In Search Of works best when swept up in a wave of wistful optimism. [May 2019, p.111]

Love, Death & Dancing finds Garratt charged with a new, bright energy. [Summer 2020, p.100]

Invite The Light reaffirms that Dam-Funk needn't coast on others' charisma when his music has more than enough of its own. [Oct 2015, p.104]

Now it would seem that the 40-year-old is keen to get back to that place, smashing through extremo rockers such as You Get To Rome and enjoying himself so much that he often audibly breaks into laughter. Sometimes, though, it tips over in to jammy self-indulgence. [Summer 2018, p.110]

The focus on Darnielle's wonderfully evocative phrasing makes his songs sound like enigmatic fragments of short stories. [May 2011, p.120]

With its bright shiny sonics buffed by Blur/Smiths producer Stephen Street, it ranks up there with the best of the early Pretenders albums. [Aug 2020, p.111]

All the evidence anyone needs that the 50-something Weller is in the midst of a supersonic prime. [Mar 2012, p. 98]

There's an unmistakable, tightly drilled quality to all his [Tony Esposito's] work. [Sep 2015, p.117]

As her voice took centre stage on the original recordings too, the effect of stripping away almost everything else isn't that radical. Still, for anyone unfamiliar with Foster's work, this represents an excellent starting point. [Mar 2016, p.110]

What makes debut Silver Dollar Moment such a satisfying listen isn't just the gusto with which they make it their own, it's how the record bubbles with ideas. [Mar 2018, p.113]

What Humanz lacks in memorable hooks, it makes up for in fist-clenching spirit--and We Got The Power sums that up best. [Jun 2017, p.113]

In its own fragile way, a delight. [Mar 2003, p.111]

Often sad yet always warmly sympathetic, it's a well-weighted, smartly observed collection of attractive pop. [Jun 2010, p.132]

The sheer volume of ideas bustles everything along. [Mar 2012, p.113]

Though frontman Tom Dougall's subdued vocals prove a little one-note over an album, the ground's certainly safer than it was three-fifth of Toy's old band. [Oct 2012, p.112]

Hardcore sounds defiantly re-energised, like a band starting over. [Mar 2011, p.112]

A profoundly, if unexpectedly, moving record. [Dec 2014, p.109]

Altogether, as lovely as its title suggests. [May 2016, p.104]

While Space Gun has its moments of off-kilter brilliance, they are cancelled out by more earthbound, laboured-sounding fare. [May 2018, p.108]

[The soundtrack is paring] the sound down for wistful and occasionally beautiful miniatures. [May 2013, p.106]

A strange dream state, then, with not a smiley or glow-stick to be seen. [Jul 2014, p.100]

Pitched somewhere between the Blues Explosion and Grinderman, it's an awesome racket, but the lack of time spent means the potential of 'Next Time' and the fevered 'New Meaning' have been lost in the rush to record. [July 2008, p.108]

For their sixth album, the quintet have finally made theor cranky Americana into fully fledged classic rock. [May 2010, p.118]

An IMAX band in an iPad age, it's there that they'll prosper. [Oct 2012, p.111]

An endlessly repeatable mood music masterpiece. [Mar 2014, p.119]

Unlikely to win any new converts then, Pylon still remains a triumph of wilful perversity. [Jan 2016, p.113]

A fiercely well-assembled soundtrack that blends '80s pop and club classics with more recent R&B innovations. [Apr 2017, p.116]

To make warm, immediate pop music that sounds so out of the ordinary is a rare feat. [May 2017, p.106]