare. [Nov 2007, p.137]

While the track titles may be minimal, his music teems with beguiling sonic quirks. [Jan 2014, p.125]

It's bigger and brighter. [Mar 2015, p.119]

Danger Days doesn't sound like the future, but it does sound like the sate of My Chemical Romance's art. [Dec 2010, p.102]

The Brighton duo's fourth LP, recorded in Berlin, throws that baggage away in favour of a cavalier hedonism. [Apr 2014, p.105]

Thirty-one minutes in there's almost a tune, but mostly this happily meanders like a horse grazing a path to nowhere in particular. [Oct 2009, p. 115]

Zebra finds Georgopoulos in purely instrumental mode, boundary-blurring jazz, African, Balearic and kosmische influences with mixed results. [Summer 2018, p.106]