Melodic without being vibrant or actually that pretty, these are songs that seem to sink into themselves. [Nov 2003, p.123]

Loewenstein's debut is pretty impressive. [Aug 2002, p.128]

The attention does wander over two CDs... but vigorous renditions of Bring It On and Get Myself Arrested are reminders that Gomez's psych-blues revivalism really was quite special. [Aug 2005, p.128]

Sounds like the work of a man touting for soundtracks. [May 2006, p.131]

What sounds antagonistic in premise actually proves to be a brilliant odyssey through the eclectic backwaters of Keely's imagination. [Feb 2016, p.112]

Nicholls has regained his muse in spectacular style. [May 2006, p.129]

By throwing everything at the wall and nailing up the stuff that didn't stick, he's done himself--and more importantly what he clearly views as his masterpiece--a grand disservice. [Jan 2009, p.110]

Sadly most of these forgettable songs tend to evaporate on impact. [Apr 2012, p.101]

It sounds lovely. And yet it is also crying out for Fraser's otherworldly quaver to give it a much-needed extra dimension. [Jul 2006, p.114]

Another smart and limber record. An astute choice of collaborators plays its part. [Oct 2010, p.116]

While it's not exactly beach music, his ear for uplifting harmonies as on So Lucky's lens-flared sonic rapture and Hand Over Hand's ecstatic evocation of bucolic landscapes, means the songs never fail to glow. [Aug 2012, p.95]

Stockholm contains 11 good-to-excellent songs, hooks and pleasure aplenty, but still, alas, short of a masterpiece. [Jul 2014, p.101]

It's all perfectly competent, but rather generic. [Jun 2006, p.119]

It's a vibrant affair. [Nov 2007, p.138]

Breezy, fitfully arch--if ultimately untaxing--indie rock is the order of service here, while the odd dappling of analogue synths does little to suggest it was recorded this side of the millennium. [Apr 2019, p.116]

For all its rosy glow of nostalgia, it's essentially just another Robbie Williams album--occasionally spectacular, more frequently merely solid. [Nov 2005, p.116]

For the most part, it works. [Nov 2012, p.108]

The submarine disco of Currents suggests people subject to forces they cannot control, while Lost Boys triggers a very '80s-style melancholia. [Oct 2016, p.110]

There are echoes of Bibio's pastoral folktronica woven throughout. [Sep 2017, p.110]

This slow-moving record is full of secrets yet reveals barely anything at all. [Summer 2018, p.116]

Some veteran rock stars write a memoir in order to make sense of their origins; Bono has chosen to sing one. From this autobiographical precision all the album's strengths flow. [Nov 2014, p.100]

Blunt, focused and inventive, it's as near to classic metal as Trivium have been. [Sep 2011, p.110]

This ends up as a thrilling victory of an album because at its heart it has the same great swirling mass of melancholic energy that drove their debut. [Nov 2012, p.88]

Mark appears disarmingly buoyant, his lyrics so humdrum that it's hard to take his pain entirely seriously. [Apr 2007, p.120]

Even utterly dedicated Albarn fans will be hard-pushed to force themselves to play it more than once. [Jun 2012, p.107]

With a running time of barely half-an-hour, it seems likely to remain a minor footnote to Drozd and Coyne's already extensive back catalogue. [Sep 2014, p.106]

This exquisitely downbeat album of droll heartbreak songs once again confirms that there is a certain knack to creating uplifting musical misery, and spectacularly-named frontman Eeef Barzelay has that knack in spades. [Jun 2009, p.119]

The world will still ignore them, but mustering such firepower this late in the game is noble. [Oct 2007, p.105]