How Did I Find Myself Here? is the occasionally thrilling result. [Sep 2017, p.50]

If it undeniably looks into a past long before any of the members were born, the actual results provide more welcome context, using the music of the 1960s to create a sound which, in toto, didn’t actually exist during that decade. [Nov 2024, p.62]

The production throughout is a heavy slurry of deep bass and wavering, churchical keys, and songs that are not explicitly about his medical troubles are about the perennial problems of untrue friends and false lovers. [Mar 2016, p.42]

The feel... is more relaxed, more organic, more approachable. [#230, p.69]

Some handle the group's distorted guitars with a squeamishly light touch in the pursuit of sleek House and Techno. [Apr 2012, p.68]

A conventional song based offering, but essentially a continuation of the dialogue between Gunn/guitar and luscious underscoring this time more orchestral than electronic. The mood is generally soothing, but shot through with occasional suggestions of disquiet. [Nov 2025, p.53]

The new Infamous is good enough, another in the sting of solid but unremarkable rehashes of the original formula that both members have been trickling out for years now. [May 2014, p.74]

Wynn’s solo album Make It Right is a more comfortable listen than much made by The Dream Syndicate since their 2012 reformation. [Nov 2024, p.62]

Moore responds by occasionally holding on to his riffs, exploring their textures before returning to chop and grind mode. Such moments help break up the pair’s machine-like momentum, which in places makes tracks blur together; some actually sound like reprises of each other, somewhere between natural motifs and a well of ideas running dry. But the thrill of Moore and Hayward’s best right hooks and body blows justify the amount of punches thrown. [Dec 2017, p.55]

It's only unfortunate that such a master of making Rick Ross albums must live in a world where there are already five other Rick Ross albums. [May 2014, p.74]

Although they stop the gap between higher profile releases, they also stand capably on their own. [Jul 2012, p.54]

A worthy addition to Byrne's sprawling oeuvre, while never reaching the heights of his greatest work. [#242, p.57]

More so than her previous work, Carla dal Forno establishes a cold, dreary atmosphere as the ground for lyrics and delivery that strike a balance between doleful and cool. [Oct 2019, p.50]

If anything, however, Autechre have pulled back the throttle on their excursions into the unknown. [#254, p.53]

Their third post-reunion effort is less immediately engaging than its predecessor--perhaps due to a slightly uneven mix--but it remains true to the Dinosaur spirit while asserting a textual adventurousness that's often overlooked. [Nov 2012, p.70]

The beats are functional if not flashy. [Nov 2008.p.79]

There are many beautiful instants here, but their relentless abstraction also harbours a lingering sense of decorative indulgence. [Feb 2011, p.54]

Perhaps this recording isn't the best way to experience it, then, but, it whets the appetite for an UK performance scheduled for early 2015. [Jan 2015, p.75]

There's a sparse but fluid lyricism to Chasny's tumbling, post-Takoma guitar style. [Feb 2011, p.56]

The Munster release makes for occasionally uncomfortable listening. [Sep 2017, p.66]

There is a sense of overwhelming resignation perhaps best summed up by “Shame” with its line “and god remained silent”. On “Tape” they proclaim, “Earth keeps the most vile things displayed” , their fight redirected towards gluttonous voyeurs. The previous track “Camcorder” ends with “Let’s watch it again”. [oct 2024, p.48]

His work manages to square Cecil Taylor with Ralph Vaughan Williams. [Feb 2012, p.72]

Much of it is subtly melancholic, like a Broadway medley received in a dream. [#218, p.71]

It's cleaner sounding for a start--each track gleams like a freshly sharpened butcher's knife--and the sense of dynamics is rather more acute. [Nov 2012, p.70]

The whole thing seems to aim for slightness (of the disc’s 20 tracks, only seven are over two minutes long), but many of these sketches have the gorgeous, pastoral-futurist texture of Boards Of Canada or The Focus Group. [Oct 2017, p.53]

A certain stillness remains at the heart of Ital Tek. [Nov 2012, p.72]

There's something very likable about this album....The problem with Too Old To Die Young is that it's too familiar to sound truly fresh. [May 2008, p.65]

Le Tigre make a convincing case for synthpop as an instrument of liberation theology. [#248, p.58]

His long awaited first album polishes up the summer sounds for a new crowd and, even if it's not visionary, his electro-pop grooves still go somewhere. [Mar 2016, p.55]

