“Myopia For The Future” and “No Body” present similar augmentations that make the voice and its simulations indistinguishable from one another in their respective waves of swagger and cheery melody. Meanwhile, warped tones and looping bass melodies lift into the clatter of keys that almost – but not quite – resemble a rhythm in “Swordmanship”. [May 2019, p.59]

The somewhat dated style and sound of Nextdoorland gives it a charm wholly unaffiliated with any current scene or trend. [#225, p.77]

Better, Perhaps, to hear How To Dress Well as the latest in a lineage of lo-fi bedroom songwriting dating back to Sebadoh and Smog in the early 1990s, via Alexis Taylor, Antony Hegarty, Jamie Lidell even, and perhaps as far back as Green Gartside, and his would be soul diva falsetto. [Mar 2011, p.50]

Such excursions don’t amount to the group reinventing their personal wheel, but at just over an hour, this album is about the length of an average Necks performance, and at least as exploratory. [May 2020, p.58]

Deprived of fuzzy riffs, Domenic Palermo’s voice floats naked in a woolly, gentle sound, simultaneously confessing and recollecting. But from there on, they shift into higher gear, injecting doses of anxiety into colourful progressive dream pop and shoegaze bites. [Dec 2020, p.62]

Who Do You Love? may be a tacit admission by Norway’s Årabrot that they can push that sound no further. There’s an unlikely, boisterously garage rock vibe to much of this record, albeit larded with gothic drama by Kjetil Nernes’s vocal approach. [Nov 2018, p.65]

Hebden is a voracious consumer and producer of ideas, although there is sometimes the feeling, amid all this glut and gusto, that they're ideas for idea's sake. [#256, p.54]

Rendering his [Neşet Ertas'] sparse, haunting, saz-led arrangements in Altin Gün's electrified image does require a fair bit of upholstery, but they play with delicacy and poise, transforming "Bir Nazar Eyledim" into a remarkable kosmische pop ballad. [Mar 2026, p.60]

For those who appreciated the rigour of old, the new album might offer a challenge due to its lyrical sentiments and a base literalism that might be ironic. [May 2020, p.60]

EX is flawed yet enjoyable. [Aug 2014, p.56]

Production wise, [Have] You In Wilderness is a touch too diaphanous and gauzy, a few tracks in, you start craving something solid to hold on to amid the clouds of billowing strings.... It's a testament to Holter's songwriting ability that this doesn't fatally mar the album, but it would be appreciated if her future work demonstrated a greater sense of its own physicality. [Oct 2015, p.54]

The initial impression given by Death Valley Girls’ third album is of a hypertypical Los Angeles band: kinda punky, kinda raucous, but wholly beholden to the rock canon, in the style of past-decade LA outfits like The Icarus Line and The Warlocks. Multiple spins of Darkness Rains don’t refute this, but do reveal an undeniable spirit and likeable energy. [Nov 2018, p.65]

The transitions are typically brusque, though a few feel unsatisfying, creating drops in tension. [May 2015, p.58]

Abomination mostly tweaks the speedy punkoid templates minted by early Wire and Black Flag. It's a challenge to find novelty within this terrain, and one wishes Dwyer had tempered the yobbish bellowing. But "Sneaker" succeeds thanks to Hellman's exhilaratingly woozy bassline and Dwyer's florid synth solo, and after launching in a "Mr Suit"-like blur "Fight Simulator" shifts into a Can-like mantra with sped-up "Vitamin C" beats, guitar scree and warped synth. [Oct 2025, p.59]

The songwriting is strong.

Very rewarding, although Blueberry Boat is perhaps too heavy a tome, lyrically, to be quite the right starting place for those new to the group. [#249, p.55]

Exactly how delicately balanced their chemistry together is becomes apparent on the two solo albums that round out this three disc set. Both are decent in their own right but pale in comparison to the group disc. [Jul 2018, p.62]

The skill and charisma of Mosaic sometimes goes too far.

