It blasts a path for an album of gentler (but nevertheless raucous) Americana-rock evocation of the likes of Lucero or The Damnwells. [Aug 2018, p.35]

Its fuggy electronics and lyrical non sequiturs not giving up their secrets easily. Still, a few moments stand out. [Nov 2018, p.32]

There are lots of lightly retro arrangements and nods to 1960s bubblegum pop. [Jan 2019, p.22]

The result is endearingly scattershot. [Dec 2018, p.39]

Treading familiar terrain on a succession of tracks that adhere to his comfort zone of mannered electro-pop. [Sep 2022, p.29]

McCulloch's misplaced his mystique, and resembles a pub singer with an over-extended tab, while Sergeant's guitar lines settle lazily at long-drawn borders. [Oct 2005, p.94]

The intensity and drive of the guitars--when they hit--matches the passion and righteousness of O'Connor's mesmerising delivery. [Sep 2014, p.80]

Polished but pedestrian. [Jul 2016, p.78]

At 36 minutes, Preliminaires is slight and covers-heavy, but points to a promising new career phase for Iggy as Detroit’s answer to Serge.

Long stretches of listless strumming may test your patience, but the reward is the gorgeous psychedelic folk reverie of 11-minute closer "Do Soto De Son," as hypnotically lovely as anything that they've laid down since. [Feb 2010, p.79]

Ronson fatigue will probably prove his undoing, but this is a very good album. [May 2009, p.87]

It's all far more familiar than might be expected. [Nov 2005, p.111]

Singer John Philpot's boyish sighs and teen-romance lyrics feel a little lightweight and non-committal, but the promised groove element plays dividends during the album's second half. [May 2012, p.67]

True to form, Love And War contains its share of impeccably wrought arena-country singalongs, like "Last Time For Everything" and "One Beer Can," along with the occasional bite at expectations, and the hands that feed him. [Jul 2017, p.36]

This is audaciously modern in its textural absorption of outre sounds from the 21st-century dance underground. [Dec 2002, p.136]

This is an album dominated by the two remaining Isley Brothers. Ronald Isley's distinctive tenor groan sounds particularly good on slowies such as "Mercy Mercy Me" and Leon Thomas' "Let The Rain Fall On Me." [Sep 2017, p.30]

On songs like "Ring Of Gold," the Llamas essay a beautifully melancholic take on sunshine pop that's pure and true. [May 2011, p.88]

It's an austere, difficult listen, but it's frequently thrilling. [Dec 2018, p.33]

His more emphatic, aggressive muse is unique and subtly disquieting. [Jul 2011, p.96]

After soothing us with smoothness, this slick excursion into semi-unlistenable easy listening sounds fantastic. [Aug 2014, p.75]

The melancholy underscoring even the android-sex jam feels both personal and more than a little musty. [Aug 2016, p.80]

It's a faintly sparkling, wistful listen, where from her vocal monotone, you wonder if she's mocking those sexually stereotypical longings. Perhaps that's optimistic, but either way, it's satisfying that she's taken a different tack. [Mar 2011, p.98]

Bad Love takes a less romantic view of life, but sonically, the retro filter is still very much on. [Aug 2015, p.81]

The multi-ethnic Jessica 6 blend disco, soul, house and melodramatic ballads with both skill and affection. [Jul 2011, p.87]

If the results are amiable rather than arresting, at this far down the road, that's surely enough. [Apr 2015, p.75]

He stretches out into these songs, inhabiting them comfortably and casually, almost always finding a way to make the familiar sound fresh. [Aug 2018, p.32]

Wreckorder;s main virtues--decent songs, solidly played--are also its downfall, and you end up wondering why Healy bothered taking a vacation only to stay at home. [Nov 2010, p.90]

The humourless skits drag... but somehow the Handsome Boy charm still wins through. [Dec 2004, p.137]

You can occasionally hear [Adem's and Hebden's] trademark sounds punctuate these proggy, Tortoise-like instrumentals. [Jul 2007, p.102]

The highlights are splendid: a brass-embellished "Red Hill Mining Town", a languid piano-led "Beautiful Day", a near-calypso "Miracle of Joey Ramone". [Apr 2023, p.38]

The results, while hardly ground-breaking, are moving and accomplished. [Sep 2010, p.102]

As always, her lyrics are unambiguous - too on-the-nose for some - but there's an admirable unfussiness to it all. [Apr 2020, p.23]

