It’s an overegged pudding at times, but to its credit Versus is anything but polite; with brass and bass to the fore, Craig chips away at our preconceptions--he’s here for more than the black tie and polite applause. [Jun 2017, p.61]

Best not to think too deeply about it. [Sep 2022, p.57]

Voyeurs of the disintegration of the human condition will be able to gorge on vicarious thrills to their black heart's content. [#246, p.62]

He raps in a stereotypically ‘white’ voice shorn of regional inflections, and the contrast between his deadpan vocals and the beats ranges from startlingly imaginative (the hammering blapper “Fundrazors”) to anodyne (“Indifferent”). [Sep 2022, p.57]

Supermigration never quite brings these directions--Air, Lindstrom, Neu!--together though; instead of fermenting their own sound, Solar Bears end up falling into the space in between them. [May 2013, p.66]

The speech modelling software used to articulate the narrative generates a somewhat grittier, odder voice than your average online speech synthesizer, but that doesn’t keep the album’s expository moments from being momentum killers. The passages where artificial voice gets fed into some typically squelchy MOM electro beats are considerably more fun to listen to. [Feb 2021, p.52]

There's the sense that the group are holding back a little. Some tracks just don't quite work on a visceral level, as dance or as forcefields of conflicting elements. [Sep 2013, p.51]

“Airavata” falls into kitsch, with Atwood-Ferguson on electric guitar and violin/viola. The album’s often better than that, however. .... In all, a mixed picture. [Dec 2023, p.42]

This level of gross hallucination could risk indulgence... But for straight-up bad vibes to the head, Fast Cars is compelling. [#252, p.67]

Herbert still seems like the same oddball he ever was. But the first half of Scale underlines how much fun there is to be had in playing the misfit. [#268, p.56]

More Light is, on the whole, more of what made him great--songs with airhead titles like "Where'd You Go," which stretch glorious guitar solos over solid chopping riffs--but it's packed with too much filler. [#200, p.80]

The feeling of opiated depressive inertia that weighs it down is compounded by the sugary viscosity of Danger Mouse;s production. Yet it's these slower songs, shaped by Linkous's Country-inflected enervation and Danger Mouse's attention to sonic detail, that work best, while the more up tempo, rockier tracks come off as perfunctory. [Jul 2010, p.53]

Hitting (unintentionally?) a vein of 1990s retro, evoking Beth Orton/Andrew Weatherall/William Orbit and inventing Highlands Balearic. Campbell only really pushes the envelope on a couple of tracks scribbling fluorescent acid bass through "Weeping Roses" and stitching AFX escape velocity linear drum programming under "220Hz". [Sep 2025, p.63]

Summoning Suns is too derivative to be a major work, but it shows promise. [Mar 2015, p.46]

They make it sound easy, and there are moments where that ease works in their favour. “Exalted” has the same gliding grace as the best moments on Moore’s last album of songs, The Best Day; conversely the way Shelley and Googe bear down on “Aphrodite” is quite satisfying. Still, the record could have used a more contrarian filter. [Jun 2017, p.67]

It’s off to a shaky start – for this writer at least – with the lugubrious dirge of Procol Harum's “A Whiter Shade Of Pale” – and I wouldn’t mind never hearing The Small Faces’ “Itchycoo Park”, which follows, again – but The Kinks’ “Waterloo Sunset", Pink Floyd’s “See Emily Play” and Tomorrow’s “My White Bicycle” all receive tasteful, stripped back renditions. [Dec 2024, p.54]

There is still a sense here of a group magisterially marking time, shying away this time round from any grand, rhetorical, countercultural purpose. [Dec 2007, p.63]

At her best she lives up to the statement of intent on “This Sound” where her style is pitched as physical, literal but metaphysical, mystical and medicinal. ... But by the time she implores us to “do yourself a favour and eat some shrooms”, she sounds dangerously like just another hippy with too much faith in her medicine. [Jun 2021, p.

It refuses any stylistic centre that might tie together its genre signifiers. [Mar 2015, p.58]

Topped off with signature twin guitar harmonies, the album is often a blast, if a bit unbalanced overall. [Oct 2021, p.58]

The issue with Pusha’s fourth solo album isn’t his insistence on portraying a heartless American striver as if he’s the rap game Al Pacino – it’s that he’s unable to consistently conjure the menacing intensity that enlivened his work with with twin brother Malice as Clipse. [Jun 2022, p.52]

In classic Simz style the journey’s more fulfilling a little further down the rabbit hole. ... But ultimately it’s hard to escape the comedy of such grand ambition also spawning the corniest voiceover since Prince invited Kirstie Alley to vandalise his symbolically titled 1992 album, and a cringe so intense it threatens to undermine everything.

