Much of New York still resonates over 30 years on. ... The new remaster is crisp - it's hard to mess with the original's direct, unadorned musicianship. ... What this second disc [of live tracks] demonstrates is the quality of Reed's New York band. [Nov 2020, p.44]

Love In Exile stands as a worthy summation of the trio's alchemical live shows. But there's enough here to dangle the promise that this trio formation could run and run, and this remarkable collaboration is hopefully just the beginning. [May 2023, p.33]

The twin voices of Jonsi and Andersen make for an eerie contrast at times, with "Stendur aeva" a ravishing, multi-faceted highlight. [Feb 2021, p.35]

Bachman proves himself an extremely resourceful player, as well as a masterful storyteller. [Dec 2016, p.25]

An LP that's uncharacteristically respectful of the traditional country and hushed folk idioms that make it up. [Nov 2011, p.81]

Mostly the mood is dark. Kinda seductive, too. [Jun 2006, p.120]

Just when you thought Bjork had plumbed and conquered every depth and summit of her range, Dirty Projectors have shepherded her to newer pastures. [Dec 2011, p.81]

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]

Every note of this album is saturated with a very particular melancholy that keeps these spacey songs closely anchored to the earth. [Apr 2020, p.28]

Throughout, their balance of the tense and clanging with the urgently poppy is impeccable. [Feb 2015, p.76]

The extra care and attention to production and arrangements has paid off, making Man It Feels Like Space Again as consistently enjoyable as their older albums were unevenly thrilling. [Feb 2015, p.85]

This is an exciting debut.

Supreme Balloon adds up to the duo's most consistently enjoyable albums yet. [June 2008, p.98]

The mood is sweet and slightly whacked-out as Cabic brings campfire cheeriness to Norman Greenbaum;s 'Hook & Ladder' and wistful resilence to Ian (Fairport) Matthews' 'Road to Ronderlin.' [June 2008, p.109]

The Don of Diamond Dreams finds Butler's effect-treated voice rippling through a prism of mutated funk and R&B that feels simultaneously sumptuous and deeply unconventional. [Jun 2020, p.37]

Lifetime Achievement embraces the folksier elements of his sound, paring the music down to guitar, banjo, occasionally a harmonica and even more occasionally a full band. [Sep 2022, p.22[

There’s something about the funky syncopation between the two and their slightly punky sensibility that elevates GA-20 way above so many dreary blues revivalists. [Oct 2022, p.29]

There aren't too many surprises here, just a well-honed primer in what Harper does best, fusing blues, rock, folk, country, R'n'B, gospel and reggae with politically conscious lyrics into a dynamic stew. [May 2016, p.74]

[The album is littered with songs that are grand, detailed and ambitious. [Jun 2025, p.39]

It's a soul-searchingly strong set. [May 2013, p.78]

Transience might just be his late-career peak--a deliciously sour, sarky and occasionally moving study of modern life and his place in it. [Jun 2019, p.37]

Her full-length debut confidently and even defiantly collides raw garage rockabilly with distorted blues and ornery old-time folk. [Jul 2016, p.81]

A rousing debut that constantly eschews genre conventions. As a result, the record manages the impressive juxtaposition of perpetual unfurling in unpredictable ways yet remaining tonally coherent. [Aug 2019, p.26]

Heza still contains several terrific examples of hooky guitar pop. [Jun 2013, p.73]

It displays a sonic ambition, an openmindedness and a melodic gift that puts so much modern pop to shame. [April 2010, p.85]

This is a delightful and charming addition to the original body of George's work, which highlights the quality of his songwriting and presents the material in a fresh light.

It's a record that begs for repeat listens. [Oct 2020, p.36]

The result is a pulsating, itchily funky brew, pitched somewhere between Pigbag and Can. [Jul 2013, p.78]

Vent and Nunez revel in their experiments like science nerds let loose in the lab. [Jul 2006, p.111]

Like mid-'80s Scritti Politti, News And Tributes is pop music made by young men loath to sell their intelligence down the river. [Jun 2006, p.114]

This is one of the most rambunctiously entertaining and high-spirited records of 2006. [Dec 2006, p.108]