Though he's lacking some in terms of identity and he'll probably never be a technical monster, he benefits from the same instinctive ability to ride a beat's pocket that rapping producer predecessors like Large Professor and, yes, Dilla himself possessed. [Nov. 2010, p. 66]

Downhome and earthy, cut through with sensitivity and intelligence. [#229, p.58]

Filled with ghosts; confessions; jokes; an abundance of Jay-Z features and a prodigal son offering explanations for his disappearance and return. [May 2020, p.65]

Lindstrøm is better able to keep everything the right side of good taste, for better or worse. This continuous set of eight tracks gets into its spooky stride towards the end. ... A darker second hour might have been even better. [Nov 2017, p.59]

It's a bit California slacker, a bit New York dive, a bit Delta blues, and so firs in well enough alongside Woodist alumni like Kurt Vile, Real Estate and Woods. [Jan 2016, p.71]

While the high energy interplay between the players remains solid, their proto-punk edginess is less pronounced. [Apr 2015, p.54]

A return to form, of sorts. Shifting from the dappled sunshine warmth of the psychedelically swamped “Away From You” to the black stoner sludge orgy that is “Shadow Of Skull”, the direction guiding LφVE & EVφL twists and turns like a bucketful of electric eels. [Dec 2019, p.43]

Black Sun has a broader palette, even if it's not really any lighter. [Apr 2011, p.53]

Sumac's rock thunder becomes more involved as they sink deeper into their own personal spaces, uncorking emotions and letting loose inner demons, while still fully functioning as part of a group experience. [Aug 2016, p.58]

“The Seal” is busy in a different mode – it sounds like it would fit in with the jazzy shugs of Cobra And Phases era Stereolab, until Barrow’s wobbly vocal comes in, like the perpetually lachrymose Peter Jefferies given a bit of a speedy kick. [Sep 2024, p.58]

Its best tracks suggest a similarly abrasive, exploratory and jammed on the fly approach to House music [as Jamal Moss].

Most tracks feature piano and vocals in a mix of essentialised South African stylings. A highlight is the simple, lilting hymn “Nomayoyo”, with Ntuli’s gentle, breathy vocals. “Lihlanzekile” is a quietly rolling piece of melancholia. [Dec 2023, p.58]

In the past this rage was intrinsic, wounds covered with cheery sugar, but now there is emotional distance at the core of Heavy Light, filled with others’ voices. Whether or not a deliberate choice, through this transformation the album loses some of its potency and ability to affect. [Jun 2020, p.59]

Foreign Body evokes alienation from a bottomless chasm of introspection. [Mar 2012, p.57]

The Wire agenda stays constant in a changing world. [Apr 2015, p.63]

Released on their freshly launched record label Keck, Giant Swan is a front-loaded beast. ... The second half of the record loses momentum, danceable rhythms outweighed by slow motion drones and jagged noise

White noise is the most versatile tool in Brighton producer Alan Myson’s kit: he deploys it as a gloss on everything, to either mind-quieting effect on tracks like “Angel In Ruin” and “Oblivion Theme”, or as an anxiety accelerant as on the fuzzed out battle-pitch “Bladed Terrain” where static hisses behind stomping, crunching thwacks and arpeggios. [Jun 2020, p.60]

When he’s not waxing heroic, Chasny gets in touch with his most spaceward impulses. [Jul 2021, p.64]

On Centres, the songs have a lyrical content that makes their meaning more discernible. [Aug 2016, p.48]

The lyrics are delivered just above speaking pace to empathise with the listener, with similes and wordplay that vivify and even try to explain the vagaries of love. [Nov 2016, p.58]

Lee Gamble’s In A Paraventral Scale makes another step towards a scene that for some has been and gone. [Mar 2019, p.51]

Black Bubblegum is Copeland's most surprising release for a long time; it's also perhaps the most obviously approachable record he has ever been involved with. [Aug 2016, p.48]

Sounding at times as though someone had isolated the synth track from a classic Hawkwind record, the music here is familiar and invites associations. ... Regardless, On A Clear Day is a pleasant affair.

Totalling a scant half hour, the album’s fleeting length leaves me wondering whether some tracks exhaust all potential within their mayfly-like timespans. But it captures a moment, and judging by the collaborative rapport between Levi and Coates it suggests, hopefully it’ll be the first of many. [Nov 2016, p.59]

Smalhans is something of a palate cleanser, but a satisfying one nonetheless. [Nov 2012, p.62]

His music has an airless, contrived and over-polished quality. However, the production style developed by his team of collaborators is glacially impressive, if gloomy. [Apr 2015, p.66]

They sound for good or ill like they’ve beamed in from psychedelic hard rock’s boom period too. ... Face Stabber is 80 minutes long, with two songs accounting for 35 of those minutes, and betrays mild hubris as regards their ability to jam interestingly. [Sep 2019, p.60]

