The long germination period of the project is an indication of the duo’s perfectionism, which unfortunately results in songs that are overworked to the point of blandness. [Aug 2022, p.57]

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]

Songs like "Brainfreeze" and "The Red Wing" plod more than march, piling on so many competing keyboard layers that the melody blots itself out. Others seem oddly unfinished. Only the two closing ten minute tracks evoke the classic Fuck Buttons widescreen neon pomp. [Jul 2013, p.56]

Rising Down's most immediate qualities are the raw aesthetic and the burning importance of its message. [July 2008, p.66]

There’s a heavy Eddie Henderson vibe here, propulsive, warm and engaging, and by the time the album closes on the jagged street vignette of its title track, it’s evident that BBNG have gone back to find a new future, a new lease of life. [Nov 2021, p.48]

At heart they're still most comfortable plying scruffy barstool romanticism woven from the same plaid as contemporaries The Replacements and Dinosaur Jr. [Aug 2015, p.58]

Colonial patterns makes your ears feel like magnetised tape heads, the music dulled, pockmarked, riven with fissures of noise and age. [Oct 2013, p.58]

Broken Knowz sounds cleaner, more restrained and organic than his previous material. [Dec 2016, p.56]

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]

At best, the end result has an epic and ethereal sheen, though there are certainly moments where Araab succumbs to the tackier elements of his influences, like blind fist-pumping four on the floor or arpeggiated faux-bliss. [Aug 2011, p.69]

Altın Gün’s unwavering commitment to Turkish psychedelic rock receives a glossy refurbishment here. [Feb 2021, p.60]

The way Baird and Jones mix room tone with the intruding outdoors invites consideration of human impermanence, but the sweet affection that Jones's melodies impart wards off the blues. [Mar 2016, p.54]

The album feels like paten's mostly mechanically calculated and precise output to date. [Sep 2016, p.59]

Producers of Stranger Things, look no further: we have that second series soundtrack for you. [Nov 2016, p.70]

On “Pure GreyCircle” Malliagh intensifies the mixture, introducing slabs of bass tone that flex and squeeze against elusive beats. There’s some weird subject matter, too; across polished surfaces and sharp corners, tracks such as “Sylph Fossil” and “Zones U Can’t See” smuggle cosmic lyrics inside voices that whisper or glide, always diving below the mix or spinning above. [Apr 2021, p.66]

The album progresses through tastefully understated melancholy and rage to a clutch of pop songs whose assured emo posturing melts into cries for salvation so exquisite they’re undeniable. [Jun 2021, p.64]

On How The Thing Sings, Orcutt reveals a more open vision. [Oct 2011, p.58]

A cohesive album in the traditional sense, Hesaitix is an epic world-building exercise littered with simulations of natural beauty. [Dec 2017, p.55]

The narrower focus, combined with the decision to return to Seattle’s Studio Soli, raises the thought that Earth might have, at last, orbited back to the roaring wastelands of their early 1990s work. Jump into the longer cuts here, though, and you find something that sounds less like a trip on Tibetan quaaludes, more a slow chug of whisky. [Jun 2019, p.56]

Fans are unlikely to be disappointed, but if you're expecting a new direction, look somewhere else. [Nov 2010, p.52]

A hushed treasure. [Jan 2015, p.71]

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]

It's simply clean, so the outstanding performances come over strongly. [Oct 2013, p.49]

It's delightfully ponderous. [May 2016, p.48]

Long Island may be their heaviest album--some songs introduce enough distortion to qualify as Stoner Metal in the vein of Fu Manchu or Nebula, But for the most part, they do exactly what their name says, grinding along like 1975 will never come. [Feb 2013, p.50]

A good bit stranger-sounding and more interesting in their excavation of the past. [Jul 2017, p.53]

Part of Souleyman’s thing is upsetting delicate ears with his so-called vulgarity – it’s music for taxi drivers and party crashers. Likewise these swooning synth stabs may sound kitsch to discerning ravers, but the fun is heroically nonstop. [Jan 2020, p.69]

Every gesture feels bold and assured. [Nov 2015, p.53]