Bianchi drops his usual mix of samples and programming for traditional instruments, including banjo and glockenspiel to create a very modern, kind of folk music. [Dec 2008, p.133]

Surprisingly addictive. [Dec. 2011 p. 124]

For the most part, their 11th album is the sound of a band getting back to their best. [Apr 2016, p.100]

Their ability to transport the listener to an imaginary Deep South truckers' bar in 1973 is peerless, while the deft funk-rock of 'Set In Stone' and 'Play the Fool' pay tribute to the slick musicianship and seemless meld of rootsy American music styles that The Doobie Brothers and Little Feat unleashed in their prime. [Nov 2008, p.110]

There is still plenty to enjoy here, though, especially Little Surprise, which occupies a similar territory to Mystery Jets at their best. [Jun 2011, p.124]

Stands as an apt reminder that she is the finest soul talent of her generation. [Dec 2005, p.152]

An experiment in performance art that'll put you in touch with your inner Brian Sewell. [Jul 2012, p.105]

A wry and considered thing. [Oct 2004, p.128]

The band kick back and noodle with a refreshing nonchalance. [Aug 2005, p.137]

His music might be expertly crafted in a bland, jazzy kind of way, but ... it still ends up being mainly about him. [Nov. 2011, p. 149]

Selway is a songwriter still new to the task and yet already leaning in toward middle age, and the perspective he brings to writing adult rock music is both fresh and contemplatively knowing. [Nov 2014, p.117]

This isn't a bold project and they haven't been expanded nearly enough. [Feb 2016, p.118]

[Passover] can be frustratingly sparse in places. [Apr 2018, p.106]

There's an element of "always the same but always... the same" here--but when Pollard hits his cryptically emotive cruising altitude on Carapace or The Rally Boys the guitars accelerate around their pilot, his chose songwriting vehicle always flies. [Apr 2019, p.113]

The old fervour remains intact. In truth, their third LP holds few surprises. [Feb 2009, p.116]

Naysayers may write this off as a derivative mash up of early-'90s indie moves, but on Empire Kasabian have become bigger than the sum of their record collections. [Oct 2006, p.116]

It spares us her bluesy, commercially unfriendly side and as a result she's made her best record since, yes, "Relish."

Her most purely enjoyable album since 1978's Easter. [May 2007, p.120]

The Deserters produces a gently psychedelic kind of romantic chamber-pop. [Jan 2013, p.113]

Story Of The Year manage to stand out from the melodic post-hardcore morass due to the sheer stength of their anthems, That said, there's little new on this fourth album. [Apr 2010, p.106]

A Thousand Heys plays so much like the product of a band wigging out in a garage you can almost smell the Castrol GTX. [Jun 2011, p.119]

Their sixth album uses the same unbending template as ever, but does so with the best songwriting since 2005's Howl. [Apr 2013, p.95]

Not for everyone. [Jun 2005, p.120]

Erland Oye and Eirik Boe's voices cannon off each other appealingly enough on 'Boat Behind,' but the album drifts in the manner of nick Drake out-takes and by the time you've waded through 13 dawdling tracks, it's a struggle to recall any of them. [Nov 2009, p.109]

His ninth record is ramshackle and there's a lot of it, but it's always entertaining. [Feb 2013, p.101]

Even when it isn't actually good, this is quality froth. [Sep 2001, p.114]

The results, while respectfully chocolate box pretty, make Enya seem like a bomb-making radical. [Nov 2002, p.109]

A rare treat, with Jones' stripped-back, largely acoustic band brilliantly framing that voice... [Nov. 2000, p.109]