Some of the best moments involve lesser-known artists, such as The Mad Lads tearing through "Don't Have To Shop Around" and Wendy Rene Delivering a superlatively funky "Bar-B-Q". [Sep 2025, p.50]

It all sounds like prime Jennings, all twinkling swagger on such upbeat tracks as "After The Ball", and bruised pride on the exquisite ballads. [Nov 2025, p.47]

Love And Fortune is a reckoning with loss - of relationships, homes, a younger, more carefree version of herself - but one that does not wholly relinquish Donnelly's playful side. [Jan 2026, p.29]

It's not hard to work out that these two albums really do function as a double, and certainly represent the group's most complete work to date. [combined review of both discs; Feb 2004, p. 68]

Tip Of The Sphere represents McCombs' practised skill as a shaper of his own world, with pride in his craft, a deep respect for tradition and the drive to refresh it via his own, idiosyncratic iteration. [Mar 2019, p.18]

This is more than mere virtuoso performance. [Aug 2006, p.90]

Still short on humanity, true, but possessed with an alien sort of beauty. [Oct 2009, p.98]

It's a solid second-tier AC/DC record. ... And the best individual songs are well worthy of the AC/DC marque. [Jan 2021, p.20]

Throughout the album, it's a thrill to hear Rhys' mellifluous voice juxtaposed with the music's synthetic thrust.

Much of Drum's Not Dead suggests a Ligeti score for The Blair Witch Project as played by The Residents. [Mar 2006, p.88]

It's only when they change pace on "Cheated Hearts" and the equally poignant "Dudley"... that Bones makes its mark as a worthy successor to Fever. [Apr 2006, p.98]

Enchanting arrangements, glistening instrumentation, and Griffin's hypnotic vocals carry the day. [Mar 2010, p.86]

This is a rich offering crammed with songs that are heavy with atmosphere and humour, all wrapped round a voice that demands attention. [Oct 2016, p.26]

While its New Age themes may dissuade some, Hopkins affirms his genius for fashioning unparalleled landscapes from sound. [Dec 2021, p.28]

This Old Dog is an admirable exertion. [Jun 2017, p.28]

Her follow-up, produced by Mark Howard, adds country-gospel choirs and fussy arrangements to her palette, steamrolling any nuance she might bring to these characters. [Apr 2018, p.23]

There's a clear confidence in their third album. [Dec 2015, p.74]

Velociraptor! makes good on the pair's loud-mouthed claims by stripping away previous excess. [Oct 2011, p.91]

With flurries of old-time whimsy, The Beatles gone gothic and vaudevillian storytelling, it's dense and sometimes obscure. [Nov 2010, p.84]

A more sombre, focused affair [than 2015's covers album of Taylor Swift's 1989]. [Mar 2017, p.23]

The record as a whole is an energetic, infectious romp through trap, Auto-Tune, West Coast soul and warm balladry. [Feb 2016, p.78]

Their ninth album might be their best this millennium; a triangulation of mature soppiness, mitigated contentment and indelible tuneage. [Oct 2016, p.39]

These are quietly quixotic pieces, rich and poignant, possessing a stilled, slowly unfolding melancholia. [Jul 2019, p.27]

Even without the backstory or an understanding of how difficult this record was to make, …Frankenstein is a skilful portrait of what it means to feel disconnected from the joy and urgency of life.

A satisfactorily dramatic return. [May 2017, p.30]

Nash, his many voices and every credited musician on the album combine in a joyous noise you want to go on as long as one of those versions of "Caravan" Van used to do with The Caledonia Soul Orchestra. [Aug 2018, p.25]

It's when the band marry this discordance with melody that they really shine. [Nov 2021, p.35]

Impossible not to love. [Apr 2005, p.110]

It's electro adventurism aligns him with John Maus and White Rainbow,m but Nick Cave and Berlin-era Bowie hover nearby. [Dec 2011, p.79]

Too often a limited voice and over-egged arrangements strain to little effect. [Aug 2009, p.94]

The best tracks ooze a kind of drowsy melancholy. [Feb 2012, p.86]

If Drift Code can't quite match the rural psychodrama of its predecessor, it boasts its own quizzical magic. [Mar 2019, p.32]

's the urgent but effortless certainty that Matsson was born to sing these songs. [May 2010, p.108]

