Offers a more intimate appraisal of his state of mind. [Jan 2023, p.18]

His playing can be free and fiery but it's also deeply soulful and sometimes almost aggressively melodic. [Mar 2023, p.29]

Deliciously dark and yet full of an elegant lightness, this is Hersh at the top of her considerable game. [Oct 2023, p.29]

There's a similar vibe here [to the soundtrack they created for BBC drama Gallows Pole] on tracks such as "raised By Hills" and "Tripping In The Graveyard", although elsewhere the psych weirdness is as rampantly eclectic as ever. [Nov 2023, p.29]

Pramuk takes listeners on a rich inner-space odyssey. [Aug 2025, p.37]

Edwards sounds comfortable and confident in this setting, although occasionally she indulges some awkward, first-draft lyrics. [Sep 2025, p.31]

The surrounding circumstances inevitably bring an additional layer of darkness to allusively eloquent, quietly agitated songs. [Apr 2026, p.36]

The eclectism is exhilarating. [Nov 2008, p.96]

Eternally Even affords James the opportunity to take his music to places My Morning Jacket are less likely to inhabit. The result being that his solo albums are rapidly becoming profound statements in themselves, rather than mere sideshows to the main event. [Dec 2016, p.31]

Happy Hollow serves up more emo with prog on the side, then adds dirty blues, cabaret and art-rock garnish. [Sep 2006, p.79]

A set of limber, largely instrumental funk shot through with Asian, African and Middle Eastern melodies, each track sounds like it could have come off as jukebox single purchased from some dusty overseas record kiosk. [Feb 2018, p.29]

All are by turns playful, impassioned, and intelligent. [Oct 2008, p.118]

Her best album for many years illustrates her uniqueness. [Jun 2010, p.97]

This middle ground between jazz and hip-hop is the crux of the record, ad while it's loaded with deft playing, rich production and complex compositions, the constant rotation of differing voices can often kill the flow and coherence of what is otherwise a meticulously crafted record. [Jul 2023, p.33]

The band's arch, apocalyptic howl is frequently interrupted by industrial pummelling and passages of heads-down skronk, to the point where you genuinely have no idea what they're going to do or say next. [Apr 2014, p.71]

Undertow resembles free jazz noiseniks let loose in a junkyard, cooking up a mood of creeping dread with radioactive electronics. [Apr 2017, p.40]

These are anguished addresses of the world's current turbulence, U2 needing to scrabble unusually and interestingly hard in the cinders to disinter sparks of their trademark redemptive optimism. [May 2026, p.37]

Relayted manages to be both comfortingly familiar and devastatingly futuristic. [Jun 2010, p.90]

Atlas is dominated by a saturated prettiness that seems at once virtuoso and effortless. [Apr 2014, p.68]

Despite nods to jazzy glitch and ambient glide, most of these beautifully crafted tracks are united by supple but solid 4/4 rhythms. [Aug 2014, p.75]

The Follower delicately shifts the emphasis from trance to techno, continuing the slow descent into darkness begun with 2013's Cupid's Head. [May 2016, p.73]

An immersive, gently hypnotic and sporadically sublime album. [Dec 2022, p.29]

There's no seismic shift here, but the differences--and listening rewards--lie in the indeterminate spaces between their sources. [Jul 2014, p.77]

A sparkling set recalling the mid-century tipping point of folk revivalism into rock. [Apr 2024, p.38]

Thrashes to the classic American assembly-line rock of Springsteen and the choppy pop of early Nick Lowe/Joe Jackson. [June 2004, p.88]

The sparer treatments on How Beauty Holds the Hand of Sorrow make for something more enthralling, partially because of how much the largely piano-and-vocal arrangements evoke the crystalline beauty of Brun's early albums. [Jan 2021, p.23]

Pratt has one of those voices, like Josephine Foster, that remain stubbornly, elusively ageless. [Feb 2013, p.78]

A suite unreliably narrated by a character named Miami. ... The album is a wittily wrought soundtrack of his delusions. [Dec 2017, p.25]

The title track's mod R&B struts with the confidence of a band whose last album hit the Top 10. [Jun 2019, p.37]

May be Regan's finest 35 minutes to date. [Sep 2019, p.33]

People Helping People is evenly split between eerie, washed-out rumblings and more frenzied outbursts of Sonic Youth-ful skronk and motorik madness. [Oct 2022, p.33]

Supreme Balloon adds up to the duo's most consistently enjoyable albums yet. [June 2008, p.98]

He's never sounded quite so bitter as he does on Wrecking Ball.

