The Sadies’ nebulous country-rock moves through glistening psychedelia (“Message To Belial”), gorgeous string ballads (“All The Good”) and fierce garage fuzz (“Ginger Moon”). [Aug 2022, p.31]

This sprawling, beguiling collection strives to reveal all, but every answer brings more questions. [Jul 2019, p.18]

Merciless perfection. [May 2019, p.30]

The concept is implicit in the music's gospel-soul communion, the lyrics' yearning and reckoning, and the rousing, towering power of Jones' purposively nostalgic soul vocal. [Jun 2023, p.31]

A remarkably cohesive and dynamic record that oozes flair, and feels like something of a hybrid between a solo offering and an ambitious group project. While it may escape easy categorisation, it’s unquestionably the most progressive and expansive record White Denim have made to date. [Review of the Year 2024, p.20]

For Emma, Forever Ago is such a hermetically sealed, complete and satisfying album, the prospect of a follow-up--of a life for Vernon beyond the wilderness, even - seems merely extraneous.

They make a welcome return to the looser, roots sound of earlier albums. [Feb 2024, p.28]

Unavailability has also played its part in pumping up the myth – so much so that you wonder if, heard in 2008, these songs stand to disappoint. In fact, key moments of Pacific Ocean Blue square dramatically up to your loftiest expectations.

McMurtry's flair for the cinematic shines brighter than ever. [Apr 2015, p.78]

An album that is leaps and bounds above anything else Shah has done before – a record that’s layered and detailed, coated with beautifully rich production, yet also spacious and considered. [Feb 2024, p.23]

A stunning record. [Aug 2023, p.23]

A reawakening to be reckoned with. [Jan 2018, p.21]

Confirm that the brothers have fully absorbed their influences in a work of stunning sophistication. [Jun 2023, p.32]

There are points where his relentless utopianism can sound trite. .... But, let’s face it, these are nice flaws to have. In an era where so many of our musical heroes seem to be growing more cantankerous and ill-tempered with age, it comes as a welcome relief to see one heritage act pushing positively into the future – and making some of the warmest and most joyous music of his career. [Review of the Year 2023, p.21]

With Have You In My Wilderness her songs feel brighter, more pop, yet they're also just as lush, as considered and as quietly experimental. [Oct 2015, p.77]

Like the equally rapturous "Sun Giant" EP which preceded it, Fleet Foxes' debut album is a fastidious, sometimes overwhelmingly pretty evocation of the American wilderness; a dreamy companion piece to last month's superb Bon Iver album.

The lasting impression is of a record whose most tangible identity is that of a band on the verge of change contemplating their own back pages. [Dec 2021, p.47]

Once you’ve heard Fleetwood Mac or Rumours, Buckingham Nicks feels a little threadbare, like sketches for the main event – and that’s fine, because before fate or destiny intervened in the form of Mick Fleetwood in November 1974, this captured the duo at their best. Taken on its own, Buckingham Nicks is a nifty collection of floral folk cuts and quicksilver instrumentals, with one foot in Laurel Canyon, the other in Nashville, that show Buckingham and Nicks’ songwriting promise. [Oct 2025, p.44]

YTILAER picks at the fabric of the universe and if it doesn't always find the answers it wants, the expansive musical backdrop underlines its slightly ecstatic, questing spirit. [Nov 2022, p.34]

It lacks that album's [To Pimp A Butterfly] audacious musicality, instead cleaving toward sleekly produced rap that platforms Lamar's fierce but graceful lyricism. [Feb 2025, p.36]

Magical. [Apr 2007, p.114]

West's rhymes are wry, witty, warm and unswervingly self-aware. [May 2004, p.106]

Twin Fantasy marks another leap in ambition. [Mar 2018, p.22]

There’s a tenderness to the way he puts the instruments in conversation with one another, drawing out Younger’s harp and Macie Stewart’s melancholy violin solo. That’s ultimately what makes this record so powerful, even if you’re not familiar with its touchstones: by colliding the past with the present, McCraven makes a point of making progress. [Oct 2022, p.24]

The results are spectacular ... Its thematic concerns – memory, transformation and lost innocence – prove a perfect complement too. [Jul 2021, p.30]

One of the most compelling albums Tyler has made. .... Time Indefinite seems to stare into the heart of what the country is tight now, in all its fragmented, polarised turmoil; the state of the nation in perfect sync with Tyler's own troubled state of mind. [May 2025, p.26]

The writing, revealing literary influences and the deep, weird old America depicted by, say, Merle Kilgore, is astute, while stripped-down, archaic Appalachian arrangements play tricks with time. [May 2016, p.73]

After the crunchy riffs of The Next day, Blackstar has a more nuanced approach. [Jan 2016, p.67]

Something More Than Free finds Isbell sounding surer of himself, as a songwriter and a man. [Aug 2015, p.79]

Overall, then, mbv is more of a time capsule than a box of surprises, but the contents have survived in immaculate condition. [Apr 2013, p.64]