Some of these experimental mash-ups feel ungainly, but when their chemistry ignites, Algiers sound indestructible. [Apr 2023, p.23]

It's haunting, purgatory stuff. [May 2025, p.39]

With The Warning, they've willed themselves beyond bathos by sincerely embracing their English art-pop sensibilities. [Jun 2006, p.103]

He's captured the binary sense of outrage and fear with visceral brilliance on songs such as "twins" and "Stone Age." [Oct 2017, p.36]

Beguiling. [Oct 2005, p.107]

Losing Sleep is a great record, period. [Oct 2010, p.102]

Upping the tempo-and libido of her Grammy-winning "Beautifully Human," here Scott lays the funky paramaters wide open. Jan 2008, p.100]

Though the more rhythmic nature of tracks like "Oblivion Theme" prevent the album from dissolving into ambient haze, the deep bass rumbles and rich textures provide plenty of pillowy comforts for other weary listeners. [Jun 2020, p.30]

The addictive, chant-like vocals of Whitney Johnson, AKA Matchess, combined with some satisfyingly spacious grooves, periodically aligns Desert So Green with the contemporary psych-rock swirl of Warpaint and Moon Duo. [Feb 2026, p.39]

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]

It's certainly cinematic, and there are nods to Morricone. [Jan 2013, p.79]

Clark turns in one continuous lachrymose piece that ebbs and flows with sinuous grace and is edgy enough to intrigue Hollywood. [May 2016, p.71]

What could have been merely clever becomes soulful and poignant thanks to Shauf's understated vocals, his eye for mundane details and flourishes. [Mar 2023, p.35]

Not everything works on this bloated 18-tracker, but enough hits the target. [May 2017, p.35]

Kinder Versions offers up a stormy swell of sound that's intermittently compelling even if Mammut's wilder instincts can seem tethered down by plodding rhythms. [Sep 2017, p.32]

Even at its most languid, this album retains a faintly manic, frazzled quality that prevents it from descending too far into retro pastiche. [Dec 2017, 9.28]

With the band showing no loss of force or focus, the latest is another essential if discomfiting listen. [Nov 2024, p.36]

This multilayered and multigenre approach results in an album that is as deeply introspective as it is creatively bold and ambitious. [May 2021, p.25]

If she began coasting on 2002's Under Construction, here pop's most innovative black female is on repeat mode. [Feb 2004, p.72]

Light and airy, pretty in parts, but devoid of muscle, grit or originality. [May 2002, p.96]

This is seriously literate stuff, and all the better for it. [Nov 2004, p.120]

It's a darker, deeper affair. [Jun 2007, p.94]

A certain crispness is now prevalent, along with expanded horizons. [May 2016, p.82]

For chunks of the album there's an unshakable feeling of familiarity. [Jul 2018, p.27]

Producer Craig Street's customary forte is smoothness but the grittier Muscle Shoals influence he's channeled here is perfectly tailored. [Nov 2012, p.77]

Much of it... sounds like the spiritual cousin of Neil Young's After The Gold Rush and Harvest, sharing the same back-to-nature rusticity. [Jul 2006, p.101]

A blast. [Sep 2010, p.92]

The Turning Wheel has the feel of a big reveal. Her voice, as dramatic and flamboyant as a young Kate Bush, now pirouettes amid a backdrop of warm brass and orchestral funk supplied by an extended cast of players. [Jul 2021, p.34]

A sweatstorm of strum and twang. [Dec 2005, p.106]

The songs are suited by the rough and tumble, though, wearing the bruises with poise and pride. [May 2012, p.83]

XOXO is, astonishingly and hearteningly, the sound of a group still finding new ways to be themselves. [Aug 2020, p.24]

The frontman and his septet sculpt grooves and hooks that immediately grab hold. [Dec 2021, p.33]

It's the personal element that underpins this record's appeal. [Oct 2008, p.92]

It's '60s-soul funky rather than frenzied testifying. [Sep 2014, p.76]

[John Tejada] maintains his penchant for melancholic, Detroit-inspired tech-house better suited to the home than club environment. [Feb 2015, p.84]

Packed with musical and literary references, there's a lot to unpick, but tracks like "The Catastrophe (Good Luck With That, Man)" show the band still have a knack for pop hooks, albeit not as lo-fi as before. [Jun 2025, p.70]

