Anima feels like a dive into an inner world, profoundly intimate and emotional even as it remains enigmatic and blurred at the edges. [Sep 2019, p.25]

Despite ts sometimes laidback nature, Sparkle Hard also bristles with an energy that proves he's got a place in the present, and a new accessibility that compromises none of his eccentricities. [Jun 2018, p.18]

Everything sounds deliciously grubby and unpolished.

A real grower. [Feb 2007, p.73]

There's now a sardonic wit to these break-up ballads. [Dec 2005, p.120]

Some of the guest vocalists on this LP approach this level of militancy but, in places Black To The future is also poppier and dancefloor friendly than anything Hutchinson has ever released. [Jun 2021, p.30]

As vital as any of their previous four LPs. ... All Nerve's highlights are myriad and frequent. [Apr 2018, p.24]

Lamentations furthers Basinski's reputation as an empathetic conduit of tragedy, mirroring societal tribulation as a necessary act of communal release. [Dec 2020, p.27]

Another stunning album. [Mar 2022, p.29]

Sophie Allison's ascent from teenage bedroom-pop savant to incisive chronicler of Gen Z angst hits a crescendo on Sometimes, Forever, an improbable but rewarding collaboration with Oneohtrix Point Never's Daniel Lopatin. [Aug 2022, p.33]

Tracks flirt with minimalism, spiky synth-pop and krautrock while creating an entirely original sonic language. [Review of the Year 2025, p.28]

It is easy to make music that is difficult and it is easy to make music that is beautiful. But it is quite the trick to be both at the same time, and on Hey What, Low mark themselves out as masters of the art. [Oct 2021, p.16]

[An] excellent debut album. [Nov 2014, p.73]

Highlights--there are many. ... Masterful. [Jul 2018, p.28]

Tracyanne Campbell still writes exquisite songs that don’t sacrifice melancholy for cleverness, and the band still provide smart arrangements that nod to country, Motown, Brill Building pop and other distinctly American sounds. [May 2024, p.32]

Thanks For The Dance has the intimacy that characterised Songs Of Leonard Cohen and Songs From A Room half a century ago, only rarely making the listener conscious of the resources at Adam Cohen's command. [Jan 2020, p.14]

The rootsy exuberance of Lullaby giving way to a mixture of romantic longing and social commentary. [Nov 2017, p.22]

It would be a magnificent way to end a magnificent career, but Simon probably has more ideas in him. [Jul 2023, p.20]

Even by their standards, Yoshimi Battles The Pink Robots is astonishing.... Plainly, this is music abnormally alive with possibilities. [Album of the Month, Aug 2002, p.96]

Negro Swan sees Hynes thoughtfully explore themes of racial and sexual identities and anxieties within songs that can be a s gorgeously vaporous as "Take Your Time," as ecstatically funky as "Charcoal Baby," or any state inbetween. [Oct 2018, p.24]

While Forsyth is mindful to retain his more spontaneous impulses, this wonderfully intense set is dominated by "Techno Top", a pounding 20-minute groove that recalls both Talking Heads and Television. [May 2019, p.29]

Fractures sound healed, leaving Sunflower Bean's classicist optimism intact. [Jul 2025, p.37]

An unambiguously terrific album. [Nov 2015, p.78]

In the space of an economical 40 minutes, crystallise everything that makes Crosby such an alluring, vital and still relevant force. [Sep 2021, p.22]

The old-timey accompaniment and Dalton's bluesy vocals perfectly suit Hardin's exquisitely sad songs. [Feb 2012, p.83]

A record where mature contemplation and a relative flexibility triumph over despondency and formula. [Mar 2004, p.94]

The charm here is in hearing a veteran band who still really enjoy the process of getting in a studio and playing music together. And it’s great, still.

Largely instrumental, but with some strong vocal hooks, this is music of ascension. [May 2016, p.76]

The shape and personality of a song are everything, and Elkington's arrangements serve these tracks superbly. [Dec 2025, p.26]

A truly singular record. [Mar 2026, p,33]

An outstanding record which you'd be unwise to miss. [Aug 2004, p.91]

He has clearly been galvanised creatively. What an excellent record. [Jul 2020, p.37]

Sable, Fable is an album that is felt as much as heard: the contraction of its opening tracks, the release of its love songs, the resolve of its closing numbers. [May 2025, p.34]

He sounds more like a loner--intense, precise, impervious to fashion--than ever. [Jul 2007, p.102]

