Volume 3 is terrific when M. Ward's heavier production subsides and Deschanel's voice freely suggest swinging from lampposts in a romantic swoon. [Jun 2013, p.78]

Just prepare for a Rogue Wave deluge. [June 2008, p.102]

A sampling tour de force, but short on soul. [Apr 2006, p.112]

A warm, subtle set of midtempo cruisers. [May 2006, p.114]

The material on what's intended to be her big breakthrough is however unispired. [Mar 2009, p.80]

Laswell provides an accomplished, opulent dub setting. But it's at blandish odds with the lo-tech wildness of Perry's own original Black Ark recordings. [Jul 2011, p.93]

Pounding opener "When The Drugs Kick In," the workaday wonder of "Everyday," and a churning, blistering cover of Neil Young's "Southern Pacific" highlight a fine return to form. [Jul 2013, p.73]

From The Very Depths is unreconstructed but brutally effective. [Mar 2015, p.84]

The outcome is a raucous, rough-and-tumble blues-rock album. [Jun 2015, p.71]

A fairly straightforward indie offering, covering mid-tempo jangle with layers of guitars, and lyrics about growing up and suburban escape. [Oct 2016, p.25]

While the change in the band's output is not revolutionary, its subtle shift proves fruitful. [Jul 2019, p.37]

His return is an oddly subdued affair. [Aug 2019, p.35]

These shimmery reworkings of Cave classics including "The Ship Song" and "Red Right Hand" are pleasingly free of both solemn reverence and ironic kitsch. [Feb 2022, p.33]

Fascinating, though fans of their later work are advised to approach with caution. [Dec 2022, p.48]

If 2005's "Z" flirted with cautiously with funk synths and a more direct pop sound, Evil Urges makes it a full-blown, messy tryst.

Some of the music here illustrates the limitations of the formula, sometimes lapsing into lumpy blues-rock or new-age noodling. [May 2016, p.70]

Sometimes enthralling, sometimes throwaway. [Nov 2006, p.120]

Vincent Belorgey’s obsession with buffed-up synths and corny lyrics earnestly sung (“Reborn” by Romuald, “Renegade” by Cautious Clay) does pay off, but the air-tight production and endless cascade of saccharine arpeggios – plus a lovesick Sébastien Tellier pining on “Goodbye” – lays on thick the sentimental shtick. [Jul 2022, p.29]

Steve plays all the instruments, aside from drums, and records on studio equipment of comparably venerable vintage to Steve himself. This fundamentalist approach inevitably places a huge burden on the singing and songwriting.

Overall, however, the reaction is a resounding "Huh?" [May 2011, p.103]

Few of the 23 artists involved here resist the shackles of taste. [May 2014, p.81]

It seems relocating from Vienna to L.A., getting married and becoming a father has nudged the British-born producer-performer closer t conventional R&B electro-pop on his second album, with mostly positive results. [Feb 2017, p.38]

Their ragtag religious signifiers, stretching from the Mediterranean to Bengal, feel like gap year blog entries, and Cisneros' wizened sage delivery is ludicrous. [Aug 2012, p.77]

A discordant, but strangely beautiful, experiment from the outer fringes of pop. [May 2011, p.93]

Adrian Thaws is another decent entry in the latterday Trickypedia, rolling along on circular bluesfunk grooves and furtive whisper-croak boy-girl vocals. [Oct 2014, p.79]

Her best record yet. [Jun 2002, p.107]

The music is largely uninteresting, a bland hotchpotch of dub-flavoured electronic styles. [Feb 2024, p.34]

Hayes sounds comfortably cocooned in her familiar musical skin with little need to venture outside the safety zone. [Nov 2012, p.75]

If anything, it can feel a little too smoothed out, and some more grit in the production wouldn't go astray. [Apr 2016, p.71]

Suuns have never been slouches in the mutant kosmische department, but the John Congleton-produced Hold/Still blasts them into a new dimension. [Jun 2016, p.81]

Tasjan has a pop at contemporary politics on the crooning "The Truth Is So Hard To Believe," but is stronger when he tackles domestic concerns. [Oct 2018, p.34]

Musically this is arguably his most touching work since the early 2000s. [Oct 2019, p.27]

No less viscerally thrilling [than its predecessor] but pursues a number of ear-bogglingly unlikely paths. [Feb 2005, p.73]

