Organic set of gorgeously gilded songs which English folk sensibility mixes with the freewheeling spirit of Californian Canyon rock. [Mar 2024, p.35]

At times they sound as if they are seeking to recreate The Clash, before suddenly erupting into jagged film-score strings (“Blue Kite”). [Aug 2024, p.32]

The 11 songs form a pensive biography of sorts, though perhaps only intermittently about Sid himself. [Nov 2024, p.37]

Awash with Crosby, Stills & Nash chemistry, 12-string trills and the Joni-inspired "Seemed She Always Knew". [Apr 2025, p.28]

If his guitar reminds of anyone, it's David Grubbs - similar threads of notes that then tangle together into thickets - and Grubbs appears on this album, too. [Jun 2025, p.41]

The sparse strum of "Easy For You To Say" eavesdrops on a troubled couple, a fear of romantic failure permeates the otherwise upbeat jangle of "Rose Town", and the country pop "When Will The Morning Cone" craves light at the end of a dark emotional tunnel. [Sep 2025, p.37]

The hightlight is the 14-minute, exploratory "Heat Sink", as the pair size up and seduce each other like a pair of tropical birds in an elaborate courtship dance. [Oct 2025, p.31]

The new songs tend to be a little too blues-rock generic, but there's fun to be had on the self-penned "If You Wanna Rock'n'Roll". [Dec 2025, p.30]

Its songs are as poetically heartfelt as they are acerbic. [Jan 2026, p.34]

Even when the mood turns slow and swampy on "Chain Of Keys" and "River Anacostia," the intensity never wavers. [May 2016, p.74]

Prekop's lyrical ruminations on distance and direction never lag. [Dec 2012, p.76]

She addresses transformation, loss, connection and apartness in literate, finely turned pop songs centred on her sweet, pellucid voice and filled out with dreamy loops and strings. [May 2016, p.73]

"Timber" is almost all Tyler, "Spider Ballad" a lowkey club throbber, all of it only made possible by this unexpected partnership. [Nov 2025, p.33]

The album's leitmotif is a lush, dreamy string sections, which bring a gorgeous poignancy not only to the metaphysical songs, but also his radical reworkings of a pair of '50s rockers. [Mar 2009, p.81]

Over the full 82 minutes, though, 93696 can feel a little relentless, undone by the scale of its own ambition. [Apr 2023, p.32]

Fiendishly clever, but not easy to love. [Oct 2009, p.104]

As noise records go, it's a thing of relative restraint, and enjoyable in its own way. [Jan 2016, p.81]

Whatever the situation, Ayers's amenability shines through regardless, a wave of warmth that can lighten the heaviest soul.

Earl has often been overshadowed by bands on the Woodsist label he runs, but here Woods are allowed to stand out from the trees. [Dec 2012, p.79]

The dissonant guitars and whirring synths land on the more accessible side of avant-garde rock, veering into sia-esque pop on tracks like "Greener Stretch," though revelling in never quite resolving its melodies. [Nov 2017, p.36]

Moments like "Apparent Lushness" are where An Act OF Love becomes a headphones record par excellence. [Mar 2017, p.26]

She's now made another quantum leap with A Beautiful Life. [Jan 2022, p.25]

May has a knack for hooks and titles. [Oct 2017, p.32]

Desperation is as refreshing as it is welcome. [Aug 2013, p.73]

There's much to admire in the fretwork of [Darren] Rademaker and Ben Knight, too, joining the dots between Johnny Marr, Roger McGuinn and Felt's Maurice Deebank to underpin the hooks with sun-blonde crispness. [Jul 2003, p.116]

Their sixth album is their most direct and uplifting yet. [Apr 2015, p.83]

Though other songs don't escape the inevitable air of redundancy, Gibbard's facsimiles retain all the originals' love and warmth. [Oct 2017, p.28]

Miserable but magnificent. [Oct 2017, p.39]

It's understated excellence at best, perhaps a little inoffensive at worse, and entirely a continuation of the aesthetic the Brooklyn-based guitarist has honed for the last two years. [Feb 2019, p.27]

A genuine quartet record. [Jan 2023, p.18]

Glitter And Doom Live is an admirable document of yet another stage in his continually engrossing career.