Those who were there the first time round will enjoy playing spot-the-sample on these hyperactive cut ’n’ shuts; for anyone else, it’s a strange one. Inarguably fun, but you’re left scratching your head, wondering why. [Jun 2017, p.74]

The moody bits are surrounded by so much that is abstract that their affective properties seem a matter of happenstance rather than expression. [Mar 2015, p.46]

It's actually more pleasurable to pick a track at random and leave it on loop. [Sep 2011, p.56]

Some tracks go on far longer than is comfortable, some peter out prematurely, some wander off in a direction that doesn’t immediately make sense. But even without the context of Troxler’s career, that’s fine. It’s obviously a personal record, with a distinctive sound palette, expressing some fairly profound and fun experiences. [Jun 2019, p.58]

Farrell’s production is funky and deep throughout, but it’s sometimes a touch too downbeat; Kidjo is imperious on the chemically propelled “Dombolo”, Nneka spits controlled fire on the dubby “La Dame Et Ses Valises”, but tracks like “Wedding” and “Nebao” are sonic tar pits from which their stars struggle to escape. [Jun 2017, p.76]

The veneer slides aside to reveal more palpable excitement with the arrival of MCs from the UK grime contingent. [Mar 2015, p.48]

With its introversion and focus upon the everyday in both subject matter and imagery, the appeal of Shedding Skin depends partly on your appetite for people watching. [Mar 2015, p.48]

The album suffers at points from fastidiously clean production; it’s not just lo-fi romanticism to want to hear musicians of Vieux’s calibre in settings that are less polished. [Jun 2017, p.76]

Rather than the sound of people battering against existing structures, Social Climbers exude comfort. [Sep 2011, p.58]

While some will label these 12 pieces as evidence of Alex Paterson’s genius, the majority definitely won’t, and although it’s a well-produced work, it doesn’t bend or expand expectations. [Sep 2018, p.54]

There’s a silliness and lightness to CEL that is often charming, but can stray into tweeness, and its lack of a deeper pull doesn’t necessarily warrant repeat listens. An interesting conceptual exercise but unlike a lot of the krautrock it is reminiscent of, nothing to stir the heart or body. [May 2020, p.50]

They have a certain beauty, but it all feels sterile, airless. [Sep 2011, p.59]

The original running order is slightly shuffled, but starting with "Raw Power" wasn't such a good idea, as it mostly serves to highlight the way the album sags in its second half. But ending with a roaring "I Got A Right" salvages the set. [Jun 2011, p.48]

Two nostalgia trips for the price of one. [Sep 2011, p.62]

Listening in one session is like wolfing a hurried seven-course meal with post-dinner coffee and is roughly as messy. [Sep 2013, p.65]

A usually sharp MC, Murs sounds conflicted throughout, a little too anxious to be loved by everyone. [Dec 2008, p.74]

Nice enough, and the climax of the title track is truly transportive, but no real departure from previous form. [Mar 2015, p.56]

It's all elegantly executed and often beguiling, but just too clean and predictable to be really involving. [#228, p.62]

Glasper is undoubtedly a class act, but the lacks the wildness a Madlib or a Flying Lotus might have brought to this project. [Jun 2016, p.54]

[Forster] leans perilously close to airbrushed AOR when left too much to his own devices, but mostly the intoxicating richness and unashamed opulence of their epic space rock wins through. [#247, p.70]

It's an extremely listenable record, full of stray moments of delightful mischief, but it's as innovative as a favourite old armchair. [1/2001, p.63]

In many ways this is his finest outing since The Boatman's Call. [#247, p.55]

There's still plenty to enjoy on Tassilli, but desert blooms fade fast when overwatered. [Sep 2011, p.65]

The LP’s best tracks are those where the producers keep it undercooked and Westside Gunn is kept in check--to a point. [Sep 2018, p.62]

The lyrical intricacy and rhythmic playfulness of old are still there, but an arthritic creakiness creeps in, especially when he indulges in hackneyed poetism and dodgy wordplay. [Feb 2012, p.71]

Like Urge Overkill or The Velvet Monkeys at their grossest, Trans Am's genre exercises don't stand up to close scrutiny, but as a dim soundtrack to your next beer bust, you might want to bring it on. [#220, p.66]

The results are mixed. The album never fully escapes the feeling of rootless hipster genre-rifling. But the skill of Mast and Stroud at engineering riffs cannot be denied. [Jul 2010, p.60]

Some Say I So I Say Light's uniformity can become a little wearing across 11 tracks. [May 2013, p.52]

There's a lingering sense of calculation to their weirdness, the feeling that this is someone's specific idea of what next-level hiphop is supposed to sound like and not the type of batshit creativity bursts that can lead to truly transcendent experimental hiphop.