Many of Mike’s verses lost me, but when it clicks, and you can follow a thought through a few mutating bars, the effect is astonishing. [Aug 2021, p.58]

It's tempting to consider The Ex as Holland's The Fall, but that wouldn't be quite right--de Boer's pronouncements lack the gnomic bite of Mark E Smith. But these free thinkers are still taking more risks than Salford's finest have considered in years. [Dec 2010, p.46]

This release is less spooky than its predecessors, and more earthy. ... Phantom Orchid” pulses with the austerity of the botany lab, but in places, Entangled Routes is possibly the first Ghost Box release that sounds almost…sexual? [Dec 2021, p.61]

While opening track "Echo In The Field" evokes Laraaji's Day Of Radiance, Moran's compositions here, while still intricately crafted, are more prickly than expansive. Second track "Prism Drift" is tetchy clockwork sprung with piano bass strikes of doom.[Nov 2025, p.63]

While the overt campiness on display in Laibach’s The Sound Of Music has been toned down here, the choice to pepper the set with familiar German showtunes (“Flieger, Grüß Mir Die Sonne” and “Das Lied Vom Einsamen Mädchen”) feels ominous when paired with the stomach-turning paintings by Gottfried Helnwein on the cover. [May 2022, p.48]

On the first, Williams engages each of Elkhorn’s members in turn. ... Williams switches to shahi baaja for the B side, casting effects-tinged tones like some cosmic fly fisherman wading into the confluence of two imaginary streams. [Mar 2020, p.47]

For the most part, the album makes a convincing argument for Sleater-Kinney's continued relevance. [Jan 2015, p.63]

A genuine sense of danger and trepidation stalks through these tracks. [#249, p.63]

Meek is doing the one thing he does well and nothing else. [Nov 2013, p.66]

A comfortable listen, occassionally diverting, but by no means a groundbreaking album. [May 2008, p.51]

Although the rest of the songs vary in sugar content and heart rate, the most potent dose of hyper-colour twee may be "Learning To Relax," which sounds like Yacht remixing The Polyphonic Spree for an iPhone advertisement aimed at Junior High students. [Feb 2015, p.44]

Oldham's rewriting of his own songs sometimes turns into a queasy compulsion.... There are some stunning revisions in this collection. [Mar 2016, p.62]

While it was surely a blast to see Styles hoofing it in person, the busy clatter of the tap shoes translates to an audio recording with only limited success. .... The seven Monk tunes presented are well chosen favourites, tackled with wit, verve and a subtle sense of invention that never strays too far from their origins. [Mar 2025, p.45]

Drake has certainly mastered the art of making Drake records. [Nov 2013, p.66]

Has a lot more of SF's itchy electro-Techno fizz than it does 'proper' HipHop beats. [#231, p.75]

Work (work, work) is a sophisticated response to a reality paralyzed by consumerism. [dec 2011, p.56]

Lie Down In The Light is arguably the most various of the records since the own-songs covers album, but it illustrates one of the perversities of Oldham's songwriting. [July 2008, p.45]

Initially sounds nothing special but gradually crawls into your subconscious and sets up home. [#233, p.72]

Jain finds an inviting languidity via the shimmering vocals and fluttering flute of “Infinite Delight” and “You Are Irresistible”, which rise together in warm and expectant plateaus. [Jul 2024, p.56]

Most of the pieces suggest parallels with Barnett Newman's paintings--fields of pure, striking colour, impressive in their own way, but requiring a particular angle of looking and mode of thought in order not to be boring. [Jul 2012, p.56]

Unlike the alluring textural build-up that precedes it, this rocking culmination feels frustratingly empty, as if missing a voice. ... Eventually [on "8 Spring Street"] a groovy, almost accidental rock lick is dispersed by a radiant conclusion. ... [On "Galaxies (Sky)"] Picked and bowed strings sound pleasant like wind chimes, then painful like nails scraping across a blackboard. The guitarists’ incessant repetitions are reminiscent of Orthrelm’s OV until a lone guitar breaks the cycle by oscillating sharp chords, augmenting them to saturation. [Oct 2019, p.56]

This second post-resurrection outing from the New York City noise rockers is an odd one, with two halves that could belong to different bands. The first part features new and rerecorded songs, like the siren led, lockdown inspired “In A Perfect World” – solid romps that become victims of circumstance. ... The first of the late 1980s Peel Session tracks bursts with rebellious energy, generated by a nervous interplay of guitars and rhythms and Thalia Zedek’s incendiary delivery.