Outbursts takes them full circle, back to their salad days as a melodic, acoustic folk-pop duo on simple, ringing, uplifting songs such as "Sea Change," "never Stops" and "Will Power," while the Radiohead-influenced "Radio Silence" hint at a grander ambition. [Apr 2010, p.106]

There's a nervy, frayed soulfulness to these songs. [Feb 2007, p.76]

The songs are neither dogmatic nor whacked out. Like fine pop writers before him, Oberst's simply wrestling with something troubling he feels thick in the air. [Feb 2005, p.72]

Mark Ronson will be looking elsewhere for his next single. [July 2008, p.115]

Johns eliminates the melodramatic slow builds and punches up the groove quotient, much as he did for Ryan Adams on the similarly melancholy Heartbreaker. [Mar 2011, p.85]

It's not earthshaking, but there's nothing wrong with simply being likable. [Sep 2014, p.69]

There are moments where the strings and backing vocals lurch into sickly sweet. But at least half of this album successfully unites two of America's greatest songwriters. [Oct 2010, p.109]

Too much here is self-congratulatory sloganeering. [Nov 2004, p.110]

Spinnerette sees the former Distillers leader at the head of a band not dissimilar to that run by her husband, Josh Homme. [Jul 2009, p.101]

Bristl[es] with wit, energy and nifty hooks. [May 2007, p.99]

The skeletal bluesy shuffles are easy to follow, but the likes of 'Avalanch In B' suggest a band lyrically happy to keep the unpleasantness in their woodshed under wraps. [Oct 2008, p.81]

A hazy, boozy affair that threatens to collapse at any time but is buoyed by good-times psychedelic pub-rock chuugers. [Oct 2008, p.105]

It's so generic it could be sold in a supermarket basics range. [Apr 2012, p.83]

A highly assured debut. [Apr 2015, p.75]

Beguiling mix of gothic Southern soul and outlaw country. [Dec 2018, p.27]

Restraint didn't run in the family, perhaps, but a flair for interpretation did. [Mar 2019, p.30]

Their failure to shift pace from a relentlessly wistful chug makes for an oddly exhausting listening experience. [Oct 2005, p.98]

A triumphant, ridiculous mess. [Dec 2014, p.73]

The tunes are so fragmentary, it resembles a '60s hi-fi demonstration disc. [Jul 2005, p.89]

There are overdubs, Auto-Tune and, most conspicuously of all, songs have been overlaid with Animal sounds. [Jul 2016, p.68]

Sounds astoundingly like an album from his '70s heyday.

My Love IS A Bulldozer is of a similar vintage [as 2005's Rossz Csillag Alatt Szuletett]. [Aug 2014, p.79]

Most of it so beautiful and effortless and easy, and no matter how much you want to look for ghoulish clues, it sounds like a great new record by someone spectacularly alive. [Jan 2012, p.83]

This is the sound of dashboard-tapping, local radio MOR. [Apr 2004, p.108]

Sonically exhilarating, yet the lyrical content remains as alluring as vomit on a Sunday morning pavement. [Sep 2001, p.104]

Son Volt have discovered a new sense of ambition, even abandon, on The Search. [May 2007, p.104]

Most of the radical reinterpretations land wide of T-Rextasy. [Oct 2020, p.39]

This, their sole album, is a curious beast, reminiscent of The Lounge Lizards or Devo, but defiantly its own thing. [Nov 2011, p.98]

They're marching to a '90s beat, like the internet never happened and fresh tools were never invented. [Jul 2011, p.77]

"Once I Was Pretty" and "The Disappearance Of My Youth" only confirm they know their territory and stick to it. [Feb 2010, p.93]

It's all rather tasteful and familiar, though, and a few jagged edges might snare passers-by. [Oct 2011, p.98]

Unashamed nostalgia at its very best. [Jun 2016, p.78]

For an album that strives to articulate the youthful pleasure-rush of love, drugs, and power, this is a worryingly pedestrian effort. [Mar 2007, p.75]

In spite (or maybe because) of their flaws, there's a vivid presence to tracks like "Heaven" and "My Little Universe" that fans will flock to and onlookers can't help but smile at. [May 2013, p.69]

[Guy Berryman's] radio-friendly approach adds depth without sacrificing detail. [Jun 2011, p.93]