Those nostalgic for the Aphex sounds of old may find them here, but served up rotten and misshapen, as an agreeably queasy warning that nostalgia can only get you so far. [Aug 2016, p.46]

7G doesn’t feel so much like an album as an extensive portfolio of a very exciting producer. [Oct 2020, p.52]

Nelson used to use his voice to give focus to soundscapes; now they are means to express some uneasy feelings about country and relationships in the 21st century. [Dec 2019, p.52]

There are moments when the structure of this album fails to centre itself, and it is easy to get lost in the finer details of the arrangements. ... It is clear from Love Streams, with its increased manipulation of vocals and wider palette, that he is becoming braver. [Apr 2016, p.51]

It's a surprisingly luxuriant record. [Mar 2012, p.58]

The mood of the album is always upbeat, ending with the forward looking “Vorfreude 2”--the German word meaning an anticipation for future pleasures--and doesn’t venture into any of the weirder, harder, filthier, squelchier corners of electronic music.[Nov 2017, p.66]

Small images ground these drifting, elusive, probing songs, providing moments of recognition and stillness, before they push off again into the mist. [Aug 2025, p.54]

What stands out across Rather Ripped are the remarkable melodic turns throughout. [#268, p.63]

They play out as fascinating (and funny) monologues in themselves. [Nov 2012, p.62]

Volume 3, produced by Ben Frost, shades closer to songwriting in places, as Bon Iver's Justin Vernon and other guest on harmony vocals. [Apr 2013, p.57]

The bouncy yet deadpan Italo energy of first single “The Girls Are Chewing Gum” sets the tone, with cosmic blasts and ray gun bleeps lending variation to the subsequent tracks. [Jun 2019, p.49]

Yes, it's disappointing that Stewart fails to stretch the musical imagination at the same tome, but to roll you eyes at the lack if sophistication or concussive originality is to shun the bigger picture. [Mar 2012, p.60]

The group demonstrates admirable judgement, gesturing at entropy while craftily dodging its embrace. [Mar 2011, p.58]

To expand simple love songs into extravagantly gilded showstoppers is to risk lapsing into bombast. But for all their love of musical saws and [Jonathan] Donahue's quavering voice, Mercury Rev are unashamedly grandiose, and their references may be too in thrall to the rock hegemony for some. [#210, p.60]

The First Family isn't for Sly & The Family Stone beginners, but it gives aficionados a fascinating glimpse of their origin story. [Oct 2025, p.72]

It has that out-of-time, sketchbook privacy of so much current home-recorded memoradelia, but it also has a grit or grain to it--cheap Xerox rather than woozy VHS wobble--which is strangely refreshing. [May 2011, p.53]

There is aimlessness on occasion--the mainly instrumental "OVNI" frankly just sounds like messing around--but for the most part the sense of glee in vigorous sound making for cranky and rebellious ends is infectious. [Aug 2010, p.86]

The expanded bag of references and methods that he draws from on The Rarity Of Experience indicates that Forsyth and company aren't settling for what they know they can do, but using it as a starting point to figure out where to go next. [Feb 2016, p.50]

Disappears present an album that sounds pretty confident in its pursuit of forward motion yet distractingly familiar. [Mar 2012, p.65]

The trio play it both tight and upright, locking themselves into repetitive patterns so compulsive they approach the kinetic force of rave. [Mar 2011, p.58]

The neo-soul influenced beats Jenkins raps and sings over often sounding submerged in a fog of reverb effects and filtration. Jenkins lyrics, too, are dense, containing their own murky depths, but his intense intelligence and formidable talent is never less than crystal clear. [Oct 2015, p.63]

Excitement, sure, but little surprise. [Oct 2015, p.67]

I miss the grit and grain of Skelton’s unique string sounds, but he still gets a brightness in his melancholy, often via a bristling major chord. [Oct 2020, p.61 ]

Honor Found In Decay is a solid Neurosis album, but it doesn't find them doing anything new. [Nov 2012, p.63]

The overall effect may be part shamanic dance to the thrum of the universe part 1980s arcade game, but All The Way exploits the transcendent powers of both. [Sep 2008, p.50]

With more emphasis on achieving that elusive breakout moment than its predecessor and infinitely less grit, here Sway shows little of the infectious individuality he used to bring to less commercial work. [Oct 2008, p.72]