Andrew Weatherall has been employed to help build Tarot Sport a beaty backbone and the results are brutally mesmerizing. [Nov 2009, p. 88]

12 richly expressionistic and mercurial songs shaped by a mix of indie rock, country both alt. and classic, ragtime, folk, powerpop and Southern Gothic, which flit between darkness and melancholy, hopefulness and light. [Nov 2025, p.38]

Their scratchily rhythmic guitar music with dour, sardonic vocals has proved immensely influential. [Dec 2006, p.114]

Snaith has perfected his recipe for bite-sized psychedelia. [Nov 2014, p.71]

Currents may be equally exhilarating to any listener willing to adjust to Tame Impala's new paradigm. [Aug 2015, p.65]

Lo-fi and understated, the twin vocals of Dylan Sharp and Carrie Keith are also strong throughout. [Nov 2015, p.76]

He's clearly referring to something much broader and deeper than artistic definition but Andrew's mercurial mindset is again the key to Liars' singularity. If The Apple Drop is more, in light of their history, a considered experiential teaser than a synapse frazzler, it's his choice. Once more, expectation can go to hell. [Sep 2021, p.32]

Sonically, the album has a muted palette, an approach that suits the colourised introversion of Mitchell's writing. even so, there are occasional flashes of illumination. [Mar 2022, p.24]

Meticulously crafted, haunted and hypnotic. [Sep 2025, p.31]

Eleanor Friedberger is rejuvenated on fourth solo album Rebound. [Jun 2018, p.27]

Apparently Stith shied away from any musical expression for years--in which case Heavy Ghost represents a quite spectacular plunge. [Apr 2009, p.87]

Reid's follow-up to 2015's gorgeous debut, Listen To Formation, Look For The Signs, is no less bewitching. [Apr 2017, p.37]

That these 15 vignettes sound effortless does nothing to detract from their elegance. [Oct 2018, p.29]

As a lyricist, she remains the understatement queen, “Let’s keep all our doctor’s appointments” from “Be Careful With Yourself” perhaps one of the most superbly subtle statements of devotion in recorded song. Nobody underdoes it better. [Sep 2022, p.26]

Setting out their stall with mannered glitch-pop and sardonic art-rock, both usually entangled. [Aug 2023, p.38]

The LP plays like the soundtrack to a pedal-to-the-metal road trip between Willaimson's LA base and her native Texas, desert air whipping through the open windows. [Jul 2023, p.36]

With pleasing inevitability, A Shadow In Time does not disappoint. [Mar 2017, p.25]

On "The Thing Itself" the pair are at their most graceful, rising airborne and serene above the disorder. [Apr 2021, p.27]

Together, the North Carolina instrumental trio revel in heady improvisatory zones. .... There's no lead voice here, just three musicians moving as one. [Nov 2023, p.32]

The Purple Bird is a consummate listen-through that makes highlights hard to pick but "Boise, Idaho", a yearning beauty with a fine arrangement and hints of Glen Campbell, is one. [Feb 2025, p.30]

It is, by any measure, a quiet revolution.

Muttered vocals and jazzy trumpet combine on the unsettling “God Save The Queen”, and even Mary Lattimore’s harp and Lonney Holley’s graceful voice can’t disguise “Guilty”’s uncomfortable challenges. [Jun 2024, p.37]

This is a record of rare beauty and poise. [Nov 2003, p.107]

Multiply marks the full flowering of a singular talent. [Jul 2005, p.99]

Her lyrics and voice remain major draws. ... Soothing balms following the drama of Songs. [Nov 2020, p.26]

12 luminous and inventive songs. [Mar 2020, p.36]

An album of beautiful songs that sound like something you might get from an unusually upbeat Leonard Cohen. [Nov 2024, p.43]

Price's maximalist approach is largely successful, producing vivid, neon-lit dancefloor monsters like "Axis" and "Fluorescent." [Aug 2013, p.74]

It's hard-going at times, but "Nolan" and "Soda Fide" are oddly stirring. [Jun 2014, p.78]

A more enjoyable pairing of words and music this year it's hard to imagine. [Jun 2013, p.63]

It's the vocals that will seal this deal for you--or break it. [Feb 2006, p.79]

Twilight Override is a 30-song triple album of mostly mellow consolation, insightful rather than intimidating. [Nov 2025, p.26]

In The Vines reveals more of its peculiar candlelit charm with every play. [Dec 2007, p.106]

