Her decision to forgo electric guitars on @#%&*! Smilers results in the aural equivalent of watercolour washes, lovely and tasteful but lacking presence. [July 2008, p.102]

Twelve are here, and while Rosanne doesn't reinvent songs in the manner of, say, Cat Power, she does restate them briskly, with husband John Levanthal's production pushing her beautiful bell-like voice to the fore. [Dec 2009, p. 87]

The departure of vocalist Tyondai Braxton appears to have knocked them off stride a little, but they are certainly an ensemble group, and a raft of guests keep things frisky. [Jul 2011, p.77]

As ever, it all coalesces around that voice, and its still potent conjuring of beauty and darkness. Timeless music, for heavy times. [Dec 2016, p.34]

Ejimiwe has made a record filled with quiet bubbling tension yet also leaves room for lightness, offering a glimmer of hope amid the brooding dread. [Jun 2020, p.29]

Much of that atmosphere [from previous albums] remains on Captain Of None, thanks to whispered vocals and a focus on the courtly pluck of a viola da gamba. [Jun 2015, p.73]

Records as bright and occasionally beautiful as Years Of Refusal make us forgive Morrissey (the artist) even his most juvenile foibles.

The songs benefit from a sharper focus than the quartet ever achieved before. [Oct 2016, p.37]

The idiosyncratic chamber-pop o these 14 songs evokes The Kinks, XTC and the more melancholy side of Hot Chip; like much of their past work, it's musically intricate, too. [Mar 2016, p.73]

If Saint Etienne are finally growing up, this wistful adulthood becomes them. [Jul 2005, p.96]

It works best when her vocal is minimally adorned. [Oct 2011, p.105]

It's very fine, glowing with an oblique, poppy sensibility that's theirs alone. [Jan 2003, p.127]

It's not their reworkings of songs by Charley Patton, Fred McDowell and RL Burnside that impress most here, but rather their own compositions. [Apr 2006, p.114]

This, assembled by Menahan Street Band guitarist Tom Brenneck, painstakingly recreates the tropes of classic '60s Southern soul--impassioned vocals, shimmering guitars and fruity horns. [Mar 2010, p.85]

What's most intriguing is the way each artist gets in character. [Nov 2011, p.104]

Bruised suburban romance sparkles through the twin jangles of Edwards and James Wignall. [Jun 2012, p.84]

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 unlikely pairing works precisely because of the contrast between their approaches, as they locate a vibrant middle ground on rawboned yet tuneful rockers like "The Prisoner" and dynamic ballads like "No Sir." [May 2014, p.69]

There's a lot going on here. [Jul 2015, p.69]

Much more than just a fan curio. [Jul 2015, p.81]

These seven piano/voice tracks, recorded and mixed live to tape by Tucker Martine, are immediately seductive, balancing spare, bittersweet melodies and billowing space. [Oct 2016, p.26]

This is bold, imaginative, and, on occasion, deliciously strange. [Nov 2016, p.32]

A fascinating accompaniment to Hollander's book of the same name. ... Superb collection. [Dec 2018, p.46]

This is no desperate grab at nostalgia, then, rather a chronicle of important personal moments reexamined through the lens of time. [Feb 2019, p.30]

These 13 grooving and textural song-poems are his most focused work to date and, although loaded with meaning, Ma never feels heavy or burdensome. [Oct 2019, p.24]

[Rainford] was haled as a return to form, and Heavy Rain--an album of re-versions helmed by Sherwood accompanied by a suite of guests--feels similarly vital. [Jan 2020, p.28]

The threesome manage to toe the very fine line between control and chaos, suppression and release. [Jan 2024, p.34]

A loose, luscious listen, with a timeless sound. [Apr 2024, p.32]

While the songs sometimes get swallowed up in the maelstrom, Ackermann’s unit proves more than capable of manifesting a sort of grotty malevolence rarely heard since Killing Joke’s imperial phase. [Nov 2024, p.41]

With this one weighted heavily toward the dance floor, there's no shortage of sublime moments. [Jul 2012, p.74]

It's not much of a move forward, and arguably a step back. [Sep 2013, p.85]

Fashions change, but Baird's music remains gorgeous, harbouring a kind of still magic without resorting to self-consciously wyrd affectations. [Jul 2015, p.71]

But though much of the record revels in freaky electronics--'Chores' and 'Winter Wonder Land' rush through as though played by pixellated marching bands--there’s an overwhelming sadness to the undertow

