It seems weird--if delightful-that the folk polka of "To A hammer" and the Eels-like electronic of "(Put The Fun Back In The Funeral)" could come from one career, never mind one album: a creative blessing, if a commercial curse. [Dec 2009, p.103]

To The Sunset suggests that she's not growing ay more inclined to sit still, and is her best yet. [Sep 2018, p.28]

It's a muscular, Butch-Vig-produced behemoth that impresses. [Dec 2014, p.77]

Somewhere, Hoagy Carmichael, Johnny Mercer and Mose Allison are tapping their feet and smiling. [Feb 2017, p.33]

A compellingly weird experience. [Jul 2007, p.92]

There's a sense of spacious freedom to these dozen songs. ... Gorgeous. [Mar 2019, p.34]

The results will probably not prove a tremendous cash cow, but theirs is a commendably original aesthetic, and theirs is an enigma you resolve to crack. [Oct 2010, p.114]

The London trio chart out some fresh trajectories for the mesmeric brand of avant-pop they established with 2019's eerily prophetic The Age Of Immunology and 2021's superb Ookii Gekkou. [Nov 2023, p.33]

Mountain Battles is marginally more polished than "Title TK" but it still sounds as if it was recorded in one take in Steve Albini’s toilet. A good thing, as it turns out. The intimacy of is what makes it precious.

Unique and inspiring. [Apr 2016, p.75]

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

This sprawling set is a testament to his talents not just as multi-instrumentalist but as bandleader, a rapturous unwind through sprightly bouzouki-powered jazz, soulful strings and serene New Age. [Dec 2023, p.25]

This is a hugely infectious debut. [Oct 2008, p.81]

Some thoroughly arresting moments that fall midway between Justin Vernon and Scott Walker. [Nov 2022, p.26]

The songs are rendered sincerely, with elegant, understated phrasing. [Jun 2016, p.69]

Switching guitars opens her songs up considerably, but Cohen maintains the intimacy and intelligence that have always been her signature. [Mar 2024, p.28]

The choices on Dock Of The Bay Sessions suggest an artist who was refining his songwriting, someone concentrating more on character development. [Jul 2018, p.38]

It's arrogantly risky. That's their best feature. [Jun 2003, p.100]

The songs themselves are exquisite. [Jul 2012, p.77]

All in all, it’s a beautiful record – and one that bears repeated plays. I’ve been playing it for around 10 days now, mostly on headphones, and it’s still revealing new details with each listen.

Arguable Little Feat's best since Lowell George checked out. [Sep 2012, p.80]

What could be tokenistic gels well. [Nov 2015, p.81]

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

Co-producers Don Was and Jacknife Lee bring an Orbisonian scale to Melody Road, surrounding him with ornate yet tasteful arrangements worked up by LA's top session cats. [Dec 2014, p.75]

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

It's U2 reconnecting with first principles, all big choruses and defiant optimism, and is confidently glorious. [Jun 2026, p.35]

This carefully recorded and intimate performance captures their cool command of Texas rock'n'roll better than most. [Sep 2022, p.32]

An unusually poetic songwriter revelling in his proximity to nature. [Jan 2012, p.88]

This seven-track beauty marries the bucolic indie-pop of Woods with Dungen's Scandi Drone. [May 2018, p.37]

Some fans just seemed to hate it [1979's At Budokan] very, very much. .... But listening to this expanded edition - featuring the two full concerts from which the original was compiled - the reaction is, "What's the problem?" Dylan sings his heart out. [Review of the Year 2023, p.40]

Mix[es] up The Bends and OK Computer with a pinch of late Fugazi and Talk Talk. [May 2019, p.37]

For all the ideas and juxtapositions that illuminate these songs, none feel jarring or tokenistic. [Apr 2015, p.79]

Gorgeously warm, forlorn and wounded. [Mar 2004, p.95]

That it so compellingly rescues a cache of unforgettable songs and signals the unlikeliest of artistic revivals, must rank it among rock's most trascendent tales. [Jul 2010, p.109]

This is mature work. It's confident in what it is--and as seems likely, what it will turn into next. [Sep 2018, p.27]

As a standalone soundtrack Evil Does Not Exist is a fine addition to Ishibashi’s singular work – the mood is darker and eerier than her fêted Drive My Car, but it’s the stronger album nonetheless. [Jul 2024, p.33]

An album as heartfelt as it is musically and thematically ambitious. [Jul 2012, p.67]

Yes, it's true--this is a great record. [Sep 2013, p.94]

The sheer length and repetitions make end-to-end listening of these six sides something for the dedicated, but as a tribute to a still-missed talent, it testifies.