Cutting through the tedium reveals a moderately engaging narrative of low level criminality with solid insights ranging from the cloying to mildly provocative. [Feb 2017, p.59]

Clams is one rap's most distinctive producers, pushing his vocal collaborators to new emotional depths; but as an instrumental electronic producer, that choice is muddled by a sea of similarly charged chillwave types. [Jun 2011, p.60]

Zubot’s production creates a sense of vastness, placing Tagaq’s voice low in the mix with strings and drums or conversely counterpointing it to instruments to create icy thick layers of noise. However, his maximalist approach fails the more poppy tracks. [Feb 2017, p.45]

They have edited a tightly bound collection of six monstrously loud tracks with titles like “Cuts On Your Hands”, “Starres” and “Dark Inclusions” that read like they have been torn from some eldritch book of spellcraft but are in fact informed by the cosmos and attempts to make contact with alien intelligence. Unfortunately any insight regarding this is hidden behind the pleasingly crushing avalanche of guitar shrapnel, thundering bass and percussion that muzzle Baker’s already clouded vocal. [Jun 2021, p.54]

It's easy to imagine more time and effort infusing these tracks with more colour and variety. [Apr 2016, p.55]

Because of the time lapses involved in recording the material, the album sounds uneven and sometimes stale, sadly lacking the Misfits punk rock kick that he managed to reboot into early Danzig offerings with producer Rick Rubin. Of note, however, is the closing “Pull The Sun”, a majestic hovering ballad where Danzig drops the Jimbo stance to elevate his group and his more subdued vocal to a higher rock pinnacle. [Jul 2017, p.60]

The Divine Feminine is well-intentioned and well-staffed, but ultimately lacks the sort of specificity in vision that would do its subject matter justice. [Nov 2016, p.61]

It's a pity that the albums is slight, with five songs, one of them a minute-long interlude, in just over half an hour, and settles for revisiting a sound Carlson knows rather than anything more daring. [May 2018, p.44]

While the individual tracks prove undistinguished as a whole, the chiming microtonal piano contrasting with a constellation of gorgeous synth work on "Orbiting Meadows featuring Clark" is a haunting standout. [Apr 2026, p.61]

Those who find Anticon's selfconsciousness and self-flagellation a bit hard to stomach may be able to digest Odd Nosdam's maddening instrumental collages. [#230, p.71]

Where the jazz content is foregrounded however, the music is less convincing. ... Garcia’s tone bears more than a passing resemblance to Kamasi Washington’s, with a similar paucity of harmonic complexity and grandstanding solos conveying an earnest seriousness that mistakes widescreen emoting for genuine emotional content. [Sep 2020, p.52]

Let’s Start Here has a middlebrow sensibility, with plenty of grooves Calvin Harris would approve of. Its best moments come when he unleashes his oddball trill, an evocative sound that bland sentiments like “So surreal, the vibes I feel” can’t quite diminish. [Apr 2023, p.68]

Jenssen can't maintain the balancing act throughout Departed Glories and only really pulls it off intermittently. But when he does it casts a lovely autumnal light somewhere between Folke Rabe’s pastoral minimalism, Andrew Chalk’s haunted pools of tone, or even the lambent string arrangements of Debussy’s Jeux. [Oct 2016, p.48]

The title of “Raindrops Cast In Lead” offers a brutal, evocative image, but any horror it tries to convey seems to get waylaid somewhere down the line by a cheery motorik chug. NO TITLE’s music matches the blunt force of its name when it makes room for discomfort. On “Broken Spires At Dead Kapital” strings play the broken fragments of a melody over guttural bass drones and the effect is genuinely unsettling. [Nov 2024, p.52]

Each turns in a fine performance, yielding some decent tracks, but they fail to generate the kind of frisson that would make this more than a historical curio. [Dec 2025, p.55]

Lux is OK, while it's on. But that's all. And that's a shame. [Jan 2013, p.64]

If anything, it sounds over-finessed at times, the slick mixing resisting the rawness and density that is the album's most vital quality--the duo is at their best when the few fragments of eclectic prettiness get swamped in cacophony. [May 2015, p.58]

When it works, it’s pretty thrilling--as on their version of Joe Henderson’s “Earth”. Whether bassist Domenico Angarano will ever forgive himself for fluffing the galaxy-unlocking riff at the start of Alice Coltrane’s “Journey In Satchidananda”, however, is between him and the Creator. [Dec 2018, p.63]

Too often though, and as is almost always the case with live sets, the album is cloistered and airless.... It doesn't so much scourge New York as embody the place it has become. [Nov 2014, p.71]

There’s a sense of indecision to the overall sound of the album, which results in a fragmented listening experience. [Apr 2017, p.52]

More often than not the group sound like they're going through the motions. [Jul 2012, p.57]

