Highlights include Idles’ explosive “Peace Signs”; St Panther unlocking the irresistible pop heart of “One Day”; and “Love More” given a rhythmic, world-weary makeover by Fiona Apple. [Jun 2021, p.46]

A wonderous, modernist mix of LiLiPUT, Husker Du and Yeah Yeah Yeahs. [Mar 2022, p.28]

It's terrific, lively fun--soulful, even--as long as nobody tries to tell you there's something radical about it. [Sep 2004, p.101]

This is a lovely addition to an organic, forest-themed catalogue that works on the macro and micro levels. [Mar 2022, p.29]

Fu##in Up captures Young and the Horse on blazing form. Nelson makes acapable duelling partner for Young, working intuitively alongside Old Black’s grizzled solos, while Lofgren’s honky-tonk piano lends ashimmying quality to these craggy, elemental songs. [May 2024, p.41]

This is mostly a sombre affair. [Mar 2003, p.106]

It's only the Can-meets-Canned-Heat avant-boogie of "Bees" and "Barnowl" that escape a sense of academic contrivance. [May 2005, p.95]

A startling, inspirational comeback. [Dec 2012, p.68]

It’s a rare pleasure to hear a band so at ease with themselves, playing with no obvious aim or agenda beyond having a good time and hoping you do, too. The best thing about Fits is imagining how incredible these songs will be when played live.

It's this insistence on resolutely following her instincts that makes this record so lustily appealing from top to bottom. [Nov 2011, p.95]

A joyous, uninhibited and painlessly adventurous ride. [Oct 2005, p.124]

This one is more bluesy and soulful, a kind of semi-protest record that takes stock of post-Bush USA. [Mar 2009, p.88]

Their grandiose Baron Muchhausen indie rock does tend to veer toward indulgent. [Jul 2009, p.101]

Nestled between krautrock clatter and art-school drones are tracks that feel like stadium-sized anthems, particularly the Coldplay-meets-MGMT chugger "He Falls To Me" and the Afro-pop singalong "Underage". [Dec 2009, p. 97]

It's a genius pop album by a genius pop singer-songwriter. [Nov 2013, p.70]

The period-perfect production is a little Dukes Of Stratosphear, though as with Partridge and co, the songs are so well crafted as to avoid any sense of prissy homage. [Nov 2013, p.79]

These are songs to be treasured. [Apr 2014, p.73]

It is impressive on a technical level. [Jan 2015, p.76]

This lush hybrid of electronica, jazz and modern classical forms is one of the most beautiful accidents in Ripatti's long and prolific career. [Feb 2015, p.84]

This sombre threesome could use a little humour and warmth, but there is real passion in reverb-drenched, Spector-ish, elemental pastorals like "Rivers" and "Trenches." [Sep 2015, p.80]

Ryder-Jones excels at finding beauty in forbidding places. [Dec 2015, p.78]

Much to admire, even when the provenance is so blatant. [Mar 2016, p.81]

Like 2010's The Shine and 2013's Hoodoo, Rain Crow is thick with nervous trepidation, ominous trips into the rural mindset. [Jul 2016, p.82]

65daysofstatic's soundtrack to the highly anticipated No Man's Sky Game loads up on pile-driving guitar sequences reminiscent of Mogwai, but it's industrial-sized programming, moments of tranquility and chilling electronica confirm the Sheffield quartet's visionary ambitions. [Jul 2016, p.67]

Eve might just be her strongest yet, bold in its subtlety and intimacy, with Zedek's writing bittersweet and observational. [Sep 2016, p.81]

The album unfolds like a fever dream, the instruments bleeding into each other, awash in echo, as Arthur layers metaphors much as he layers the parts of the self-performed album. [Aug 2016, p.71]

Rennie's lyrics remain full of transfixed wonder, sketching places where ghosts swim in the air and sea kelpies call fro, the shallows, while Brett's lugubrious tones are a perfect conduit for songs like "Gold," "Gentlemen" and state -fair attraction "Tiny Tina," the world's smallest horse. [Oct 2016, p.32]

A sturdy, touching arrival. [Nov 2016, p.31]

The songs' real power comes from a sense of foreboding that undercuts the easy listening. [Dec 2016, p.30]

Omar has found a formula that really works. [Feb 2017, p.33]

Some songs skirt close to new age naivety, cloaked by subtle eco-critical blandishments--but Perhacs' quietly magnetic character and charm wins out, in the end. [Nov 2018, p.35]

Well-annotated five-disc boxset. ... The collection does include a fair bit of drearily competent pub blues, but even here there are some glorious moments. [Jul 2019, p.48]

They've leapfrogged stasis and had what sounds like fun along the way. [Jun 2019, p.29]

