The album flags a bit in the middle but maintains enough propulsion to easily glide past those saggy moments. [Dec 2023, p.34]

For their third album, Githead - that's Wire's Colin Newman, Robin 'Scanner' Rimbaud, and Malka Spigel and Max Franken of Israeli post-punkers Minimal Compact - have partly abandoned the sly hooks of 2007's well-named Art Pop In favour of a leaner and more ambient approach. [Jan 2010, p. 112]

The slick sequel starts strongly.... Alas, the album then falls into a compentent but monotonous groove of priapic Prince-old-porno-funk, its minor flashes of OutKast-style irreverence ultimately overshadowed by routine reto-pastiche. [June 2008, p.99]

A wicked, weathered stream of sinewy, shadowy songs. [Mar 2002, p.102]

Temples seem to be in the thrall of Tame Impala's retro-futurism, but their in-studio moves fall short of Kevin Parker's aerodynamic wizardry, although they come tantalisingly close on "You're Either On Something," nimbly balancing delicacy and majesty. [Oct 2019, p.36]

There's a sombre edge to almost all these songs, even when the Hammond organ is wailing and the backbeat is a mile wide.... Morello's presence is crucial to the tone of the album. [Feb 2014, p.65]

We Got A Love rarely deviates from DFA's tried-and-tested disco-punk template. [Apr 2014, p.81]

Producer Jari Haapalainen successfully blends it all together, but Karolina Komstedt's vacant vocals remian glacially unmoved. [Jul 2010, p.104]

Languid without being lazy. [Mar 2005, p.93]

Arcade Dynamics is marginally more developed than previous releases. [Mar 2011, p.88]

This is a good, not great record, which you probably don't need to hear, unless you're already immersed in Fennesz's world. [Oct 2012, p.79]

You long for a bit more of the ardour of "Fine Squad." [Mar 2015, p.73]

Adds extra confidence and clarity to the same basic ingredients. [Oct 2005, p.107]

The duo's sophisticated feel fro arrangement, the primary point of interest, is on display throughout. [Feb 2014, p.71]

Inhabiting the same last-dance ballroom as Portishead's noir torch songs, this monument to ennui is prettily impressive. [Mar 2006, p.90]

A collection of unabashedly hooky '80s-informed rock songs. [Mar 2019, p.30]

The New York threesome have just about enough tunes to pull it off. [Jun 2009, p.93]

Ironically, the straight country of Jessi Colter's 'I'm Looking For Blue Eyes,' suits her best, while the busted drones and banjos of Julie Miller's 'Orphan Train' suggest there is better still to come. [Apr 2008, p.98]

His tunes have taken a tougher, more urban tone, with stand-outs 'The Turtle' and 'Basic Mountain' building to hard edged concrete peaks, drenched in acid Rephlex bleeps. [Jun 2009, p.85]

More structured than its predecessors. [Apr 2007, p.102]

Bjork's vocals are a hypnotic midnight whisper, a continuation of Medulla's vocal layering techniques. [Sep 2005, p.117]

The resulting LP is a shambling, intermittently engaging sprawl, the songs jammed with verbiage, the lead vocals spread among the principals, most of whom make Oberst's frayed, wobbly singing seem Bono-esque by comparison. The LP's saving grace is the dexterous playing of the ensemble. [Jun 2009, p.95]

Music at its most passionate. [Sep 2002, p.112]

Recalls the more amusing moments of Momus and Stereolab. [Nov 2002, p.116]

Casts them as confident modern classicists. [Dec 2003, p.126]

Their drowsy lullabies and minor-key melodies are now so commonplace... that much of it seems unremarkable. [Dec 2005, p.109]

Songs like 'Turkey Sandwich' are nothing new, exactly, but win out on guts. [Jul 2009, p.91]

The BFB have constructed thier new LP around the theme of "being nice to people," although their lyrics drip with irony and thier musical tone is gruff. [May 2009, p.79]

Jeniferever rise above cliches with 10 beautiful songs that take the Sigur Rose blueprint and expand on it. [May 2009, p.89]

While a large proportion of these Swords are decidedly blunt blades, a few could have easily found a place on a greatest hits.

