Live In Cuxhaven 1976 may not dispel the impression that these live records are mainly for Can devotees, but it also confirms that the last word about their volatile processes has yet to be said. [Nov 2022, p.77]

Nostalgialator is exhilarating, eschewing rhetorical rap fury in favour of a satirical masqued ball of capitalist obsessions. [#246, p.52]

Brassy and direct, it looked north and west, toward the coastal Caribbean and into the forest. Kicking carimbó, bangué, siriá and other up-country sounds are ably documented on Jambú. [Aug 2019, p.67]

Lil B's slower, more ruminative delivery here feels far braver for being more exposed and vulnerable. [Dec 2010, p.50]

When the singing’s done the guitar returns, its tone so stretched and distorted that you can’t quite tell whether it’s purging or celebrating the lyric’s outcome. Are the voice and guitar together or not? It’s complicated.

Offend Maggie is the sound of a group mind at work, deep in spontaneous collective play--but a kind of play taken very very seriously. As it should be. [Dec 2008, p.58]

There's everything to like about this release, but nothing to grip or to enage the senses... Stereolab have now defined and refined themselves to a point where they are almost invisible. [#211, p.53]

As with all Venetian Snares records, it can feel a bit of an endurance test, every possible permutation of kick, snare and hat cycled through in a breakneck half-hour until the listener is battered into submission. But Lanois and Funk elevate each other’s sound, bringing a certain unlikely prettiness to the album’s general mood of freneticism. [Jun 2018, p.64]

This is digital music with great big jammy thumbprints smeared all over it. The little glitches that patter through any one of UNIEQAV’s 12 instrumentals present the human at the heart of the machine.

“Simon Says” and “Pimpin’” prove she works well with Juicy J as long as he stays away from the mic. But “Hood Rat Shit” is the real highlight, a moment where for all the gory details her glee is more Dennis The Menace than Lil Kim. [Aug 2019, p.68]

If you’re after period reproductions of 1970s rustic rock, will please you just fine. [Jun 2018, p.65

Pram find themselves in a rather difficult position, where it doesn’t seem as if they’ve much room to evolve without changing the atmosphere of the project completely. That said, Across The Meridian tentatively paws at a few new directions even as it remains mindful of the group’s palette to date. [Jul 2018, p.57]

The record makes you marinate in Francis' omni-loathing, and the effect is one of catharsis rather than exhaustion. [#254, p.57]

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

Sings Olivia Newton-John is an album nobody asked for but that’s partly what makes it special. Hatfield’s garage-bound arrangements scuff up the squeaky clean originals to likeable effect and she throws herself into the project with gusto. [Jun 2018, p.65]

The album’s strongest moments aren’t the existential musings of “Marathon” or “World Of Flaws” but the palpable joy when he reflects on his everyday life in the ebullient title track, and the problematic yet precious local pride of “Brixton Baby”. [Mar 2018, p.47]

A general choogle drives most of the songs, the production tends to suppress any heavy metal impulses, while the dense arrangements also neuter Dawson’s gnarled improvisational guitar style, so extremes are essentially cancelled. It’s the most normal sounding record I’ve heard from either party, but the singer can’t help but entertain even within these surprisingly prim surroundings. [Dec 2021, p.48]

Possibly the most daring record she's ever made... [but] Medulla is not a complete success. [#247, p.53]

Drift is thoughtfully and firmly wistful, an acoustic fireside plainsong with odd interference from a distant radio and neurotic strings (“Sleep”) or, in the vein of a Yankee Tindersticks, practising delicate odes to the simple pleasures of touch, free time and, perhaps, the timefree. [Mar 2018, p.50]

A powerful and evocative sound journey. [Jan. 2012, p.64]

The opening track and first single “Hide & Seek” is built around a hard charging, hooky punk riff that sounds more like The Offspring than the Lizard of old. Yow’s vocals, higher in the mix than they used to be, have a nasal, sneering quality that’s more actorly than unhinged. [Sep 2024, p.50]

There's a subtle psychedelic twist in these phony hits that somehow renders the best of them compulsively listenable. [Oct 2012, p.64]

Wiley is one of those rare double-threats, blessed with both production and MCing abilities. [Jan. 2012, p.64]

The music has the translucent character of Ishibashi’s soundtracks for Ryusuke Hamaguchi’s films, where its resonance and weight change depending on the attention you pay to them. Ishibashi’s vocals are airy, light, almost noncommittal, but this only adds another layer of enigma and malleability. [Apr 2024, p.54]

Remember Me lacks depth, being essentially a collection of keg party crowd pleasers, but its biggest singles are undeniable. [Jun 2014, p.63]

Tobacco’s beats sound like a mescaline trip through a haunted theme park from Scooby Doo, while the Def Jux legend in a different lifetime raps about an eagle snacking on a cat like a churro. Pretty standard stuff really. [Mar 2019, p.65]

There's little in the way of structural reinvention, but then Oldham has never really been a sonics man, and the success of this album rests on one's appreciation of his songwriting alone. [Oct 2008, p.52]

No album in hiphop history has been less in need of a padding. [Jun 2014, p.63]