This new pin-sharp remaster of Talking Heads: 77 emphasises the freshness of the whole endeavour. .... But the real find of this Super Deluxe Edition, and the main justification for its existence, is a previously unreleased live set, forged in the white heat of CBGB on October 10, 1977. Taped a month or so before the performance featured on Side One of The Name Of This Band Is Talking Heads, it underlines what an incredible live band Talking Heads were from the get-go. [Dec 2024, p.44]

Heavy Light is no one-note affair. ... Artfully honest songs. [Apr 2020, p.36]

The sisterly joie de vivre marks out Songs Of Separation as a very special record indeed. [Mar 2016, p.82]

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

[A] sumptuous, immensely pleasurable throwback album. [May 2017, p.25]

More heartmelter than skullsplitter--but just as ruinous. [Mar 2015, p.73]

The Idiot and Lust For Life still mostly sound thrillingly bold. ... Sadly, the bonus disc of outtakes and rare tracks is thin. ... Substantial live discs. [Jul 2020, p.51]

When approached on its own merits, the Dave Cobb-produced Be Right Here is a minor classic of the genre. [Feb 2024, p.27]

This is a satisfying mix of revised and completed '60s recordings by original Monkees songsmiths like Boyce & Hart and Neil Diamond, with new songs by the likes of Andy Partridge, Rivers Cuomo and Adam Schlesinger. [Jul 2016, p.78]

It doesn't require a lyric translator to hear the exquisite sense of regret that permeates a song like "Ha Dvash," but the sheer exuberance of the music keeps spirits soaring. [Feb 2010, p.88]

It's not amazing... but it's great. [Jan 2004, p.106]

Compared to so many noisemongers, TOD understand that restraint enables unleashed firepower to be exhilarating and awesome. [Apr 2002, p.111]

This is as good as the "soundtrack for an imaginary movie" gets. [Aug 2014, p.78]

Confess is largely an impeccable sequel to an immaculate debut. [Aug 2012, p.82]

It's the inclusion of [Disc 2] that makes this essential. [Dec 2004, p.140]

Stripped ac and stretched out, in Toral's hands these pieces become devotional as he zones in in on their essence. [Dec 2025, p.37]

A mighty feat of reinvention. [Mar 2026, p.36]

Odd missteps apart You Are All I see turns out to be one of the year's boldest, most beautiful debuts. [Nov 2011, p.81]

There's a gleeful, shonky exuberance to this debut all their own. [Aug 2006, p.88]

Sonnymoon offer a fresh and forward-thinking new voice in experimental electro-soul on this beautifully assured self-titled debut. [Nov 2012, p.83]

The title track ends proceedings on a high, with Sheryl Crow on backing vocals, a smattering of mandolin and a semi-surreal spoken interlude in which Starr sounds ever so zen. It ends, as it surely should, with a single snare shot, delivered like the most emphatic of full stops. [May 2026, p.30]

Highway Queen feels like the kind of record that should bump Lane to another level. [Mar 2017, p.28]

An album filled with similarly delicious moments. [Apr 2017, p.22]

Loose, raw, a bit funky, it illustrates the band's knack for creating new-but-classic-sounding songs and getting them down on disc with a sizzling live feel. [Aopr 2009, p.87]

Stand For Myself is a headphones album, lovingly written, arranged and produced. [Aug 2021, p.32]

The ebb and flow of Arbouretum's music, still rooted in folk but flaring into twin-guitar noise-rock, is often astounding. [Apr 2009, p.90]

The accumulative effect is transformative but focusing on the moving parts, the elaborate patterns and the mazes that constantly expand and unwind is fascinating. The stark reality of the music's often caustic infrastructure is never far from the surface; it nags and vies for your attention amid the hum. [Jan 2023, p.26]

It all hangs together, propelled by a sense of fun that, 22 years on, still pervades every note. Trot on. [Jul 2016, p.73]

Its vision of pop is deeply hermetic, caught between quiet pastoral rapture and urban resignation, Cracknell's voice a siren of sweetened melancholy. [Jul 2015, p.73]

It works because Souleyman has never been a purist, instead perfecting a kind of global fusion that is slamming and mesmeric rather than naff. [Aug 2015, p.80]

Ironic jape or not, Shangri-La captures the DFA label aesthetic perfectly, blending electro post-punk, disco and art-pop with conceptual elan, and icing the cake with dance-friendly production. [Jul 2011, p.103]