Enchanting. [Jun 2024, p.33]

Send is pure gristle, a vicious statement of musical intent. [Jul 2003, p.129]

It's human where Radiohead are impenetrable, but complex where Coldplay are banal.... Elbow remain unquantifiably great. [Sep 2003, p.100]

Gibb's mixture of gay and Christian imagery is potent, and his vision of music as a grand communal experience is backed up by some memorable tunes. [Apr 2003, p.112]

Throne might be her boldest and most intimate statement yet. [Feb 2019, p.29]

Pohorylle is classic Americana - mostly carried by piano, guitar and strings - awash with gracem wisdom and allusive wordplay. [Dec 2021, p.26]

Supremely satisfying comeback album. [Jul 2023, p.36]

This is an album about distortion, not just of traditional folk instruments but of the emotions - grief and rage and bewilderment - that he experiences as a black trans person in America. [Oct 2023, p.23]

It’s all impossibly good, from the walloping riff that drives opener “Reason To Hide” through hardcore thrasher “La Plage”, the grunge-pop of “Here It Comes” and the jazz-dub title track, right up to the steadily building whirlwind of ominous closer “Gunboats”. [Aug 2024, p.39]

[The album] follows a familiar trajectory: martial climaxes and blackened ambient passages, bombast and afterburn. Rarely, though, has that trajectory been charted so effectively. [May 2015, p.82]

El Camino feels like the dawn of greatness. [Jan 2012, p.76]

Fussy productions mires some of these songs, but there are a few that rank among her best. [Apr 2026, p.36]

Dream River [is] among Callahan's very best. [Oct 2013, p.63]

An album that feels delicately versatile, as well as a truly singular bit of leftfield art pop. [Jun 2025, p.33]

A flood of captivating images are buoyed along by the rich musical tapestry and a song that's illustrative of the broader mood: uplifting and open-hearted, looking backwards and forwards without blame or trepidation. [Sep 2025, p.22]

There's still a lingering sense of promise not quite fulfilled about Anna Clavi, such that Hunter feels like a make or break album. [Oct 2018, p.24]

At 32 minutes, the album doesn't hang about, but offers in that time Shellac's signature intensity and repetition. [Dec 2014, p.80]

Opening with the dolorous drones of "They Being Dead Yet Speaketh," Johannsson slowly builds to the rousing "The Cause Of Labour Is The Hope Of The World," a transcendent fanfare for the common man. [Jul 2011, p.88]

The seemingly simple yet thoroughly conceptualised material here, all held within specific harmonic language, is beautifully realised. [Oct 2022, p.26]

LaVette remains at the peak of her considerable powers at the age of 77. [Jul 2023, p.37]

This is a stark and often moving listen, setting her coldly operatic voice against a backdrop of billowing modern classical and wintry electronics. [Jun 2024, p.33]

In which the prince of hip hop get a blessing from the king. [Sep 2008, p.110]

She writes about toxic masculinity and abusive relationships with racing candour, and she sings with a fresh, unnerving snarl that weaponises her signature twang. [May 2020, p.35]

Ultimately, what CMAT has done with CrazyMad, For Me is create a new pop music, centered around melody, heartache, and resolve, and filled with more than a dash of gallows humor to boot.

Emma Jean is mellower, mournful and unimpeachably authentic.... A magnificent piece of work. [Jun 2014, p.76]

De Souza's ability to balance the brute force of "Real Pain" and "Bad Dream" with something as sunny as "Hold U" is another reason to look forward to more of her shapeshifting. [Sep 2021, p.27]

It's a fairly smooth and coherent affair. [Feb 2023, p.28]

Instant Holograms... offers a kind of manual on how to resist the negativity and reconnect with society. Alternatively, it's another super-fun Stereolab album full of obscure synth blurps, nifty lounge-pop tunes and gnarly motorik wig-outs. Either way, you won't be disappointed. [Jun 2025, p.24]

Like Blue Velvet, Forget is a lurid fever dream--and a magnificent hymn to suburban teenage romance. [Jan 2011, p.98]

Across 14 varied tracks, Avery's compositions become engulfing, such is the pull of his palpable textures, dense soundscapes and tantalising beats. [May 2018, p.24]

There's little identifiable guitar until track five, by which time anxiety and menace have taken hold thanks to the lumbering mien of "Bye Bye" and "I'm A Man"'s monstrous grind. "Shelf Warmer" lets in some air but it too is fabulously foul. [Mar 2024, p.26]