The result is a tougher but spacier sound. The original vocals are mixed in more prominently, and interplay with the deejay interjections relates to the lyrical content. [Nov 2022, p.71]

Those who lost interest after Tha Carter III may want to start paying attention again. [Sep 2015, p.57]

Some moments on the Pet Shop Boys' 11th album are as unsettling as any music released this decade. [Nov 2012, p.64]

The One is both sonically and conceptually strong enough to transcend that small internet buzz circle. [Mar 2011, p.62]

Even without Gobert's cinematographic backdrop Simon Werner A Disparu stands as a solid instrumental album in its own right. [Apr 2011, p.63]

If nothing else, these [political] elements give Liberation a darker hue. [#240, p.67]

It's fun but nonessential. [Nov 2012, p.64]

Even when he's calling all the shots and playing most of the instruments himself, Turner seems to stay in the background. For the most part, his strategy works. [Nov 2013, p.62]

The album works best when the trio downshift to embrace Kaur's vocals and rhythmical sitar twangs. [Mar 2011, p.61]

In Love With Oblivion is best when it's tough, primitive and direct. [Apr 2011, p.67]

Immaculately interwoven electronics and the care with which each beautifully recorded track unfolds recall Chicago post-rock. [#254, p.53]

A loop can be a grounded, limiting element to work with – the delightfully wobbly “Slappin’ Yo Face” has nowhere to go, quickly running out of steam. Elsewhere this very quality opens up beautiful meditative potential. [Sep 2020, p.60]

Although there are still psych-rock moments that recall the strident moves of Quicksilver Messenger Service or Spirit, it's a darker and more straightforward album than 2012's Between The Times And The Tides. [Nov 2013, p.63]

A pleasurable collection of comfortably played, understated, slightly skewed songs with smart lyrics. [#214, p.52]

As on their first album, he [Jim Jarmusch] blows gusts of electric noise through the open spaces in van Wissem's patiently articulated structures. [Nov 2012, p.67]

MIKE is a charismatic voice who excels at the art of humblebragging: “They tellin’ me I’m big, I’m shorter inside/But the remainder what I give when I’m recording these lines”, he raps on “Lost Scribe”. But one wishes he’d offer a few actual choruses instead of modest refrains. [Mar 2025, p.63]

These eight tracks feel like a consolidation of his practices, interspersing sombre classical suites with footwork-indebted rhythms that flicker like distant pulsars. [Jan 2016, p.69]

The sounds can seem a bit insubstantial when compared to his earlier work, like 2018’s Soil, where serpent angled to suffocate the listener in raw emotion. But he eventually finds a nice groove that yields rewards. [Mar 2024, p.59]

It all adds up to a queasy--but pleasurable--kind of time-travel sickness. [Mar 2012, p.67]

Earthgang have one foot in the now, the other turned toward the horizon and an uncertain future. [Dec 2019, p.60]

[Co-producer Rick Rubin] is a reductionist, an essentialist, which suits ZZ Top just fine. [Nov 2012, p.67]

There are moments of serene beauty, like "Oubliette" and the seductive gondola romance of "Fragmentation," but the album's action scenes feel glossy and detached, picturesque rather than visceral. [Mar 2016, p.42]

If there's one negative to this compilation m it's that Ghetto house is best heard in a fast and furious mix where the one trick pony tracks don't wear out their welcome and the salty language loses all meaning and becomes nothing by pure sound at high speed. Here, however, the focus is on individual tracks with no mixing. [Jan 2014, p.75]

Shaolin is a pleasingly unpredictable record. [May 2011, p.64]

This mixtape sounds more coherent than its 2012 predecessor, the shroomed-out Tumblr rap artefact King Of The Mischievous South Volume One Underground Tape 1996 . The features are bigger. [Sep 2024, p.60]

The update here is that the music is from Glasgow, a city apart from the more cosmopolitan hubs of the global dance network, and one that’s increasingly recognised for its ‘scenius’. It’s perhaps these dislocated elements that make Golden Teacher a solid though ultimately unspectacular British curiosity. [Dec 2017, p.52]

Pastel and Thomson don’t attempt to (re)create the actual music made by Memorial Device; instead they piece together a suggestive collage of sounds evocative of the post-punk era and representative of wistful remembrance. The Pastels’ dreamy tendencies are well suited to this brief. [Sep 2024, p.54]