He might be a slightly better rapper [than his father Will], he’s certainly a more adventurous artist and the fact that he’s a product of his generation shouldn’t detract from that. [Jan 2018, p.78]

While nothing on III is exactly a soundtrack to sipping caipirinhas in the sun, there's also nothing about it that suggests grimacing theatrically on a darken dancefloor. [Oct 2011, p.52]

There's a feeling of disconnect between idea and result, with Construction Sounds tending towards solid but unremarkable investigation of texture. [Nov 2012, p.72]

Hexadic blurs limes between melodic theory and personal spiritual working, presenting an alchemy of number as a system of creative liberation. [Feb 2015, p.52]

The strangely Middle Eastern funk they cook up in between their typical lunges and surges, the totally tuneless vocals that end up sounding like some kind of flagellant hiphop and the general sense of bass-heavy groove that locates SMTB closer to Helmet than Fugazi. [May 2019, p.65]

The four tracks on Occupied With the Unspoken, each lasting less then ten minutes, are edited in Carlson's basement studio from much longer live jams--but it's tempting to see them as single facets of the one true eternal synth jam. [Jul 2012, p.57]

Check the weird Groundhogs/Faith No More grooves of “Cosmic Pessimism” and the Scorpions-like pomposity of “Garden Of Cyrus” – but gratifyingly is usually overwhelmed by typical ATG churning riffery and aggroladen lyrical carnage. [Aug 2021, p.65]

The album is not so much a departure as a continuation of Pavement, satisfying and occasionally inspired. [#205, p.59]

On The Orb's 18th album, Paterson and current sideman Michael Rendall continue wandering these new (old) avenues. [Nov 2025, p.56]

Regional Surrealism has a quality familiar from Ghost Box releases and from Boards of Canada's discography. [Jul 2012, p.70]

Bongo Hotheads distils the feverish street feel of Dar Es Salaam. [Jul 2012, p.71]

Although there are no new dimensions here,... this still feels like musical fresh mint. [#242, p.67]

Code warms up as it winds down, as Malone is joined by frequent collaborator Ellen Arkbro for a trio of live recordings. [Sep 2019, p.56]

Theirs is a terse music, but purposeful, and it's that quality which makes this a more engaging listen than the equally abstract cybernetic fusion of To Rococo Rot or Mapstation. [#247, p.62]

The album is a fairly effective sampler of Ambarchi's various modes. [Dec 2012, p.58

The Residents walk a precarious line between American underbelly creepiness and a more mannered absurdism. [#254, p.63]

It can feel as though one must push through multiple layers of cultural detritus – Linda Blair, David Cassidy, Kiss, The Brady Bunch, etc – to get to the music itself. In truth, these resonances add flavour and colour to Jeff and Steve McDonald’s exuberant power pop, assisted on this self-titled double album by drummer and producer Josh Klinghoffer.

It's a dated sound but they stick to it with the tenacity of musicians who can't do anything else. [Mar 2013, p.50]

Plaid are back with another album of music that twists geometric runs through nostalgic synth textures into minor key shifts like dimension folds gone wrong. [Jan 2023, p.77]

Soundtracking stellar deeps has become one of electronica's most overworked cliches, but in the easy intimacy audible in this encounter, these Ambienaut vets make it sound like a piece of cake. [#247, p.59]

Although The Canon is a late arrival its mood is consistent with that of its predecessors. The recording is sharper and more delineated, but Leon steers clear of modern sonics that might date it. ... Apart from the titles, there is no narrative as such to this collection, but it works as absolute music, in which Leon creates the impression of mysterious and open spaces. [May 2019, p.58]

Songs to shiver ’n’ shake to. [Apr 2023, p.64]

Rather than fetishing these sound sources, Neubaten vacuum-pack the lot inside a hermetic and constricting production that is immensely disturbing. [#241, p.57]

The results isn't always compelling; at times the trio lean on cliched sounds--ominous synth tones, for example, or whirring stock effects--that have also crept into previous release. But more often, the pieces on Rainbow Mirror avoid banality through forced patience. The extended track lengths greatly benefit Fernow’s chosen range of sounds and moods. Given the room to stretch and develop, he and his colleagues maintain a level of subtlety throughout. [Dec 2017, p.56]