It's an intriguing juxtaposition of the crunchy and the smooth. [May 2012, p.75]

It may just be a hobby or distraction, but on this showing they've got serious legs. [Jan 2013, p.80]

There's some fine original songwriting, particularly from Stills. [Jul 2016, p. 79]

When their formula works, like on the Brian-Wilson-joins-Radiohead splendour of "Thousand Thoughts" or the soul-weary, sci-fi lullaby "Blue Faces," they can sound untouchable. The lush, mechanised, bluesy trip-hop of "Driving Nails" and the sub-Underworld shouty gallop of "Stay Tribal" are diverting enough, too. But Archive's blind spot is a fondness for graceless pomp-rock. [Dec 2016, p.23]

If Time Clocks stays largely true to his love of power-trio blues-rock, he adds an inventive prog seasoning to "Mind's Eye" and "Curtain Call," and his determination to keep moving forward is commendable. [Jan 2022, p.21]

“Sex Magik” and “If We Get Caught” offer unashamedly lusty visions punctuated by agreeable glimpses of pop glitter. Otherwise, though, waspish, charismatically delivered lyrics are let down by workaday instrumental backing. [Jun 2022, p.25]

It's a shame that Night Light fails to cohere, especially since the suave, Roxy Music-like shades of Euro-disco in "Going Nowhere" and "In The Middle" suggest another route out of the stylistic quagmire of recent efforts. [Jan 2026, p.36]

While often inscrutable, it's seldom boring. [Jun 2006, p.110]

All good fun, but inevitably, without Taylor's Longing vocals, it feels a bit like playing a piano with the black keys removed. [Jan 2010, p. 112]

Air and Zero 7 are perhaps the nearest reference points. [Dec 2001, p.106]

Even the core audience may find this somewhere between a gee whizz and gee swizz. [Jun 2002, p.110]

Revolverlution is part-skewed retrospective and part-flawed experiment. [Jan 2003, p.126]

If polished solos from Steve Vai and Keith Emerson detract from the original film's clumsy verite, some lines can still elicit big chuckles. [Aug 2009, p.105]

Delrey loves rock'n'roll, but fuses it with drum machines, vintage synths and mischief. [Jan 2012, p. 84]

Echoes of Conor Oberst abound but the tunes lack the same charm, with even covers of Spacemen 3 (“Sound Of Confusion”) and Townes Van Zandt (“No Place To Fall”) unable to keep ears pricked up. [Dec 2024, p.37]

A jumbled record that veers from Screamadelica nostalgia to wobbly Bontempi soul to hushed acid-folk without ever quite finding a sound of its own. [Apr 2016, p.79]

Keys hasn't the charisma to indulge in the inter-song banter here, which breaks up any soulful flow that might develop despite her sharp, hectoring vocals. [Jan 2006, p.108]

The Rifles' standard formula is cliche-ridden but effective. [Dec 2011, p.95]

The inclusio0n of a live concert DVD from 2005 add some roughness but no reason not to just go out and buy whichever Sting albums you already like. [Nov 2011, p.98]

The uncluttered folk-rock arrangements and a voice that has acquired a richer Patina since her '90s country hits contribute to the loveliest and most profound album of her career. [Sep 2012, p.74]

A considerably more fully formed affair, rich in texture and atmosphere, though reprising Familial's aura of downbeat anxiety. [Nov 2014, p.83]

Conor O'Brien's luminous, emotionally resonant songs suit the warmth and intimacy of a live setting. [Feb 2016, p.84]

The lyrics seem to be obsessed with mortality and the effect it has on families. [Feb 2018, p.23]

Songs remain huge, sitting just the right side of overblown, ornate but never delicate, as if hewn from stainless steel. [Feb 2009, p.93]

Empire arrives with the same frazzled mien as Oasis' What's The Story (Morning Glory); alive with paranoia, delivered with an unshakeable self-belief. It's relentless stuff. [Sep 2006, p.80]

It's all very well intended, but seldom rises above the superficial. [Dec 2008, p.108]

Several of the songs seem performed out of affection rather than any sense of artistic adventure. [May 2007, p.90]

Guests Toy do their best to push things forward, but their propulsive ways merely emphasise Zeffira's absent voice. [Jan 2013, p.83]

A Thousand Mazes almost transcends its influences. Almost. [May 2011, p.91]

It's a savvy and sweetly skewed set. [Jun 2015, p.73]