Seed Of A Seed is simultaneously more confident and more jittery than its predecessor, as though absolute candor was her ultimate musical ambition: the more uncertain she is about something, the more certain she is that she wants to sing about it. [Review of the Year 2024, p.28]

Baxter's brilliance is varied. [Dec 2014, p.75]

It is, by any measure, a quiet revolution.

Amped to an industrial sheen by producer Youth and packed with stripped-back stadium choruses, Born Into This rips from the speakers like an irate Velvet Revolver, Billy Duffy’s relentless axe-hero riffing matched by Astbury’s typically waspish lyrics.

The deliciously tense opener, “Make Worry For Me”, proves their close chemistry persists, but it’s the quieter, more solemn back half of this long album – in particular the delicate “You Can Regret What You Have Done” – that fi nds them leaning on each other like best unbeaten brothers. [May 2021, p.32]

We Have You Surrounded has more variety than 2003's excellent "Dangerous Magical Noise." [May 2008, p.94]

These three sprawling tracks were recorded in the pair's Bushwick apartment, but boast both breadth and startling virtuosity, sparkling guitar-drums jams blown wide with reverb. [May 2017, p.40]

This second collection consistently zips along, taking in one exceptional single and a clutch of songs that mostly resemble overdriven outtakes from Liberty Belle And The Black Diamond Express (high praise). [May 2017, p.37]

Courtney Barnett has managed to expand her lyrical preoccupations and musical interests outwards and upwards, while still retaining the magic of her past peak. [Apr 2015, p.68]

The band’s decampment to Berlin to record has resulted in a concise statement of renewed interest, resulting in a debate between life expectancy and boredom, and a brief mutation into Roxy Music.

The quintet's transformation from schlocky garage urchins to ambassadors of thrilling new-wave can largely be attributed to Portishead's Geoff Barrow, who, alongside Chris Cunningham, produced "Primary Colours," uncovering a formidable band beneath the haircuts. [Jun 2009, p.86]

It's a head-turning mix, a sort of pop-art take on Southern gothic, and highly infectious. [Jul 2016, p.73]

The music is pure old-time country though, their pressed-linen harmonies already hailed by Exec Producer T Bone Burnett--on whose label this mostly covers record is released--as among the purest he's ever heard. [Mar 2011, p.92]

[The] excellent follow-up [to its 2010 debut] finds John Kowalski and Rian Trench playing to their strengths with horizons newly broadened. [Jun 2013, p.79]

There's no shortage of Hendrix live recordings out there, and while this isn't essential, it's very good recording of a fantastic performance. [Dec 2022, p.44]

An album of passion, wit and spirituality that, like its title, invites us not only to evolve, but to revel in our evolution. [Sep 2020, p.30]

It's a slightly exhausting but often thrilling sonic voyage. [Nov 2021, p.32]

A fair amount of cosmic fannying involved, but this is framed by some cracking songwriting. [Jul 2012, p.79]

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]

Mostly, Dear Mark J. Mulcahy, I Love You sounds supremely happy to be here: it's an infectious feeling. [Jul 2013, p.82]

The whole is a total joy, a triumphant demonstration if the virtues of the music celebrated in the rollicking "It Came From The South." [Sep 2018, p.29]

Although it's an album that demands immersion, Butler does allow himself to - musically - cut loose, wielding his guitar with trademark flair on "Pretty D" and "Living The Dream". [Jun 2024, p.30]

Global Fusion at its most accessible. [Aug 2012, p.67]

A brash and confident rebirth. [Dec 2020, p.31]

There's a relentlessly macabre tension and ultimately savage catharsis to these six songs. [Mar 2022, p.36]

Wildlife rocks like rock still truly matter and isn't just so much mp3 content.

