It's one earthquake/windstorm after another for an hour, possibly the group's best release since 2009's Bag It! [Nov 2013, p.55]

Strange and seductive. [Oct 2024, p.48]

Wildest Dreams despite its unapologetic retro stance, is a wild wide. [Aug 2014, p.58]

The whole album seems to be incandescent with anger. You would have to travel a long way to hear an acoustic guitar album as tough as this. [Jan/Feb 2025, p.82]

Plushly layered drones and percolating beats nearly bury some of the hardest, saddest words they’ve ever sung. [Apr 2018, p.63]

It’s just possible that, nearly three decades into her recording career, It’s Real is Ex Hex frontwoman Mary Timony’s strongest release to date. [Mar 2019, p.62]

Rather than concocting rich strata from the guitar of Reine Fiske or Johan Holmegard’s percussion, these pieces are mainly stripped back and sprightly, propelled by the dazzling vocals of Ejstes. ... Where previously these atonal chords and odd tempos would have been subsumed into the heavy mixture, they appear here open and light, forming something that’s less earthy and far more fantastical. [Nov 2022, p.60]

These guys mean well. [June 2008, p.63]

The gauzy textures that she creates on New Decade do capture something of crystalline stasis. It’s only the rhythmical structure of the “Snow And Pollen” – two electronic pulses that sound, one, two, one, two – that connotes a diffuse sense of menace. [Nov 2021, p.57]

Despite the unorthodox weaving of disparate threads of material in evidence, there is harmony and majesty here, commensurate with the awe-inspiring scale of Inarritu's film. [Mar 2016, p.48]

Frankly, the guy defies you not to be impressed by what he's got. [#234, p.53]

The emphasis this time around is on poppier melodies, but for all its attention to song form, Sonic Nurse feels more like a collection of exercises than a cohesive album. [#244, p.63]

Deerhoof are as playful, inventive and delightful as ever. [May 2025, p.63]

It's clever stuff, but if it's sweat you want, you're probably better off going for a run. [Mar 2011, p.48]

The payoff comes about a third of the way in, when the spirit of Foghat makes an unexpected appearance and everything goes boogie. [Oct 2013, p.55]

Almost by definition it's a mixed bag, but Grime 2.0 intrigues because it suggests this music was never strictly codified. [May 2013, p.54]

There's some seriously accomplished musicianship here. [Aug 2014, p.55]

Pieces Of A Man is coherent, marrying the raw energy of trap with jazz-funk inspired beats. Black Milk’s instrumentals “Stress Fracture” and “Gwendolynn’s Apprehension” are remarkably complex both melodically and rhythmically. [Jan 2019, p.80]

It's like being in a church of flesh, a satin abattoir, an immersive video game of obsessive love--sickly, addictive, raw. [Aug 2012, p.46]

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]

Ancestral Star occasionally sounds so close to that group's 2005 Hex; Or Printing In The Infernal Method that it sometimes feels like a magnificently constructed reworking. [Nov 2010, p.64]

Lamp Lit Prose sparkles with ideas even as it gets its groove on with a more developed version of his electronic R&B album last year. Everything here should be too much but with several albums under his belt, somehow Longstreth can as easily shift from one style to another as run them both at the same time. [Aug 2018, p.65]

It works enough to be a strangely enjoyable and admirable record. [Jun 2012, p.48]

Even more than on past outings, Kirby seems drawn to a sense of disconnect, refusing to let the elements of each track interact with one another. Yet Dead Empires is also rich with experiments and surprises. [Nov 2013, p.60]

Monument Builders itself could do with some of that malfunction, some warped colour and cathode ray snow. [Dec 2016, p.69]

They [Born On A Gangster Star and Quazarz Vs The Jealous Machines] can be appreciated either together or apart from each other. [Aug 2017, p.58]

Ultimately, though, it’s a portrait of the artist on permanent vacation. [Jun 2018, p.72]

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]