It's bombastic, but you can't fault its ambitions. [Jun 2007, p.115]

By far the strongest collection of songs the band have ever assembled. [Nov 2003, p.114]

Yo La Tengo's 12th album finds them operating well within their comfort zone but it's no less delightful for the absence of envelopes being pushed. [Oct 2009, p.123]

Their chemistry is obvious. [Feb 2013, p.74]

Four of these tracks run well past the 10-minute mark and pack in an exhausting series of musical ideas that most artists would be content to spread more thinly over an entire album. [Mar 2014, p.79]

It's genuinely smart, intriguingly playful set that both presses all the right Big Pop buttons and sounds decidedly off-centre. [Jul 2017, p.36]

Dour, yes, but possessed of a regal sort of beauty. [Nov 2016, p.26]

They've mastered the basics, but still have miles to go. [May 2017, p.26]

Exactly a year since the release of his dreamy debut Causers Of This, South Carolina's Chaz Bundick is back with a very different and impressively cultured second album. [Mar 2011, p.105]

Rarely has an anachronism sounded so revolutionary. [Mar 2005, p.92]

An LP that reaffirms your faith in hip-hop. [Aug 2012, p.75]

Silver Bullets sounds, instantly and unmistakably, like a Chills album.... It is also a heartening delight. [Dec 2015, p.63]

Worth waiting for, waiting for. [Dec 2021, p.23]

They're as seductive as when they first saw light, with "Arthur" capturing the aquatic oddness of Russell's finest productions. [May 2017, p.36]

A revolutionary step in the band’s catalogue this is not, but the sound of Dwyer and co having a lot of fun in his basement radiates throughout, as does the band’s seamless knack for tapping into any strand of punk they turn their hand to. [Sep 2022, p.28]

Beneath the edgy smarts there's always been an undercurrent of anxiety, and now they're plunging into choppy emotional waters, minus irony's lifebelt. [Jul 2017, p.26]

But where Black Mountain's message begins to get woolly the music is never anything less than exhilarating

Langford, as ever, masterfully mixes the personal, the political and the poetic. [Apr 2014, p.77]

This double-CD set offers clues as to how Welch and Rawlings got there [on Revival], and glimpses down roads not taken. [Jan 2017, p.49]

Glorious polyglot. [Apr 2013, p.73]

This follow-up is lighter still, housing Friedberger's gorgeous voice and diary-entry love songs within a freewheeling sound that bounces around the late '60s and '70s, looking for classic pop clues. [Jul 2013, p.75]

Fans will be relieved to know that although it pulls few lyrical punches, slam-dancing is still possible. [Nov 2004, p.119]

There's a striking purity to this record. [Mar 2012, p.79]

It gets a bit ploddy at times, but their knack for a good tune, a sweet harmony and the odd fiery guitar break keeps it all on the right side of mellow. [Oct 2013, p.75]

Dripping with raw emotion, Tim Wheeler's solo debut is a moving memorial to his father George. [Jan 2015, p.79]

Evocative, but with plenty of open spaces. [Mar 2015, p.75]

It's indie rock like Mum used to make, and comfortingly invigorating as such. [Jul 2023, p.23]

Generally things are slower and less musically direct, and so you have an amalgamation of alt.rock, leftfield folk, pop, jazz and touches of electronica. However, while stylistically varied, it can feel a little lacking in variety and dynamism at times, as it very much sits in mid-tempo mode for much of the 12 tracks, the sprightly pop of their early period rarely appearing. Johnson feels nicely in sync with his band though, who possess both precision and personality in their playing. [Oct 2024, p.42]

"South Coast" and "Albatross", especially, are the sound of a band growing no less peculiar and wonderous for their familiarity. [Mar 2025, p.41]

A clutch of glistening electronic pop gems. [Jul 2017, p.37]

An altogether less whimsical - and much more Pearl Jam-esque - undertaking than 2011's Ukulele Songs. [Apr 2022, p.36]

However nonlinear her compositions, they’re bright, full of wonder and have a pop sensibility, recalling Four Tet, Deakin and Suzanne Ciani. [Sep 2022, p.30]

Mountain Moves is a brilliantly executed synthesis of tag-averse weirdness, orchestral pop and easy grooves, stuffed with earworms and whimsy-free. [Oct 2017, p.26]

The new songs possess an engaging spareness and intimacy while still making room for such guests as Sharon Van Etten. [Jun 2017, p.33]

Big Dada, Beans, Sayyid, Earl Blaize and High Priest riffle through more fresh ideas in the opening six tracks than contempoary hip hop will in as many months. [Oct 2009, p.91]

A curiously uninvolving affair. [Jun 2004, p.95]

On first hearing, it's a record to admire rather than love, but its insidious appeal soon gets under your skin. [Sep 2002, p.112]

Illumination is already being described by the Weller massive as the best solo album of his career. You'll hear few arguments with that from this corner. [Oct 2002, p.118]

A cleaner operation than their previous LP, but no less unorthodox. [Apr 2002, p.95]

The Brewis brothers may be at odds with the modern world, but in this stunningly realised double album, they've created the ultimate sanctuary.