Shows Lali Puna's more adventurous side. [Aug 2005, p.110]

It's frequently infuriating and sometimes amateurish, but nevertheless adds up to the most succinct introduction yet to the wonderul warped world of the Friedbergers. [Oct 2008, p.86]

The snarling Creedence-style rock is typical, but Golightly also does beautifully as a balladeer on "River Of Tears." [Jun 2011, p.85]

It's clear that if he wants to, he could easily command proceedings alongside his pals Walls and Four Tet. [Sep 2012, p.75]

It's a sequel of sorts to Democrazy, but sounds infinitely more accomplished--undoubtedly part of the technological point that he's making here. [Mar 2011, p.91]

Perfectly pleasant, but a little bloodless. [Jun 2012, p.80]

Immersive and claustrophobic, Ruby Red seems designed for solitary listening under headphones. [Aug 2013, p.72]

While he recreates his past modes, he can't recapture the audacious conceits or raptures of Liberation and Promenade. [Jul 2006, p.90]

In their own way and in their own time, it's progress. [Oct 2011, p.95]

The Brothers prove they can still poleaxe a dancefloor with a well-aimed barrage of strobe-ing electro-house.

Like its predecessor, the most impressive aspect of The Enemy Chorus is not so much the breadth of its references as the tumescent, head-spinning harmonies. [Feb 2007, p.74]

The pleasant surprise on their 15th album is how proficient they've become, without surrendering their innocence along the way. [Aug 2011, p.98]

Only on the superb, slow-burning "Gravity" does he really sound like himself. [Nov 2006, p.119]

Though Lucky One is his first collection of orginal material in seven years, it's still rooted firmly in Malo's familiar enthusiasms. [Apr 2009, p.91]

The less mannered material shines brightest. [Apr 2012, p.75]

Frankie Rose's 2012 tour de force Interstellar cuts the same fabric slightly more elegantly, maybe, but Blouse's frills are anything but cheap. [Dec 2013, p.65]

Andy Gill's guitar work is still distinctive and angular on tracks like "Toreador" and "Don't Ask Me," but the band seem intent on lending the old with the new. [May 2019, p.23]

Too often they sound like Sting fronting Counting Crows. [Jul 2009, p.93]

On Tomorrow, In A Year, The Knife have reinforced everything that makes them such a brilliant, endearing group. [Apr 2010, p.93]

His homespun take on soft rock and '80s Continental pop balances languid dreaminess with a subtle virtuosity. [Dec 2018, p.27]

Some of the beats do feel a little dated, and sometimes veer toward the rigidity of trip hop. [May 2012, p.69]

This stone-age jalopy has a definite theatrical charm--malevolent Nick Cave-ish narratives, vicious basslines, squally guitar and touches of honking saxophone, all executed with a visceral energy that's almost painful to behold. [May 2014, p.67]

On much of This Is Steve, he comes off as a one man jam band. [Feb 2017, p.24]

It's effective, but the lyrics and the slightly mannered vocals never really rise above the level of jokey pastiche. [Sep 2011, p.91]

The superior [of the two albums]. [Dec 2004, p.142]

Best of all are the lyrics, with fragments of nursery rhymes, playground chants, witty wordplay and light hearted braggadocio which, rather like The Go! Team, will leave you with a big, stupid smile on your face. [Oct 2007, p.101]

It resembles The Boredoms in its sense of sonic bravery, although the suspicion lingers that more focus is required before they can produce another record of the calibre of 2002's "Beaches And Canyons." [May 2009, p.79]

While the fuzz-filled punk vibe is still present and correct, there's also a hard rock thread running through Overdrive. [May 2014, p.80]

Their true talent lies in creating songs replete with dreamy, late summer melancholy, shrouded in dusky reverb and topped off with Justin Young's oddly emotive quaver.[Apr 2011, p.84]

The sound is urgent and instinctive. [Dec 2006, p.124]

Pushing too hard, then or maybe not hard enough. [Jun 2012, p.79]

Smith sounds revitalised (and often very amused), delivering his most emphatic vocals in years. [Mar 2007, p.76]

Their wispy, diaphanous reworking of The Cure’s 'Just Like Heaven' suggests the Watson formula could travel far.