Still present is a populist edge that, while occasionally somewhat saccharine, shakes out some great choruses. [Feb 2010, p.90]

Their debut is a good deal more engaging thgan any number of Bloc Party or Daeth Cab For Cutie comparisons might imply, however apt. [Mar 2010, p.88]

The resultant music is quite compelling. [Oct 2010, p.101]

Hawk's followup hints at a talent that will outlive hipster buzz, drawing not just from hazy '80s nostalgia, but from the artists who populated his own youth. [Aug 2011, p.93]

There are echoes of Jenny Lewis or perhaps the Swedish pop of Hello Saferide, but the mix of sass and vulnerability adds a melancholy air to the understated twang of "It's Our Time." [Nov 2011, p.94]

Music For Confluence lacks imagination and dynamic, with gentle fuzz and weak violin failing to conjure any sort of atmosphere. [Jan 2012, p.81]

It's certainly easy to believe that these sublime pieces could have inspired such a profound reaction [from director Cameron Crowe]. [Apr 2012, p.81]

Phantom Limb mine a solid seam of Southern soul, rock, country, and gospel. [Mar 2012, p.97]

Deez's second album ups the wonky'n'witty ante with out sacrificing heart or tunes. [Mar 2013, p.70]

His talent remains unquestionable, even when drawing on a six-hour, piano dominated Abbey Road session. [Mar 2013, p.72]

The sole new composition, "Prungen," is a funked-out blast of galloping synth arpeggios, while the terrific "Music! Dance! Drama!" fires up a cyclotron of raucous electro-punk fanfares and weapons-grade xylophone riffs. [Jul 2013, p.77]

[An] ambitious, stylish left-turn. [Feb 2014, p.72]

It's all delivered with gusto and buckets of charm. [Jan 2014, p.76]

While everything is played with gusto and the songs themselves are well constructed, the album perhaps lacks enough surprises or detours from its sturdy formula to make it especially memorable. [May 2014, p.80]

This is another uplifting, honest set. [Apr 2014, p.71]

A clutch of the group's best songs are strangely omitted from the setlist, while slower numbers like "Beneath Wild Wings" tend to expose a lack of subtlety. But at full pelt, Howlin Rain are a match for anyone. [May 2014, p.76]

Cosmic trim to these sturdy songs is mostly provided by keys man Adam MacDougall; odd, though, that his Moog gurgles are often closer to '70s novelty records than anything more notionally psych. [May 2014, p.78]

They're best when dialing it down a few notches. [May 2015, p.75]

Frontman Fred Macpherson's pithy musings on London's hipster demi-monde can be excruciating when set against his band's bog-standard stadium churn. [Sep 2015, p.81]

It's the thickness of these synth textures and the intensity of the sounds that create a thoroughly immersive experience. [Jul 2016, p.78]

Half of a worthy comeback. [Oct 2016, p.25]

Major Stars risk the ridiculous to try and access the sublime, somehow reaching the latter every time. [Jan 2017, p.25]

The band aren't afraid to diversity. [Feb 2017, p.30]

While its faintly folkish, alt.pop songs fail to reveal any feral side to the bassist of Bombay Bicycle Club, they prove his compositional chops while radiating a pleasantly frosted glow. [Mar 2017, p.40]

A more layered dreampop with faux-epic tendencies. [Apr 2017, p.30]

This discreet sense of procession is very much in keeping with Staples' MO on Arrhythmia, be it via the loops and beats of "A New Real" or the hushed calm of the exquisite "Memories Of Love." [Aug 2018, p.35]

Despite the presence of Josh Hager and Jeff Friedl--of Devo's current lineup--ShadowParty never quite eclipse the shadow cast by the band's other two members, Tom Chapman and Phil Cunningham, who bring with them baggage from their New order day jobs. [Sep 2018, p.36]

Across the record's 12 tracks, it's never entirely clear what the group are aiming for: anthemic indie rock by numbers, more introspective songs or something heavier. [Sep 2019, p.26]

A little too polite in places, O'Donnell's piano-and-strings pastorals deepen in gravitas with repeat listens. [May 2020, p.31]

A lachrymose collection of Elvis Costello-rootsy, mid-Atlantic songs expertly constructed but running rather low on stardust. [Jul 2020, p.36]

True, there are covers of Tom Petty's "Christmas All Over Again" and Lennon's "Happy Xmas (War Is Over)," but it's informed by the general spirit of seasonal holidays, which is as much reflective as celebratory. [Jan 2021, p.23]

While Fagen and co show no interest in wholly reinventing Steely Dan’s most beloved songs, the live setting does add a vital spark to them.

The deviations from the general upbeat mood vary - "Louder" is a clunky if well-meaning protest song, but the melancholy piano-led ballad "Marvelous To Me" is a thing of downbeat beauty. [Mar 2022, p.32]

It's a cryptic approach, to say the least. [Mar 2022, p.31]

The arrangements - as ever - are more Les Misérables than Les Cousins, but her voice and her writing have lost non e of their chandelier sparkle. [Apr 2022, p.26]

There’s a sweet sadness to the end-of-relationship duet with Dave Gahan on “Stop Speaking”, but while the melancholy romantic meditations of other tracks can also be initially intriguing, the songs then lack the peaks and troughs to keep you from disengaging. [Jun 2022, p.29]

TV Priest remain wedded to a very contemporary wading-through-treacle post-punk feel but at times add a little space to the music rather than surrendering to claustrophobia. [Nov 2022, p.38]