There's a mystical bind to UFOF that grips the listener and never lets go. [Jun 2019, p.24]

Her ambitious third record marks anther giant progression in an already distinguished career, and offers provocative thoughts on sacrifice and identity that should outlast its 48-minute runtime. [Oct 2016, p.22]

The songs are introspective, reflective and fretful. ... It's best moments are its quieter ones. [Nov 2021, p.26]

Javelin sounds like a proper Sufjan Stevens album, picking up the lyrical and sonic threads of Carrie & Lowell and 2010's The Age Of Adz. [Nov 2023, p.22]

A wonderful record. [Mar 2018, p.30]

Ten dark and lovely reasons why love hurts. [Apr 2015, p.84]

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

Much of Arise draws from the duo's [Moses Boyd and Binker Golding] spartan energy. Boyd serves a one-man Art Blakey, Sly Dunbar, Carlton Barrett and Tony Allen, swinging in a Caribbean vernacular. ... McFarlane has a pop sensibility that's unusual in the jazz world, and her songs are based around strong melodies. [Oct 2017, p.31]

Simple folk arrangements foregrounding Moorer's richly emotive voice. [Jan 2020, p.27]

A fabulous treat it is too. [Apr 2021, p.37]

With its combination of Goodman's ache-filled vocals and Crazy Horse clamour, "Keeper Of The Time" is an even more striking demonstration of what she can do. [Aug 2022, p.26]

Thrillingly pioneers its 21st century sound. [Jun 2023, p.26]

Jess Hickie-Kallenbach’s woozy, bluesy, melismatic moans, Finlay Clark’s detuned guitar crackles and David Kennedy’s scrambled action-painting drums can become a little unrelenting over the long haul. But standout tracks like the combustible, centrifugal “Silver Grit Passes Thru My Teeth” and the brooding, tempo-twisting “M M M” reward patient listeners with hypnotic intensity and off-kilter beauty. [Jul 2024, p.39]

it's a fitting summation of a remarkable career. [May 2025, p.36]

Sometimes diaristic, sometimes philosophical, it's a long litany of past memories and formative moments that, while demanding patience, gradually inches its way to somewhere profound. [Oct 2020, p.34]

It's among his best. [Apr. 2012, p.79]

The Argument showcases a band of uncommon power grappling with subtler shades as well as their quiet/loud, dub-influenced trademark sound. [Dec 2001, p.102]

Subtlety with Skynyrd chops. [Dec 2003, p.117]

The sprawling haziness still lingers, but the songs are sharper and studded with guests. [Nov 2016, p.24]

Insanely beautiful, with the strength and delicacy of spider silk. [Mar 2018, p.25]

The band has never sounded better, and Cave seems to have relaxed into the hysteria of his vocal style; like Elmer Gantry singing Leonard Cohen at a tent-revival.

Woodstock 50 is an archival feat, an exhaustive capsule melding bygone sentiments with timeless performances. [Sep 2019, p.49]

Offers the kind of transcendental electronics that burrow into your brain. [Mar 2021, p.37]

It's Isbell's best album yet, and suggests that he'll do better still. [Dec 2013, p.64]

Dawson is able to soar gloriously over Circle’s layers of sound, while the group are stronger with his mighty voice and melodies elevating their tumult. The rest of us are just lucky to be able to dive into these seven songs, as heavy as Redwood trunks and as complex as cladoxylopsids. Cue thunderclap.

No one thought that Dylan would make one of his finest albums in 1997 (or maintain that hot streak for the next quarter-century). No one thought, either, that the outtakes from such sessions could fill a compelling, sometimes revelatory box set. But here it is.

The unquestionable highlight is the seven-minute version of "The Rainbow Willow," but there's so much to admire throughout. [Jul 2019, p.27]

He left an enormous amount of music in those 10 years, the bulk of it gathered in this much-needed career overview of the forgotten solipsistic genius of rock’s golden age, in which the strike-outs turn out to be as fascinating as the home runs.

It's a warmer, less brittle listen that still pushes at production conventions. [Jul 2025, p.26]

Cate Le bon's terrific run of form continues with what must be her best album. ... She enchants at every turn. [Jun 2019, p.30]

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

He may have worked alone, but in doing so he has created an entire sonic world, a welcoming garden for all to tread. [Mar 2022, p.37]

It's a set as vast as it is remarkable. [Sep 2021, p.36]

Heartbeat rhythms raise the emotional temperature. Joseph’s theme is abuse, and survival. Her voice coils and swirls in songs that play like maternal nursery rhymes rendered for comfort. [May 2022, p.29]

Woodland is ultimately about these two people, these two voices, and these two guitars. Never is it more moving than when there are simply playing together the way they might at home, blurring the line of who is singing lead on “Howdy Howdy” or who is picking which note on “The Bells & The Birds”. Adding new flourishes to their core sound, Woodland is a beautiful addition to their catalogue. [Oct 2024, p.63]

