This is a remarkably rich and complex achievement. [#267, p.52]

White Roses, My God picks up where Low’s 2018 album Double Negative left off with “Disarray” – but the feel here is markedly different. The music is lighter, faster and more urgent, simultaneously terrified and joyous. [Oct 2024, p.60]

Bleed feels more constructed than played, a diorama of dissolving shapes spread out in time. But the piece’s patient evolution and implied but ever-present rhythm all confirm that this is Necks music. [Nov 2024, p.55]

Masculin Féminin documents a youthful band impulsively pouring noise into rock, free of machismo or the urge to ape what was then hip. [Oct 2016, p.61]

As half-familiar figures and distorted memories of long forgotten acid mood jams drift in and out of view, one is reminded that sometimes the most exotic species are those living in our own minds. [Sep 2016, p.50]

Supple openendedness of texture and the cyclic reoccurrence become one and the same as the music goes on and on – liberating words in time, rather than setting them in stone. [Sep 2020, p.46]

A combination of versatility (Lucas is both singer and multiinstrumentalist) and judicious use of the recording studio makes Vanishing Twin’s fourth artist album devoid of voids. It’s perhaps their best release to date. [Dec 2023, p.52]

One of 2021’s most impressive and poignant examples of progressive rock? Damn the torpedoes, let’s go with that. [Nov 2021, p.62]

While visually hereditary is fatally flawed by its failure to frighten, sonically it is as scary as hell. [Sep 2018, p.61]

An unpretentious work of Romanticism - that holds space for the infinite experience imbued in a poem, a song, or a voice. [May 2021, p.55]

The album is consistently fast-paced, a simple but effective trick to amp up its pop thrills. [Mar 2022, p.46]

Diehard metalheads will continue to grumble, but Opeth are never going back to their old sound, and with Sorceress they’ve proved the wisdom of their choice. [Oct 2016, p.57]

The only drawback to this semi-collage approach is that many tracks are too brief. [#256, p.51]

Double Figure is as good as anything they have done. [#207, p.65]

It's the most vibrant and vital he's sounded in a long while. [Nov 2014, p.64]

It's not just Hertz's technical nous that makes Flatland so compelling, but his commitment to forging something lucid, plastic and expressive, music that blurs the line between hyper reality and the topsy-turvy world of imagination. [Dec 2014, p.51]

Rich and resonant. [Oct 2016, p.61]

Washington can flirt with bombast and kitsch, but his commitment is undeniable and the tunes are great. [Oct 2017, p.68]

Where Tuttle takes a more detached standpoint he’s less successful. Perhaps attempting to mimic corporate blandness, “Cambridge Drive Shopping Centre” mixes field recording of shoppers with a dogged guitar motif to fast diminishing effect. For the most part however he keeps cynicism at bay, a welcoming guide to his kingdom of everyday beauty. [Jul 2020, p.53]

A remarkable turn in the road for a remarkable composer. [Mar 2021, p.55]

Where NO was extreme in its attack, W opts to let the group dream, as a more acoustic angle is explored – with Wata’s ephemeral vocal being an ever present guiding spirit force that trails like incense smoke through the songs. Things eventually kick off, however, with “The Fallen”, a time-tested metal guitar dirge with an electronic sting in its tail that effortlessly reverts back to Boris at their amplifier worshipping best. [Feb 2022, p.58]

What makes this Johnson’s most compelling album to date is its unexpected emotive clout. In submerging the melodic substance of the songs in rolling drones, it is able to approach almost undetected and slink away with guile. [Mar 2022, p.50]

Smith and Unthank magnetise throughout with their combined vocals, even on unaccompanied songs such as “Captain Bover” (the story of Tyneside press gangs), melodically entwined, but contrasting soft and rugged. [Feb 2023, p.59]

Thankfully it offers something much more than the sum of its parts and references. It speaks to our present moment with a yearning generosity and the kind of deep knowing that only comes with age. [Mar 2023, p.51]

Lines like “History repeating itself” and “She never lost hope/When life was so hard” feel a bit generalised – the sentiment might have benefitted from a more nuanced or poetic approach. Overall however the decision to give the heroic and celebratory a wide berth is a sound one, making way for something much darker and more unsettling – a reminder that doing the right thing in times of widespread fear and conflict is seldom easy. [May 2024, p.49]

With nowhere to hide, her voice is revealed as an equally fine instrument, informed by previous interpreters such as Sandy Denny, Anne Briggs and Jacqui McShee, but with an earthier, softer edged quality. [Mar 2025, p.48]

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]

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]