Coexist is a masterpiece. [Oct 2012, p.80]

An album that splendidly makes the most of a unique creative kinship, as well as a shared desire to cast light in dark places. [Nov 2017, p.18]

Mogwai are still exploring the push-pull dynamics of soft and harsh and slow and fast with almost bewilderingly pleasing results. [Oct 2017, p.35]

Often have a touch of the Broadway musical to them, but some are great. .... But it's only on "When This Old World Is Done With ME", a hymnal elegy where a weary-sounding Elton accompanies himself on piano, that we get a glimpse of genuine emotion. [Apr 2025, p.32]

What's most frightening is that, mighty as Desperate Youth... is, their real stone killer is probably yet to come. [Jul 2004, p.100]

[Alex G] already shows a masterful handling of mischievous lyrics and beautiful melodies. [Dec 2014, p.69]

Though Mitchell and Hamer avoid the kind of astringent vocal blends favoured by most British singers of these ballads, there's still an intriguing piquancy to their harmonies, with Mitchell's girlish timbre resting against Hamer's milder, warmer tones.

A resounding success. [Jun 2003, p.92]

The result is akin to Super Furry Animals making progressive post-punk. The sense of charm and idiosyncrasy is plentiful across the rest of the album too. [Mar 2020, p.29]

The lyrics are presented with such conviction that it becomes quietly devastating. Rather like Swamp Dogg himself. [Apr 2020, p.24]

As much as the likes of "Injury Detail" and "Peach Fuzz" evoke Clock DVA and early Psychic TV at their most unnerving, the group nevertheless achieve a grimy grandeur that feels modern, too. [Jun 2023, p.32]

I Quit is at its best when the trio juice up old tactics with a jolt of the new. [Aug 2025, p.31]

An ambitious but striking debut. [Sep 2004, p.108]

Country Funk unearths further lesser-known practitioners of this mythical genre. [Sep 2012, p.101]

It's a beautiful-sounding record with tracks like "Somber The Drums" and "Everyone Out" providing moments of tender poppy beauty amid the general sense of decay. [Jun 2024, p.32]

Power pop without the escapism. [Apr 2005, p.105]

A rare treasure indeed. [Aug 2004, p.101]

An intoxicating blend of surf-rock guitar and the blusterous post-rock drama of forefathers such as Lift To Experience; a bewitching blend that makes death's ominous presence feel that much closer. [Mar 2020, p.25]

Decidedly heady stuff. [Jul 2007, p.100]

Constantly questing without ever becoming indulgent, 4 is intoxicating. [Nov 2008, p.94]

"Die" is generic glam riffage, and "Magic" is a tedious Britpop stomp, but there are many successes. [Oct 2011, p.86]

A most welcome return. [Aug 2021, p.23]

For purists, "Lonely Island" and "River Jordan" are closer to a bygone Nashville sound. [Aug 2014, p.78]

It's the hushed, soul-searching moments--especially the lovelorn "Alone In Arizona" and the gorgeous, universal ballad "A Little Help"--that resonate most. [Jun 2016, p.71]

His wrinkled brogue--warm, pithy, occasionally fluttering to a falsetto--is a thing of understated beauty in itself, framed in folk-shanty arrangements that make telling use of strings and bagpipes. [Oct 2016, p.32]

Recorded partially outdoors, Resin Pockets' sometimes rough and rustic nature belies the grace and beauty in Jones' deceptively causal songs. [Jul 2017, p.26]

This one feels a bit brighter, more pop, than usual, though the Stooges lift of "Some Unknown Reason" is dankly bloodied. [Sep 2019, p.24]

They manage to retain the gravel in their throat while subtly expanding their sound on this fifth album. [Jun 2020, p.33]

The retro-futurist fun peaks with the bopping space-disco of the title track and the irresistible "Refractions (In The Rain)," while loungey sax and self-help guides to meditation smooth "On The Other Side..."'s journey to the stars. [Nov 2021, p.27]

Going Places is a felicitous reversion to type, full of mature and nuanced songcraft. [Sep 2022, p.30]

The smoky drawl and casual phrasing of her vocal often seems to channel Billie Holiday. [Jun 2023, p.31]

A surprisingly moving reflection of the big issues - family, death and companionship - as he processes his feelings through caustic noise and deep-flanged techno. [Ju 2025, p.31]

[Soulwax has] always been great at eroding the lines between rock and dance music, utilising and harnessing the power of the riff in an electronic context. This continues to be forcefully apparent on tracks like "Idiots In Love". [Dec 2025, p.36]