High profile fans like Jeff Beck, Kid Rock and Warren Haynes help trombone shorty create what he calling "supafunk rock," a decidedly unsexy, sub-Chili Peppers amalgam with pointless horn riffs. [Nov 2011, p.98]

Aside from the pleasantly Britpoppy "50,000 Kilowatts" and "Drown All The Witches," This is fast, fun, and full of piss and vinegar than one might expect from such seasoned campaigners. [Dec 2014, p.71]

Production-wise, his hallmark arrhythmic snares are now sounding a little rote nearly a decade after their inception. [Aug 2011, p.104]

Although the songs are both traditional and modern, the mood of gentle awe and foreboding wonder is all of a piece. [Nov 2006, p.102]

Wainwright’s vocals imbue the material with a mixture of world-weariness, compassion and delight, qualities that didn’t loom large in the emotional lexicon of his younger self.

With experiments in disco, dubstep and drum'n'bass all unmistakably Underworld, Barking is the sound of veterans re-energised. [Oct 2010, p.

What once seemed an aesthetic springboard for the band to make truly great music now seems rather like retreading old ground. [Jun 2017, p.33]

So wild and stripped-down it makes The White Stripes sound like Yes. [Jan 2004, p.102]

While not quite a handbrake turn, No witch shows a band moving out of the woods into wider spaces. [Apr 2011, p.77]

Fairly mundane. [Aug 2006, p.86]

Roaring 20s provides cod-reggae backing for Jordan Stephens and Harley Alexander-Sule to discuss the impact of social media and the nature of fame. [Oct 2013, p.74]

While there's nothing here to equal his career-changing hit "P's And Q's," opener "Hail" comes close with its down-and-dirty signature riff. [Apr 2016, p.75]

The cumulative effect is upbeat jubilation. [Oct 2018, p.30]

This traverses dancehall, lovers rock and jungle, and adds in more UK-centric bass styles, with some success. [Sep 2011, p.96]

The very wonderful Eyeland finds them poised between the familiar and the less so. [Jul 2016, p.75]

Works best when it diverts furthest from the originals. [Aug 2022, p.25]

At best, Varshons is a joy forever. Even at worst, it’s a forgiveable, even likeable, labour of love.

Once the shock subsides, it's quite charming. [Apr 2011, p.89]

More of this arch British sourness next time. Please. [Oct 2012, p.86]

The flirtations with more dissonant sounds throughout also point to a welcome eagerness to roughen up the latest results of Surfer Blood's ongoing quest to find the happy medium between the Pixies and The Hollies. [Mar 2017, p.40]

Aokohio maintains that momentum [from 2017's Moh Lhean], even if it is typically scattershot, haphazard, surreal and episodic, featuring short bursts of beautiful melody, soul-searching found sounds, unsettling atmospherics and dark humour. [Sep 2019, p.37]

Art Brut's fourth album marries attractively sloppy garage-rock riffing to boozy bad-sex confessionals and bittersweet self-examination. [Jun 2011, p.77]

For the most part, Green and Shapiro come over like a couple working their troubles in group therapy through gritted teeth. [Feb 2013, p.73]

He has gone for the full trip hop/psych-rock concept album--a major hazard given such previous near-missees as UNKLE's Psyence Fiction--but it's not at all bad. [Apr 2003, p.118]

The musicianship is slick enough, but if you thought their salt-of-the-earth fiddly folkie pose was a bit iffy, this is a whole new level of phoney. [Apr 2011, p.89]

Really, though, the whole--say, the bracing rock of 'Take Back The City'--is more than the sum of these parts, and underlines this album as a success in its field.

When the guitarist and singer pairs their familiar hard-boiled, in-the-red licks with Latin rhythms and transcendent B3 organ flights, the combination is revelatory. [Dec 2015, p.71]

The likes of the title track and "Sleep On The Floor" are pleasingly Ryan Adams/Gaslight Anthem-ish; elsewhere, as on "Gun Song" and "Angela" it all gets a bit Mumford & Sons. [May 2016, p.76]

Despite a top-drawer guest list, this often feels like empty bombast. [Mar 2007, p.98]

It's probably the most personal project of Gilmour's career. [Apr 2006, p.108]

It's a guarded affair, drawing from the same muted palette of emotions throughout. [Mar 2013, p.73]

It contains some amusing satires, some witty observations about the degeneration of rap and some why-oh-why philosophising. Some beats are a little dated. [Dec 2008, p.94]