Clubbers might find Swanson's approach dilettantish.... In letting this set closer sprawl out, though, he happens on a spinning wormhole of spitting snares and abrasive Konono No 1-like melodies that's sulphuric in its intensity. [Mar 2013, p.60]

Richard may not be the most distinctive lyricist, yet she still leaves a strong impression. Her uniquely hazy voice and the way she adds unusual trills to her stanzas means that the listener is always aware of her presence. [Jan 2023, p.70]

“Hot Pink” reads clearly like “BIPP”-era SOPHIE, with its urgent metallic breakdowns and deep, heavy bass lines, while the high synth registers and spatial ambient of “It’s Not Just Me” conjecture a Generation Z folk-pop-disco hybrid. As a more mainstream addition to the avant-pop trajectory of artists like SOPHIE and felicita, however, Let’s Eat Grandma are not nearly as disruptive and original. [Sep 2018, p.49]

This music's shoreline is made up of instrumental delicacy and subtle arrangements, which burble, froth and foam washing over the listener with an insistent but gentle force. [#257, p.61]

A certain bass jumpiness is evident throughout these six tracks, a post-grunge melodic murkiness that is at once reassuring but also puts paid to elevating the record into the realms of the ethereal. [Oct 2011, p.58]

Bassist Haz Wheaton and drummer Richard Chadwick provide the solid underpinning, while Brock's knack of fashioning and delivering strong melodic and verbal hooks is plentiful in evidence. [May 2017, p.46]

Hallucinogen moulds diverse influences together into a perplexing whole. [Dec 2015, p.51]

Much of the music here is a return to past form, and a move away from the more polished recent albums. [Dec 2013, p.58]

There are many memorable tracks here, but you still can't help missing the scratchy textures and humid atmosphereics of "Maxinquaye" and "Pre-millennium Tension." [July 2008, p.60]

From the bottom of a spring-reverb well, Harris strums mournful, incoherent songs like "Vital" and "being Her Shadow," but intersperses them with creepy textural mood pieces. [Feb 2013, p.50]

Big Joanie have developed immeasurably since their debut and it’s a joy to see them, if not quite reaching their full potential, then imparting a genuine sense of what that fulfillment might entail. [Jan 2023, p.62]

Ten is forever on the point of falling apart but somehow doesn't. [#241, p.55]

The accompanying booklet is richly illustrated with pulpy paperbacks and other artefacts of the shadow side of hippie spirituality. In his quirky accompanying essay, curator Martin Callomon assures the listener that there’s much more where this came from, in the form of a playlist on the accursed music streaming platform Spotify – undoubtedly the most unholy thing about this entire affair. [Sep 2024, p.65]

Melnyk could use a bit more genuine mystery and less self-importance. [Dec 2015, p.52]

Antwood hops between an arcade’s worth of genres, twiddling microprocessors to their squiffy, pixel-helicopter max later in that track, or embracing flute and some approximation of a banjo on “Castalian Fountain” before the Street Fighter beats hit. [Sep 2019, p.65]

They most definitely lack a soloist. Yet the way in which these sunkissed survivors pull together is touching. [Jun 2012, p.42]

This is a good record. It's probably the best record by a group named after a situationist art installation you'll hear all year. But I'd be surprised if it came [on] top of any other list. [Feb 2016, p.48]

The production has remained faithfully jagged and abrasive, where a trebly and bass-starved sonic narrative enforces a fresh take on what continues to be intense and difficult listening. [Apr 2019, p.50]

The first half of the album presents a disparate sequence of songs, the punky “I Want To Tell You About Want I Want” mixing with a rather laboured piece about Virginia Woolf’s and Sylvia Plath’s suicides (“Virginia Woolf”). ... This second half finds Hitchcock at his most purposeful. [May 2017, p.46]

Good, clean fun. [Oct 2008, p.71]

The album’s eight tracks meander, but they never get lost. “Basin” for example sounds like Brian Eno’s Music For Airports might if it were scaled down to be played in an apartment hallway instead of a spacious terminal. [May 2023, p.51]

Even if the music remains fairly consistent, the concepts mark off more ambitious territories. [Oct 2011, p.60]

It takes a while to get on Friedberger's wavelength.... But his sheer love of a good tune is seductive. [Dec 2012, p.63]