This tasteful mix of analogue keys and distorted drum machines is precisely what we've come to expect from Pritchard. It's when he wanders off-piste with Bibio, Thom Yorke and Linda Perhacs that the record comes alive, and these instrumental tracks then play a vital supporting role. [Jun 2016, p.80]

Dark Days And Canapes feels both bleaker and more robust than [earlier works]. [Sep 2017, p.28]

Not all essential but a generally rich and respectable package. [Jul 2021, p.43]

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

22-year old singer and songwriter Dylan Baldi still sounds like an angst-wracked teen. [Jun 2014, p.73]

His home-recorded approach reaches imaginatively beyond glossy pastiche. [Mar 2006, p.90]

So charged it crackles. [Feb 2005, p.82]

Slugger is low-key but, true to form, leaves a mark. [Dec 2016, p.37]

There's a mellow-late-Beatles vibe at play, especially on "Full Moon," and this may be the band's finest to date. [May 2014, p.83]

Full of hits and misses as it sways back and forth between indie and electro, never quite finding its feet. [Aug 2022, p.30]

The effervescent punk-pop of The Breeders is a touchstone, as is Kimya Dawson's ramshakle honesty, but "Lips And Limbs" affects a subtle country twang, while on the terrific "Blue Pt. II," skeletal acoustic acoustics and frank lyrics document a stagnating love affair. [Aug 2013, p.79]

Much of this album resembles the kind of murky '80s proto-techno recently unearthed by Trevor Jackson for his Metal Dance comps, with Nik Colk Void's monotone vocals ceding centre stage to the restive machine rhythms that constantly threaten to rise up and over throw their human masters. [Oct 2013, p.67]

Epic in scale, World Boogie Is Coming is an extraordinary amalgam of envelope-pushing studio manipulation and DNA-fuelled deep gut grooves. [Dec 2013, p.71]

Not as muddy as one might have hoped, then, but this was definitely a revisit worth making. [July 2008, p.96]

While Fuzz II has some absolute stormers, some of the proto-metal songs are a little too ponderous to really click. [Nov 2015, p.76]

Made with members of Guns N' Roses, the Chili Peppers, Jane's Addiction plus the late Taylor Hawkins, who provide a professionally truculent background to tracks like the loose and slinky "All The Way down" or the terrific "Modern Day Rp Off". a self-deprecating Stooges Pastiche. But Iggy's voice is the star. [Feb 2023, p.35]

The Most Lamentable Tragedy feels like a quintessentially modern album, a scintillating examination of mania and neurosis that uses the history of rock'n'roll as mere stage dressing for its bravura performance. [Sep 2015, p.65]

Swirling and malevolent, "I&I" and "Beneath The Concrete" are compelling enough, but wading through so much posturing becomes a slog. [Jun 2016, p.76]

The warm homeliness drifts into untethered territory. [Dec 2021, p.31]

It's a vibrant set with a live feel, alternating between rowdy folk-rockers and some of Thompson's most poignant ballads. [Mar 2013, p.77]

Her fourth album proves that she can apply those [AI techniques from her Circumstance Synthesis EP] to more structured, dynamic songs in a way that's instantly enthralling. [Aug 2020, p.27]

Skulk is impeccably sung and flawlessly executed by the handpicked musician on show. [May 2012, p.79]

While nothing on this best-of collection quite matches the exquisiteness of Grant's solo work, you can still hear him testing the waters and laying the groundwork for what was to come. [Jan 2015, p.87]

The Last Rider is another warm collection of bittersweet pop songs, alternately wistful and playful, freighted with memories of time and place. [May 2017, p.39]

Here you'll find the French cool of Ruth's "Polaroid/Roman/Photo," the glacial "Romantic" by Sweden's Cosmic Overdose as well as the gorgeous minimalism of "NY NY" by Dutch musician Truus De Groot. [Sep 2017, p.52]