These nostalgic confessionals stray into navel-gazing at times, but in a way that feels authentically adolescent. [Sep 2023, p.34]

Even if the orchestrations on their first album together are more sentimental than cinematic, father and son harmonise gloriously, finding new emotions within 20th-century standards. [Review of the Year 2024, p.31]

The mix of prog, neo-classical and folkish influences, with Anderson's flute as ubiquitous as ever, is exactly as you'd expect, yet he has plenty to say of contemporary relevance in songs about Israel ("Over Jerusalem"), climate change ("Savannah Of Paddington Green") and the avarice of politicians ("Dunsinane Hill"). [Apr 2025, p31]

An ambitious collaborative affair showcasing female and non-binary musicians. [Jun 2025, p.33]

This is full of melodies that feel effortless and instantly classic. [Jun 2012, p.83]

The music is mid-paced pummel of snarling electronic bass and beats through which Liam Howlett's nutty synths occasionally sail like a haunted bumper car. [May 2015, p.78]

A palatial record. [Mar 2009, p.89]

The Strange Boys have added some muscle to the general mix. [Dec 2011, p.83]

On first listen, this follow-up is less impressive, but subtle melodies soon sugar the melancholy of 'Glory to the Owlrd' and 'Happiness Won Me over.' [June 2008, p.100]

Gena Olivier's pallid vocals sound frozen stiff rather than disaffectedly cool by the halfway stage. [Feb 2005, p.78]

Disappointingly, F&M's fifth album reinforces the trio's constant strength and weaknesses. [Jun 2014, p.78]

The writing is strong and Pisano's wracked vocals have pleasing echoes of Justin Vernon, but neither quality is best served by a creative aesthetic which often subjects perfectly good songs to the aural equivalent of waterboarding. [Oct 2011, p.95]

Intricately layering a wide array of sounds, from piano to field recordings, over seven dreamlike pieces, the duo's third album is at times pacific (in every sense), at others deeply unsettling, especially when they run tapes backwards over the end of the 11-minute "Daydreaming So Early". [Dec 2009, p. 108]

Stone's impeccable vocal ensures that her past glories thrive on this new frontier. [Mar 2010, p.96]

Sharing lead vocals with the immaculately Hardy-esque Darcy Conroy, Alary concocts wistful chansons and widescreen waltzes with an elegance and deadpan humour that evokes Sebastien Tellier, Stereolab and Matthew Herbert. [Feb 2011, p.84]

A 1980s vibe predominates, at times in a most agreeable Japan-like kind of way; at times a disagreeably Phil Collinsy one. [Oct 2011, p.90]

The contrived newer stuff suggests she should stop trying to impress US hip hop royalty. [Mar 2007, p.91]

Lacks not only the impressive guestlist [of its predecessor]... but also the sparkle. [Nov 2006, p.99]

They've come up with a non-vocal album that surprises and delights. [Nov 2008, p.112]

There's a country edge to songs like "Slick Delta Queen," "Exile Rag" and the surprisingly sweet "Bridge City Rose," the latter making a nice break from the self-centred tone of "Fake Magic Angel" and the Lou Reed-bitterness of "Gold Calf Moan." [Mar 2018, p.24]

Where her other albums are more varied, this all-guns-blazing pop portfolio is a touch wearying. [Mar 2016, p.80]

Another melodic, meticulous, faintly redundant restoration job. [Jul 2006, p.90]

Despite her vaguely regal poise, and a songwriting crew including Jake Shears, Calvin Harris and Tim-from-Keane, Aphrodite is dismayingly anonymous pop-trance. [Aug 2010, p.84]

A measured set. [Jan 2017, p.23]

Gillian Welch and David Rawlings and Jack White outclass the flat cap and braces brigade. [Mar 2015, p.84]

The likes of "Be Yourself" lack much of a dimension beyond 'Let's rock out!' [Aug 2005, p.105]

There's not much here that departs from the blueprint Cobain establishment. Still, though, it's an undeniably exciting listen. [Aug 2015, p.80]

It's a muscular and alluringly saturnine record with a vintage sheen, which occasionally tilts at the Bad Seeds but sounds more like a wracked Richard Hawley. [Dec 2015, p.71]

Tobacco's stew of narcoleptic beats, tape experiments, Vocoder mutterings and vintage synths in states of distress has lost some potency in the nine years since BMSR's classic Dandelion Gum, but remains wholly idiosyncratic. [Sep 2016, p.81]

There is the odd suggestion here of a campfire Mercury Rev, but nothing to spook former fans. [Jun 2009, p.92]

The group's fourth, recorded in Berlin, pulls a few new shapes but a lack of any truly transcendent moments suggests a group destined to remain middleweights. [Sep 2010, p.83]