By unplugging the effects and simply playing, they sound re-energized. [Oct 2011, p.61]

Dance Music 4 Bad People features some of his headiest and most luscious productions, which conjure imagery of bodies glistening with sweat while moving in unison within the dusty confines of some basement club. [May 2025, p.54]

Their pop is the sharpest it’s ever been. [Dec 2019, p.53]

Viewfinder may end on a questioning note, but its music is warm and expansive, the sound of an inspired composer coming into the light. [Oct 2024, p.49]

LV's South African explorations sound fresh in the current vogue for Footwork and trap rap references. [Sep 2012, p.73]

What is most striking about Why Do The Heathen Rage?, Which reworks Black metal songs as electro, house and techno, is how intelligently respectful it is. [Jun 2014, p.55]

While I'm A Dreamer looks back the best part of a century, sepia cover photo and all, it never simply lapses into pastiche. [Nov 2013, p.54]

If there’s a criticism, the album is a bit samey: virtuoso drum intro, declamatory trumpet, modest group support. The formula becomes ever more predictable with each return, but Allen and Masekela are irresistibly listenable almost irrespective of what they are playing and Rejoice is a very special opportunity to hear two masters who’ve orbited at a distance coming together. [Apr 2020, p.48]

Reset is bright and cheerful, drenched in supersaturated colour and psychedelic sunshine. Most impressive is the way the music explicitly draws from the past without slipping into pastiche or retro-nostalgic recreation. [Sep 2022, p.48]

Delicacy replaces density here, but his capacity to unnerve remains on these sedately mournful chamber pieces. [#231, p.74]

In Black & Gold has a poise, purpose and maturity not heard before. [Apr 2015, p.63]

The sonic immensity and detail of the album, an extended paean to the power of the imagination, with the feel of a dark fairy tale, rivals the most ostentatious of Bob Ezrin's productions for Alice Cooper, Kiss and Lou Reed. [Dec 2015, p.50]

On The Gospel, they're at their weirdest and best. [Feb 2016, p.48]

No One Deserves Happiness alternates between bleak and industrialised grindcore and a powerful poetic presence that effectively conveys a sense of loss. [Apr 2016, p.46]

Every beat is a slow motion epic, every hook aches with promethazine exhaustion transcended through force of will. [Sep 2017, p.62]

Exorcism addresses a similarly uncomfortable subject, her sexual assault in 2016 and what it means to be a survivor of trauma. That Wilson can turn such trauma into vibrant, addictive pop music is testament to her abilities within strict limitations--the entirety of Exorcism was crafted on a Prophet 6 synthesizer--but Exorcism is unafraid not just of its subject matter but of occupying an intrinsically ambiguous place for the listener. [May 2018, p.59]

It’s something like Noname if she had a backstory closer to The Game. And just when it almost veers too close into Soulquarian-lite territory, Boogie drops “Self Destruction”, a vocally agile self-examination that reminds you why his contract was picked up by Eminem. [Mar 2019, p.65]

The album finds different creative forms in convergence. Efdemin uses the album format to combine audio storytelling with ambient and drone based compositions that tell their own stories. [Apr 2019, p.65]

The first three Meters albums are their best by far, but every disc in this box is overflowing with addictive, brilliant funk. [Feb 2020, p.64]

An album of big hooks of which “Golden Brown” is perhaps sharpest with its promise “The boys are back in town”. [Jun 2020, p.62]

The album suffers a little from its 14 song duration. The Mael wit works best when it’s tightly presented. [Jul 2020, p.52]

Audet’s obfuscatory impulses only make the album more compelling. [Feb 2021, p.58]

She extends her compositional technique, with added space, breath and timbre, into new dimensions. ... On Spirit Exit, Barbieri is closer than ever to club territory and the ecstatic. [Jul 2022, p.42

The large number of guest rappers (seven in all) makes the album sound like the voice of a rage-filled community rather than just one person’s desperate cries, magnifying its impact. [Feb 2023, p.44]

Martin’s productions, equal parts frosted dub techno and eerie minimalism akin to the pre-orchestral Stars Of The Lid records, match Kamaru’s patient inquisitiveness. While there’s diversity here – compare the beatless slow build of opener “Differences” versus the scuffed kick and snare of “Ark” – Kamaru and Martin are resourceful with limited palettes, unearthing poignancy in subtle shifts of permutation and iteration. Music and voice forming a perfect alloy. [Jun 2024, p.52]

This is a complex, affecting work by Ishibashi, but listeners are advised to seek out the film to experience it in context. [Jun 2024, p.50]

Mostly, however, these tracks stand as pure punk or pure roots, invoking the rebellious spirit of the time in a way that, remarkably, still comes across as fresh and exciting, even nowadays when everybody tends to know just about everything. [Sep 2024, p.59]

Cope’s wit and poetic skills remain as sharp as his playing, all of which is further illuminated with swathes of nostalgic Mellotron and tenderly plucked acoustic guitar. [Mar 2025, p.59]