It's Cash, at the top of her game as a singer, who carries the day. [Jan 2014, p.65]

Lenker collects vivid details and lets them amplify each other, until the deeply personal becomes somehow universal. [Mar 2024, p.29]

The songs are underpinned by euphoric, tangled guitar rock a la Japandroids, transformed by Quinlan's defiant joy. [Jul 2015, p.77]

Here it brillianrly showcases the interplay between Iyer's melodic clattering, Stephan Crump's slithery bass and Marque Gilmore's fizy drum explosuions. [Oct 2009, p.98]

"Hard Drive," meanwhile adds spoken word and Bogie's swirling saxophone to a touching tale of psychic recovery, before "The Ramble" concludes with pretty pastel drones. [Mar 2021, p.31]

Secret Love, produced by Cate Le Bon, obliterates the thought [they would struggle to surprise a second time] entirely. [Jan 2026, p.29]

A tour de force of intertwined sound and imagery. [Oct 2006, p.117]

This remastered version certainly sounds clearer than the muddy original. ... As far as the songs, go, there are a few surprises, just some frenzied romps through the band's greatest hits at this point. [Oct 2016, p.47]

The music reflects this stark, witty chronicle of precarious modern living with a queasy tableau of churning beats, one minute harsh and industrial, the next lush and dreamy. [Nov 2023, p.25]

Beautifully now. [Mar 2024, p.29]

He Squeezes endless crescendos into numerous mastered genres, from the no-wave funk of "Jerskin Fendrix Freestyle" to surprise post-rock hurricanes on "Sk1". The straight-talking piano ballads, meanwhile, contain almost too much grief and joy to bear. [Nov 2025, p.32]

Unorthodox methods prove highly persuasive. [Mar 2020, p.27]

The deep-cut-heavy, career-spanning set is manna for the faithful. [Oct 2023, p.48]

A hypnotic dream-map of astral drift and spac-age chamber music, textured jazztronica and technoid pulse. [Dec 2001, p.106]

It's the most extraordinary smorgasbord of styles, moods, modes, a far more daring, jolting record than 2001's Essence. [Album of the Month, May 2003, p.88]

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]

Her voice alone is worth preserving humanity for, hitting peaks of gorgeous, sleek torment on the cosmic beauty of "A Given Thing". [Dec 2022, p.36]

It revolves around bleak, squalling repetitions and a mood of wretched abjection. But Gira's voice has weathered grandly. [Sep 2012, p.86]

Her sixth is as deeply personal as it is un-self-pitying, the lyrical punches falling with even more righteous force. [Mar 2023, p.29]

Purple Mountains is an excellent return to form for Berman; a worthy next chapter for a songwriter who quit, many believed, in his prime. [Aug 2019, p.30]

There are reminders of St. Vincent on "Happy" and "Thursday Girl," while "A Loving Feeling" boasts The Breeders' punkish brevity. [Jul 2016, p.78]

A record that yields a procession of hidden treasures. [May 2017, p.38]

This intensely personal touch humanises his alien sound design, casting him as a kind of sensual mutant whose comradeship with Bjork makes perfect sense. [Jun 2017, p.23]

The pairing of the wily old tomcat and the classy country thrush turns out as magically in reality as it seemed unlikely on paper.

It’s a welcome return, to say the least.

Far greater than the sum of it's parts, Vulnicura can be a challenge but, once immersed, it's hard to tear yourself away. [Apr 2015, p.85]

For all the influences, their voice is uniquely, gently mad. [Mar 2004, p.88]

Fohr's extraordinarily expressive baritone--echoing Nina Simone, Nico and Scot Walker--is the centre of her songs which range far and wide compositionally. [Nov 2017, p.24]

Dean Rudland and Tony Harlow’s selections here mix up the canonical (Funkadelic’s “Maggot Brain” and “Red Hot Mama”, The Undisputed Truth’s “Like A Rolling Stone”, Sly & The Family Stone’s “Thank You For Talkin’ To Me, Africa”), with a good few cratedigging rarities. If anything, in their enthusiasm they may have set themselves a little too wide a brief. [May 2017, p.46]

Instead of fusing elements, Korwar lets them converse, drowning blinkered British racism out. [Aug 2019, p.31]

McFarlane paints elegant, jazz-literate shapes over digital beats, syncopated hand drums and glitchy systems noise.[Sep 2020, p.32]

Fletcher’s and Pursey’s The Catenary Wires offer sweet vocals and dirty guitars on “Wall Of Sound” and Heavenly comrade Peter Momtchiloff jangles in French on Tufthunter’s “Monsier Jadis”, while Secret Shine still pursue shoegaze, Boyracer remain appealingly chaotic, and Sepiasound’s bucolic instrumental “Arcadian” maintains Blueboy’s yearning. [Apr 2022, p.36]

These songs balance the regrets with the triumphs, which lends songs like the title track and “My Hidden Heart” a playfulness as well as an immense poignancy. [Oct 2022, p.33]