There's antique gusto, politics, wintry picking from a master, some gothic touches from Britfolk's finest fiddler, and grand notes. [Jul 2014, p.71]

The only pity is that navigating one's way around the three hours and 20 minutes of music is such a fiddly business. [Oct 2016, p.46]

On >>>, you get carried along by BEAK>'s sheer enthusiasm--cut adrift from their past, sealed off from expectation, existing entirely in the moment. [Oct 2018, p.25]

Lyrically, it's riveting, tapping into a unique Southern storytelling tradition. [Nov 2004, p.118]

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]

Sprawling, impassioned and mostly terrific. [Oct 2011, p.98]

She presents another batch of intimately detailed songs – from the anxious ballad “Dreaming Of Falling” to the exultant rocker “Driver” – in sturdy, string-accented settings that seem wholly unified with her intentions. [Nov 2024, p.43]

Momentum sags somewhat over its lengthy duration - but it also unquestionably features some of their finest, and funkiest, work to date. [Apr 2026, p.34]

To some, Psychedelic Pill will seem like a monumental work of self-indulgence. To others, though, its heft and eccentricity make it one of the purest expressions of Young's genius to date.

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

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

Drummer Bryan Devendorf’s rippling, muscular runs provide a racing human pulse over the programmed drums on “Tropic Morning News” and “New Order T-Shirt”, enliven the laidback “I Need My Girl” and supercharge “Lit Up” and the conjoined “Humiliation”/“Murder Me Rachael” during a torrid late-set run. He’s The National’s secret weapon, and Rome is his showcase. [Review of the Year 2024, p.34]

The retro flavours are only one strand of an alert, impressive collaboration. [Dec 2011, p.104]

The album captures both Matthew Houck's heartbreaking delivery--rendered even more gorgeously cracked by the strain of live performance--and the sinewy charm of his backing band. [Mar 2015, p.80]

For all the perversity, tracks like 'Stumble Out Of Bed' would ignite any dancefloor. [Apr 2009, p.80]

At two hours, it's a lot to stomach, but worth staying for the closing "Streets Of Fire," a love song that trickles tears over the end credits. [Apr 2012, p.87]

An album of tough-edged, passion-fuelled songs full of real emotion. [Jun 2002, p.109]

Helplessness Blues is as passionately desolate as anything on Closer, the record which documented Ian Curtis' romantic guilt and existential confusion. [Jun 2011, p.74]

The sort of herky, jerky new wave Molly Ringwald might have bopped to in The Breakfast Club. [Jun 2004, p.95]

For shredheads, there's urgent opener "The Static God," while the superb "Animated Violence" alternates between the album's twin moods of sustained guitar menace and reflective percussive ambience. [Sep 2017, p.35]

It's characterised by a delicate, hypnotic power with subtle light/shadow shifts. [Oct 2018, p.37]

The formula remains potent. [Aug 2015, p.71]

A record that grows on you slowly but surely. [May 2002, p.104]

If Texas is a deliberately ambiguous assessment of Crowell’s home state, it’s also a resounding endorsement of the enduring powers of its composer.

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

Smart, sharp and endlessly stimulating. [May 2022, p.36]

A fearsome blast. [Jun 2006, p.100]

He's made one of his most uncompromisingly lovely albums, a tender notebook of pointillist electronics, deep waves of drone and ever ascending, yet melancholy, melody. [Dec 2018, p.23]

Consolidates the experimentation of 2002's Phrenology and the conscious snap of 1999's Things Fall Apart into a focused, intelligent record. [Oct 2006, p.123]

A characteristically indefinable collection guaranteed to please their larger continental fanbase. [Feb 2017, p.35]

Splic[es] savage wit and cynicism with hopefulness. [Apr 2017, p.28]

Not even this collaboration's most thunderous moments detract from the quieter power of the singer's frank, free-associative lyrics. [Apr 2016, p.74]

Mountains' skillful manipulation of texture and space creates a sound that stealthily envelopes you like an Appalachian fog. [mar 2009, p.92]

A bold endeavour with some genuine thrills. [Nov 2022, p.35]

It manages to top those two finely crafted albums [2013's Time Off and 2014's Way Out Weather]. It's more streamlined in its playing, more confident in its writing, more determined in its mission. [Jul 2016, p.72]

Smart, sexy stuff. [Jun 2015, p.84]