Alc has already produced better songs for the actual Ghostface. So it is unclear why this album--or the rapper who made it--needed to exist. [Jan 2013, p.79]

Despite the lack of actual bass frequencies on Advaitic Songs, Om frequently sound weighed down which isn't the same thing as sounding heavy. [Jul 2012, p.61]

The Alchemist's patented gangster music soundtracks, full of moody textures and synths, can sound quite placid. It's up to Armand Hammer and co to bring rough tension and focus to an album that often feels overly atmospheric, despite standout cuts like "Dogeared" and "Super Nintendo". [Dec 2025, p.63]

Poorly sequenced instrumental epics and rap cuts leave Something Wicked sounding disjointed. [#217, p.56]

Having all this material together is bittersweet – rather than four distinct sets, couldn’t these styles have been brought together in a more innovative way? Arca’s work is invariably surrounded by much chatter about disrupting musical forms, but four albums divided into four distinct moods feels like an unusually conservative vehicle for her ideas. [Jan 2022, p.59]

It's not that the album is bad per se. Like Venom, it delivers for an appreciative fanbase. It's just that they could do this shit in their sleep. [May 2026, p.58]

It's so sweet and monotonous they should try [naming the album] something instead like Strawberry Ice Cream. [Jul 2012, p.62]

Having all this material together is bittersweet – rather than four distinct sets, couldn’t these styles have been brought together in a more innovative way? Arca’s work is invariably surrounded by much chatter about disrupting musical forms, but four albums divided into four distinct moods feels like an unusually conservative vehicle for her ideas. [Jan 2022, p.59]

Most of this material has a tense, enervating effect, despite the haziness of the sonic palette Field-Pickering favours. [Feb 2013, p.60]

Having all this material together is bittersweet – rather than four distinct sets, couldn’t these styles have been brought together in a more innovative way? Arca’s work is invariably surrounded by much chatter about disrupting musical forms, but four albums divided into four distinct moods feels like an unusually conservative vehicle for her ideas. [Jan 2022, p.59]

Having all this material together is bittersweet – rather than four distinct sets, couldn’t these styles have been brought together in a more innovative way? Arca’s work is invariably surrounded by much chatter about disrupting musical forms, but four albums divided into four distinct moods feels like an unusually conservative vehicle for her ideas. [Jan 2022, p.59]

Desertshore is less a report than a dramatisation, an upending of their defiantly aura-less usurping of traditional performance modes in favour of a theatricality that feels more selfconsciously like a big event than the DIY/samizdat style of old.... [The Final Report] fares a little better, though again, it's a shame XTG have framed it in the form of a report.[Dec 2012, p.69]

Sadly few of his spiels impress solely on the strength of their content. [#235, p.55]

The novelty of hearing synths act like drums definitely helps, but the record also contains just what you might look for in any solo improvisation. [Jul 2012, p.65]

Some will delight in her richly creative studio experiments, while others may find it too vague and discursive, despite several strong cuts like "Devotions" and "Think About It/What U Think?". [Dec 2025, p.63]

Tracks like “It’s Not Me” and “All-Seeing Eye” feel like works in progress and weigh down an already overlong album. Yet the album has its superlative bursts, like the fingerpicked coda of “Goodbye” and the gnarly biker metal guitars on “Alarms” and “Goatfuzz”. [Oct 2016, p.61]

Atlas is entirely ambient, a slipstream that moves in slow motion using dense atmospheres to confuse the listener, who is only momentarily permitted to take a specific position. The closing composition “Earthbound” guides us back towards the ground, but any sense of spatial awareness is already too skewed and you are left to wade your way through the remnants of sonic fog. [Sep 2023, p.56]

Accelerator captures a confused, jokey arc of the duo's trajectory that hasn't aged well in the 14 years since its release. [Dec 2012, p.70]

Beautifully performed, but otherwise unadventurous. [#243, p.69]

Ping-ponging between krautrock, deep funk, free jazz and pre-techno synth workouts, they could have easily released it as three short, more coherent LPs; some credit, at least, ought to go to Soul Jazz for indulging them in these spartan times. [Jan 2022, p.72]

As per usual, Grails prove frustratingly difficult to love or hate. [Apr 2017, p.60]

Hot Sauce Committee finds The Beastie Boys being The Beastie Boys with nothing that isn't exactly what on would expect from The Beastie Boys. [Jul 2011, p.44]

Ying & Yang, ultimately, just sounds a bit matey. [Nov 2012, p.61]

Its one of those Wobble albums that marks time between more major projects, and it's typical of his restless musical nature. [Sep 2018, p.65]

Pleasantly ear friendly and leaves no unpleasant odour or lingering aftertaste. [#243, p.74]

His songs are still gauzy and intangible, the breathy vocals offering lyrical wisps that only hint at turbulent emotions. [Aug 2015, p.58]