Grae cruises eloquently over booming, soul-sampling backdrops that recall Jay-Z's recent triumphs. [Dec 2004, p.150]

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]

Doubling down on the Deadhead-to-Lagos sound of “Frisco Beaver” may mean fewer surprises but the band’s loyal herd will no doubt savour the greater prominence of keyboard-driven freakouts and the greater fullness of grooves like the one that powers the mighty “Ouroboros”. [Nov 2024, p.36]

[It] sees them break out of the subculture in spectacular style. [Nov 2006, p.123]

There's nothing here to surprise anyone familiar with Mogwai's chiefly instrumental, epic soundscaping. [Mar 2005, p.120]

Matt Korvette is a misanthropic force of nature whether ticking off the negatives of cities from Boston to Rome ("Everywhere IS Bad") or addressing adult responsibility ("Helicopter Parent"). [Mar 2024, p.33]

The Stand-In has everything that made its predecessor special--big voice, expertly crafted tunes, clever backings, a deft mix of stridency and restraint--but is definitely a step up.

Black Cherry this ain't, then. As a companion piece to its genius predecessor, though, Supernature iis planty to be going on with. [Sep 2005, p.108]

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]

Pedal steel and fiddle waltz around a crystal-clear baritone on a succession of laments to hillbilly heartbreak that ooze class from every pore. [Jun 2018, p.28]

His tools may be blunt, and too many tracks sound like unfinished sketches, but Zomby manages to summon a uniquely unsettling atmosphere. [Aug 2011, p.107]

Though not everything here works, Spiral remains consistently intriguing throughout. [Sep 2021, p.27]

There are crafted, uplifting songs, but also haunting, ambient undercurrents hinting at everything from Art Of Noise to The xx to Fever Ray. [May 2011, p.103]

[The album] fires out volleys of convincing Metalheadz-style jungle breakbeats, embedded in brooding sound collages apparently influenced by Jonny Greenwood's score for There Will Be Blood. [Mar 2014, p.71]

Infinite House sounds like a less precious Dirty Projectors swagger toward that rare place where unashamed intellect meets accessible pop. [May 2015, p.69]

Hayden Norman Thorpe's falsetto squawk is the controversial focal point but his lust for language is equally extraordinary.

Let It All In is all kitchen-sink realism and mordant one-liners best exemplified in the TS Elliot-influenced "Some Day Better."

Amid the murk, there are still magnetic, rough-hewn fight songs about heartache and ambition. [Aug 2013, p.69]

The girls have made a gorgeously restrained full-length debut that intimates both youthfulness in its most innocent state and startling self-awareness. [Nov 2013, p.74]

Trouble is a typically tender, casually contemplative, occasionally tearful goodbye. [Nov 2014, p.72]

Production-wise it tips a brim to the jazzy psych of the Brainfeeder crew, with some very gnarly riffs chopping through the boom-bap. [Feb 2015, p.77]

There's something of the teenage Laura Marking about Rachel Sermanni. [Aug 2015, p.78]

Tan remains aloof and introspective, still murmuring about lonely walks and cigarettes, but now there's a swagger and verve to his production. [Jan 2016, p.75]

It's a typically sharp uppercut from the former lynchpin of The Broken Family Band and Singing Adams. [Apr 2016, p.67]

Their 10th studio album might be their best of the new century: 11 songs capturing the reckless dynamic that made these Texans alt.country heroes in the 10th century. [Mar 2017, p.37]

Here, the likes of "Call Upon The Fire" and "Commanche Moon" continue to mines, as, say Earth do, a folk essence of melody and lore. [Apr 2017, p.23]

To be fair, there’s an element of You Never Were Much Of A Dancer that feels a little like an index of possibilities, as though Raymond’s setting out what she can do: future albums will, hopefully, be yet more coherent, more conceptually thoroughgoing. But for a first album, it also feels stunningly confident, in full possession of its art. Guitar soli is in very good hands here indeed.

A joyful noise. [Sep 2018, p.39]

With a touch of the sinister, James' voice swerves through a spectrum of wild emotions; folk, blues and a dreamy, eerie style of pop wind their way through everything here. [Apr 2020, p.27]