Songs Of Our Mothers taps into something much bigger than itself. ... It also helps that the music is quite remarkable. [Oct 2019, p.38]

A rich, gothic record, steeped in sensuality. [Jun 2020, p.29]

Lynne's rawest, most intimately person album since I Am Shelby Lynne broke with her country roots 20 years ago. [Jun 2020, p.34]

His workmanship persists. Forever on the skids, but still upright. [Jul 2020, p.27]

The results are successfully restorative, sometimes recalling The Album Leaf's 2000s Sigur Ros collaborations. [Aug 2020, p.33]

The tranquility is transporting and when it ends abruptly after just 34 minutes, the only option is to play it again. [Jul 2020, p.39]

The four-piece deliver their familiar brand of Cali power-pop, at once glossy and heart-on-sleeve. [Jun 2020, p.37]

Bittersweet pop songs are the order of the day, gently psychedelicised. [Jan 2021, p.27]

A quality love letter to the music he committed to early on. At times, it's hard not to wish he'd been bolder and a little less faithful. [Feb 2021, p.36]

There's no showboating and every classically nuanced arpeggio oozes with an elegant, crystalline beauty. [Apr 2021, p.32]

Strummer sounds mostly like he's having a blast. [May 2021, p.44]

The result is an album of glorious hybridity, rooted in ancient griot tradition but serendipitously transformed into an audaciously cosmopolitan melting pot. [Apr 2021, p.28]

Something that scratches the same itch that first propelled him and his audience into a record shop. ... To keep that hunger alive, you need to feed it with new inspiration. What you hear on Fat Pop is the reciprocation of that care. [Jun 2021, p.16]

Purists who flinched when Tame Impala began to morph into a hairier Da¢ Punk may be similarly nonplussed by the sextet’s turn toward blissed-out dance-rock, but everyone else will have a lot of fun. [Aug 2021, p.28]

McMurtry's latest lifts storytelling-in-song to meticulous new levels. [Sep 2021, p.29]

Pulverising noise is not entirely absent – the sludgy riffs of “The Fallen” growl ominously – but they are largely replaced with more atmospheric explorations, Wata’s gentle vocals and tracks that slow and quieten down to reveal a tender exploration of texture. [Feb 2022, p.26]

Made for uncertain times, Optimism is funny, clever and elegant, but it’s not a record that seeks approval or constructs a tidy narrative.

Yes, they're really that good. [Feb 2022, p.37]

It's a high-concept work that also stands on its own, radiating beauty, calm, comfort and energy. [May 2022, p.30]

“Mr Bojangles”, sung with cornpone syrup by Dylan, here earthily returns to the drunk-tank cell where Walker met its subject, a broken-down, alcoholic tap-dancer his song invests with heel-clicking magic. The tune defiantly climbs, strings waltz and Earle stores sentiment ’til the end.

It's a fabulous collection. [Mar 2023, p.36]

Moskowitz takes the role of wise guide, ruminating on life and the cosmos with a grandmotherly warmth. [Apr 2023, p.32]

The interplay between the two string players is as elegant as ever, but their new partners dramatically expand the range of flavours on offer. [May 2023, p.36]

They produce a whole lot of full-fat dance-pop joy. [Oct 2023, p.85]

The power of Cotton’s compositions for Engelchen lies in both its clarity, and its lack of affectation. She’s sensitive to the story, conveying it through simplicity. [Apr 2024, p.31]

The chugging arrangements are often overwrought, and the lyrics slightly too pleased with themselves, but Hawk's lusty baritone croons lend passion and swagger to salacious funk-pop confessional "Big Cat Tattoos" and the sardonic, self-lacerating "Questionable Hit". [Sep 2024, p.33]

There’s the customary minor-key acoustic lilt played out at a range of tempos somewhere between rumba and reggae, served with the occasional light garnish of bleeps. Far from being a problem, that’s almost certainly the way Chao’s fans like it. [Oct 2024, p.35]

The darkness of his vision remains unmatched. [Oct 2024, p.36]

An exploration of what common ground there might be between it and Prophet’s usual métier of deadpan country rock. It turns out to be substantial, as does this album, from the shuffling Colombiana of “Betty’s Song” to the drawling Tom Petty vibes of “Sally Was A Cop” to the near Glen Campbell-ish “Red Sky Night”. [Nov 2024, p.41]

In the past few years Hayden and McLoughlin have teamed up with Richard Chamberlain in Schisms. Their ultra-lo-fi fuzzball psychedelic improv can be exhilarating, but exists on a very different planet (or at least in a far muggier climate) than the exquisite acoustic snowglobe of Cold Blows The Rain. [Jan 2025, p.24]

