Intriguingly mixed bag. [Oct 2018, p.116]

It's a mode that can feel pedestrian in the wrong hands, but Muncie Girls capture the sound's uncomplicated euphoria in style. [Oct 2018, p.115]

Compliments Please may be spirited, but it isn't the most cutting-edge take on poptimism. [Apr 2019, p.116]

An oddly affecting collage. [Dec 2006, p.132]

It's the vocals of Jana Hunter, an apprentice of freak folk luminary Devendra Banhart, that provides Nootropics' bewitching focal point, the group's gothic meld of gliding guitars and spectral synth noises resembling the Cocteau Twins on a comedown. [Jun 2012, p.107]

A winning combination. [Jun 2005, p.120]

Intricate and precise, Be Small doesn't demand attention--but slowly and very smartly, it secures it just the same. [Dec 2015, p.108]

He may not have stepped totally outside his discomfort zone, but Blake here reveals himself as an artist at the peak of his powers. [Mar 2019, p.113]

As the final stitch in their sprawling psychedelic tapestry ... Universe is a perfectly haphazard send-off. [Jun 2012, p.111]

It's less of an album. more of a grand seduction: sultry, beguiling and entirely irresistible. [Apr 2015, p.98]

Even when it perilously strays into minefields of muso, Side Effects is never forbidding math rock, thanks to its playful and sterling grooves. [May 2019, p.116]

An album that's consistently mind-melting and often brilliant. [Feb 2012, p. 106]

Their fifth album is another step up the ladder. [Apr 2008, p.117]

A perfect late-summer soundtrack on a par with their 2009 masterpiece Fits. [Sep 2018, p.114]

The key track is We Can't Have Nice Things, envisaged by its writer as a George Jones lost love ballad, an turned into a gripping country soul psychodrama. [Aug 2012, p.96]

Frequently the music here sounds unhinged and stretched out to the limits of endurance, but it's exactly this lack of sanitisation that makes this such a thrilling listen. [Jan 2015, p.129]

He still keeps the listener at arms-length, though, strung-out drones and an odd lack of projections suggesting this remains a work of intense introspection. [Jul 2014, p.118]

Freighted by unflinching lyrics, Manic is a magnificent - and magnificently raw - pop confessional. [Apr 2020, p.110]

Vernon is an expert curator of his emotions, even if i,i needs to let a little more air in under the glass at times. [Oct 2019, p.110]

Smith's greatest talent lies in his surreal, witty wordplay and avuncular tone, and the way they combine to make what could be the usual rap anger sound both intimate and strangely uplifting. [Feb 2005, p.95]

They pack in an astounding brutality reminiscent of Napalm Death's grueling grindcore. [May 2013, p.99]

There's a little too much in the way of filler, but this is a promising start. [Feb. 2011, p. 113]

Trux obsessives will be drawn to Eve's Child--a nod to her old production alter-ego--but it's the sense of Herrema shaking off her troubled past which impresses. [Aug 2014, p.103]

All in all, as resonant and dignified a covers album as you'll ever hear.

While their previous albums have always had great songs, with this latest set they've managed to place them in the right order, creating a truly impressive journey...

Pawn Shoppe Heart is a party album, albeit soundtracking the sort of party where too much alcohol causes lifelong friends to come to blows. [Feb 2004, p.96]

Think Mogwai at their loudest or a less willfully awkward Godspeed You! Black Emperor. [Apr 2007, p.118]

Their fifth album together since 2002 maintains an astonishing standard comparable even to that of original legends like Aretha Franklin and Otis Redding. [Jan 2014, p.122]