Grimly compelling. [Apr 2016, p.66]

Introspective, diaristic songs that make a virtue of their simplicity. [Jul 2015, p.76]

This may just be [the] finest pop break-up album since [Justin] Timberlake's Justified. [Aug 2006, p.95]

If there's a signpost that Cripple Crow isn't quite the record it could've been, it's that the most engaging moments here recall Banhart records past. [Oct 2005, p.96]

Too often La Vie Est Belle, produced by Boxed In's Oli Bayston, has all the flair of an Editors potboiler, so a potentially uplifiting record becomes quite draining. [Nov 2015, p.80]

Jeremy Gaudet's Jonathan Richman-esque speak-sung tones breathe life into protagonists widescreen-daydreaming their way out of drudgery. [Feb 2021, p.29]

It's a remarkably seamless companion piece to her previous [compilation disc]. [May 2006, p.122]

Howling from the eye of the storm, Scott Hutchinson's raw holler and bleakly poetic worldview remain the key points of emotional connection. [Feb 2013, p.73]

Friko's second is sonically ambitious but just as immediate. [May 2026, p.29]

They’ve managed to make tonal inconsistencies feel like an actual consistency, rather than being a jarring and detracting experience. They’ve wrangled chaos into submission, and currently sound like no other band out there. [Aug 2022, p.34]

The commitment that Vedder brings to all this material, from the rowdiest thrashing to the schmaltziest ballad makes this feel like a unified and ultimately convincing project. [Oct 2009, p.90]

Pelican don't look like metal kids - however, their ruminative riffology and ability to raise apocalyptic visions mark them out as practitioners of a new, reflective metallurgy alongside the likes of Sun0)))'s Stephen O' Malley. [Jan 2010, p. 123]

At 15 tracks, it outstays its welcome, but in small does this is deliciously addictive. [June 2008, p.86]

Take Me To The Land Of Hell is one of Yoko Ono's strongest efforts. [Oct 2013, p.72]

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

The album's refracted harmonies, fluttering synths and off-klter beats are sometimes unsettling, sometimes in deceptive, sensual communion. [May 2020, p.27]

It's business as usual with sludgy riffs marrying metal and punk. [Mar 2021, p.32]

Without question, Schmilco is Wilco's quietest, most disquieting album. [Oct 2016, p.24]

The disparate elements feel abstract and abrasive in places, yet the whole is sumptuously melodic and sonically rich. [May 2016, p.75]

Producer Ed Stasium keeps the production crisp, melodic and controlled. [Mar 2019, p.30]

A gorgeous collection of songs steeped in Americana roots and full of breezy canyon vibes. [May 2023, p.28]

“Poppies” is an aching, Beatle-esque waking dream, half-heard car radio for company, prime Aimee Mann a comparison. Cleveland’s distorted electric guitar, cool, Stereolab-like synth glides and dub Ethio-jazz further colour the scene. [Jul 2024, p.35]

11 raw but gorgeously melodic songs. .... One of the least cliched [breakup] records you're ever likely to hear. [Nov 2025, p.31]

That old adage about the quiet ones hold true for Elanor, whose debut capitalizes on I'm Going Away's fleeting ease. [Aug 2011, p.87]

Field recordings, ASMR, personal effects and various metals combine to conjure some magical moments. [Jul 2025, p.31]

Definitely a return to psyche splendour. [Oct 2002, p.122]

The results sound as if Corgan plundered a few moves from Dave Grohl, since the songs keep one boot in heavy metal but mostly get straight to the point while piling on the hooks and harmonies. [Mar 2003, p.95]

A triumph indeed. [Sep 2003, p.102]

Amply demonstrates the man's craft, the inherent strength of apparently fragile blooms added extra ballast by painterly shades of guitar, piano and strings. [Apr 2003, p.105]

He may be treading water a little until he really gets into his groove as the 21st century Sondheim, but Distortion at its best is beguiling and quietly devastating.

D is a technical tour de force. [Jul 2011, p.89]

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.

Layered vocal effects and unexpected rhythms on tracks like "Messenger" and "Loud" reward repeated listens, while the pounding, jagged drums of "Caged Sleep" and blissed-out fuzz-pop of "Wheel" offer immediate satisfaction. [Jul 2020, p.39]

Variety is this album's strength. [Oct 2023, p.33]