On this hometown stop with his Quartet he parallels Monk's freaky, aslant piano attack in the serpentine stutter of his alto intro to "Rhythm-A-Ning", followed by quick, clenched phrases like compressed planets. [Jan 2025, p.32]

The closing "That Way My Garden" typifies playing of purposeful spiritual strength, crashing through into some great beyond. [Apr 2025, p.28]

A vivid, endlessly beguiling listen. [Mar 2025, p.34]

He reanimates blues standards like "Mystery Train", "Rollin' & Tumblin'" and "Bright Lights, Big City" with his knowing, tattered voice and economical licks. [Feb 2025, p.35]

There's an enduring warmth to the record that comes from the fuzz of psychedelia that holds everything together. [Apr 2025, p.27]

While the earlier albums had a rich dramatic and conceptual structure, things feel looser thus time round. [Sep 2025, p.39]

On Selenites, Selenites! they create a party anyone would want an invitation to. [Review Of The Year 2025, p.29]

Smart work all round. [Mar 2026, p,31]

Some tracks are more like art installation art. .... But the highlight might be closer "BY Absence", where a single-note drone is slowly orchestrated over the course of 20 minutes. [Mar 2026, p.34]

Hit singles are in short supply, but WIXIW has an atmospheric, immersive quality that puts one in mind of Kid A's soporific drift. [Jul 2012, p.77]

This is another unhurried set of expertly played FM gold. [May 2019, p.27]

Yawn is chilly and languid, the 35-year-old's penchant for sudden bursts if guitar noise giving depth and colour tot the Cure-ish gloom around "Recover," "John" and "No One's Trying To Kill You." [Dec 2018, p.30]

Mutt offers a terrific spread of styles. [Sep 2012, p.73]

The invigorating Downey to Lubbock, a record that speaks to both a lifetime of shared experience and the music that inspired them in the first place. [Jul 2018, p.26]

Boldest of all is the grimy techno pulse and bass thrum of "Lake Disappointment", which pulls off a stylistic switch while maintaining the winningly smoky atmosphere of the album as a whole. [Mar 2025, p.31]

Lankum producer John 'Spud' Murphy helps bring form to these candid candlelit songs of rapture and reflection, while guests include Cormac MacDiarmada and multi-instrumentalist Anna Mieke, whose strings prove gently transportive. [Feb 2025, p.40]

Making avant-garde sound both formally inventive and somewhat otherworldly. [Oct 2020, p.29]

What soon unfolds proves to be a profound evolution via the almost operatic crescendo that follows. Over the remaining five tracks, improvisational noise-rock gives way to more considered and structured songwriting, lush melodies and singer Geordie Greep’s new vocal style – which he croons with stirring tenderness. ... There’s not a single predictable second to be found on Cavalcade. [Jun 2021, p.23]

It's a remarkably textural and atmospheric record. [Nov 2025, p.28]

It's yet another display of excellence from an artist in consummate control of his art. [Feb 2015, p.82]

It excels at that classic pop trick of combining the euphoric with the melancholy. [Apr 2005, p.108]

A surreal, tender, revealing record. [Nov 2005, p.104]

It's good to hear him finally write and record with a proper band. About The Light is at its best when it takes advantage of this new freedom. [Feb 2019, p.29]

It's Fohr's stunning vocal that drives the album. [Nov 2021, p.27]

Wilderness take the clang of post-punk and invest it with an elatory fervour. [Sep 2005, p.111]

This is a vivid song cycle that's part ecstasy, part-sadness--but unfailingly lovely. [Jan 2010, p.119]

The Caretaker creates ambient music that doesn't merely settle in the background but is evocative of memory and loss. [Feb 2012, p.83]

This, the follow-up to his lo-fi 2010 debut Learning is a dark business. [Mar 2012, p.97]

The album is only 30 minutes liing, but that's plenty enough exposure to live electricity. [Feb 2017, p.26]

Like Felt Before them, The Clientele have completed a commercially neglected yet conceptually immaculate decade, mapping, across four albums and a couple of compilations, a twilit suburb of English pop, as though a young TS Eliot had fronted The Zombies. [Jan 2010, p. 105]

DM's production is unfocused but showy and the album's postmodern lurches suggest a frustrating attention defecit disorder. [Jun 2006, p.90]

Like Lubomry Melnyk's, Moore's rapid piano-playing creates an appealing haze on "Starwood Choker" and "Form Takes," while his companions augment this with similarly opaque washes of tape delay, spectral drones, bass and woodwind. [Mar 2017, p.25]

They may have defined a genre, but Low can clearly still move forward. [May 2007, p.99]

Even by Deftones standards, their eighth album is hardly immediate. [May 2016, p.71]

Sergio Mendes meets Sparks then plunders Charles Mingus? Could be. [Aug 2006, p.95]