Unlike the solar-powered efforts of The Thrills or The Polyphonic Spree, they understand, like The Beach Boys before them, that the best way to soundtrack a broken heart is to drench it in sunny three-part harmonies. [Jul 2005, p.102]

The pair have come up with a finely crafted album that blurs the line between shoegaze, indie pop and goth-rock, and is as assured as it is atmospheric. [Dec 2014, p.69]

Boone's soulful presence in the Delines brings a different slant to Vlautin's characters, her voice transmitting something more hopeful and tender. [Feb 2019, p.26]

This terrific mini-album signals the arrival of an unlikely new set-up. [Dec 2014, p.76]

This take on the horrors of 9/11 could seem shallow, but he nails it. [Nov 2013, p.69]

Thee Oh Sees manage to simultaneously evoke Suicide, Them and The Fall on their latest album of echoey, dense psychedelia. [Aug 2010, p.96]

This ingenious successor to Computer World is enough to almost make one look forward to the coming robot wars. [Mar 2021, p.35]

The result is, as much as you'd expect, elegant and tranquil. [Apr 2020, p.27]

Lewis' piano still sounds as urgent and uncontained as it did whrn rock'n'roll was invented on it, and his insouciant snarl remains thrillingly feral. [Nov 2010, p.93]

It is a more energetic, and in places darker, record than its predecessor. [Apr 2015, p.82]

The solos are majestic and Barlow even contributes a couple of thumpers. Nobody does this better.

Automator's cinematic drama provides a stirring backdrop for the Doctor's prolix self-celebration, the ribald "Polka Dots," sinister "Power Of The World" and woozy "Flying Waterbed." [Jul 2018, p.27]

Round-up of 10 cinematic tracks underlining his prowess. [Sep 2020, p.46]

The results are gorgeous. [Oct 2009, p.112]

This is the album Lynne should've made after I Am.... [Nov 2003, p.120]

Great riffs and an inherent grooviness keep Terminal gripping throughout. [Aug 2017, p.26]

Where Yorkston's last album was precisely drawn, the follow-up is looser and less beholden to strict arrangements, and more willing to let the musicians dictate the pace. [Sep 2012, p.84]

The set has both strength and a lean, lustrous beauty. [Nov 2018, p.26]

Musically, Wildcard is all over the place00and that might be its best quality. She ties all these various sounds and styles and settings together by sheer force of will and one of Nashville's mightiest twangs. [Dec 2019, p.26]

Lead guitarist Sean Thompson displays precocious virtuosity through For Use And Delight, spinning out bent-note filigrees that recall the work of his legendary namesake. [Nov 2015, p.81]

A surprising mutation, for anyone familiar with Dwyer at full-tilt, but Memory Of A Cut Off Head proves his magic straddles genres. [Dec 2017, p.30]

She comes over like Tammy Wynette crossed with Parker Posey--an indie queen with a Kentucky twang. [Aug 2006, p.101]

The fuzz-furred riffs of “Edin” and “Sicarus” are infectiously sharp, backed up by satisfyingly heavy rhythmic ballast, and Corgan’s voice, often underrated, is stronger since the strangulated edges loosened with age. [Review of the Year 2024, p.35]

[Herrema's] songs still have the fuzzy weirdness of prime Trux, but now they're chunky, determined and fully formed, too. [Apr 2007, p.115]

With what Garba Toure terms their Afro-rock'n'roll dialled down, Paul Chandler and the band's co-production deploys their epic cast as distinct elements in ultimately communal music. The studio sounds packed yet with sufficient space for individual contribution. [Feb 2025, p.38]

Tiersen now explores their middle ground without any hint of compromise. ... All ends well. [Mar 2019, p.37]

It's a cinematic experience that reaches a peak on the immense finale of "Ugly And Vengeful." [Apr 2018, p.37]

He's delivered 12 songs of poignant autobiography rather than nostalgic wallowing. [Mar 2024, p.41]

The mood flickers between foreboding and playful; blues for modern times. [Jan 2012, p. 93]

All elements are delivered with an easy, effortless roll--you suspect The Donkeys may turn out to be lions. [Oct 2008, p.83]

The band showcase their wide range on this imaginative and timely covers album. [Aug 2021, p.29]

Nothing Special draws back from Okkervil River's giddy pop whirls in favour of beautiful, ruminative, Lambchop-ish ballads which, while lengthy, never outstay their welcome. [Nov 2022, p.36]

Rose said she wanted to make an album that reflects the oscillating extremes of her personality--Loner is that and much more. [Jul 2018, p.34]