Laudably, unfussy. [Feb 2020, p.35]

The ornate multitracked chorales retain a heady intensity. [Sep 2015, p.73]

Comes across like a hi-fi version of Tom Waits at his gnarliest. [Jun 2006, p.92]

Though featuring young musicians, this album is antique rathe r than groundbreaking in feel, pleasing evoking a sweet, after hours blues cellar fug, all slide and sax. [May 2010, p.83]

Initially it's hard to detect much disruption to his usual winning formula of squelchy keyboards, pulsing rhythms and glassy guitar noodles, but the dank electro of "AE" and the hot-stepping snares of "O" introduce a note of disquiet that only pulls you further into his exquisitely crafted universe. [Feb 2018, p.30]

Temet manages to broaden their sound further, forging links to funk, soul and jazz. Crucially, though, they've retained the traditional rhythms that make them so captivating. [Mar 2018, p.26]

This, bara clutch of mellow moments, has unclouded ambitions to pack the dancefloor. [Feb 2020, p.27]

From the electrifying first few minutes of Things Are Great, it's evident that Bridwell is revitalised. [Feb 2022, p.25]

An invigorating debut. [May 2014, p.78]

Robust, sparkly. [Jul 2019, p.24]

This is uncluttered, radiant music with the lightest touch and muggiest of voices. [Mar 2005, p.102]

However dry or highbrow it may sound on paper, Johannsson's melodious symphony of strings, electronics and choral elements is totally accessible and, for most of its 60-plus minutes, achingly lovely. [Jan 2008, p.101]

The piano house pop of “Woman” and synth-fuelled trance of “Holiday” could have been released in 1992, but they’re no less likeable for it. They’re shot through with CM’s trademark wry cool, as is “What I Like”, wherein Sugar Bones’ laconic vocal makes a dancefloor anthem sound somehow like The Dandy Warhols gone disco. [May 2022, p.25]

Unashamedly shaggy compared to the sibling' meticulously crafted Lemon Twigs LPs. .... An illuminating look under the hood of the creative process. [Mar 2025, p.31]

It's appealing stuff--Lil Wayne is a fan--while the pair's wit suggests they'll continue to stay ahead of the critical curve. [Sep 2008, p.85]

There's both [commitment and respect] in spades on Coming Home, a throwback album that's also blessed with modesty. [Jul 2015, p.74]

Effortlessly ambitious. [Oct 2006, p.119]

While his lyrics crackle, the music seems like an afterthought. [Dec 2011, p.84]

A strikingly confident record. [Feb 2016, p.74]

However eccentric and laidback his expression, it's as masterfully distinctive as that of any auteur. [Nov 2018, p.35]

Laugh Track features a band free of some of their usual burden. [Dec 2023, p.34]

American Saturday Night has its fair share of hokum but proves that Paisley has a tough baritone voice and is a mean, bluesy guitarist. [Aug 2010, p.92]

A scene of glorious, twilit devastation. [Oct 2012, p.75]

Their slickest album yet. [Oct 2015, p.76]

[The Silver Gymnasium is] the sincerest, most heartfelt album they've yet assembled, and it's all the more powerful for it. [Oct 2013, p.60]

While he's got enough pure country in him to for convincing Merle Haggard-style balladry, he's best on rabble-rousers like the rightly pissed populism of "Stomp And Holler" and the de facto title song, a doomed soldier's outrageous, funny surreal travelogue grafted onto a grungy mutation of Dylan's "Subterranean Homesick Blues." [Mar 2011, p.85]

This, then, is a rich and strange new sound for Marshall. [Oct 2012, p.85]

This is one old timer who's still in his prime. [Aug 2014, p.72]

Escape From Evil is a record about grief, and at times hits hard. [May 2015, p.76]

Ultimately the notion lingers that Wax Stag's gentle fantasy is more Bedford than Balaeric. [Apr 2015, p.84]

Hackney Diamonds strains at the leash to show just how vital and dynamic the tones still are, with Jagger very much in pole position. .... Reborn again, the Stones kick back and celebrate. [Dec 2023, p.20]

If nothing else, [his] accountant will be pleased with Maths & English's broad appeal. [Jul 2007, p.99]

Now reissued and remastered, those principals are still sound: classic riffs and also more toothsome and unswinging structures, what ch are nice, especially when they stop. [Apr 2011, p.94]

While the singles "Until The Fire" and "The Animals" are satisfyingly sleek and sinister, Lady tron seem most energised when they head deep into the darkness in the starkly Numan-ist "Paper Highways" and "Deadzone." [Mar 2019, p.29]

[Seb Rochford] delivers Bear's most varied set to date. [Apr 2014, p.80]

If the acoustic backdrop sometime slacks texture, there are no such qualms with the songwriting that demonstrates a novelist's eye for detail. [Jun 2014, p.83]

These are great, clever, slovenly rock songs. [May 2005, p.95]

Joe Henry coaxes out his pithy, hard-bitten wisdom with unfussy production. [Oct 2008, p.98]

If Better Oblivion Community Center has a recurring flaw, it's a reluctance to hit these higher gears more often, the best of BOCC, however, both earns its place in Oberst's already formidable canon, and further confirms Bridgers as an artist likely to assemble one. [Apr 2019, p.37]

Roots Manua's particularly thrilling on the poignant urgent "A Caged Bird," but while "Lessons" suggest the warm post-jazz realms of Tortoise could have explored post TNT, no-one else combines dignified grandeur and soulful romance so effectively. [Apr 2019, p.26]

This English-language version is a beautiful thing. [Dec 2013, p.63]

Every moment shimmers with atmosphere, as the rippling melodies and contoured choruses enclose Payseur's knotty ruminations in sun-dappled serenity. [Jul 2023, p.23]

Sisterworld is an impressive record which lurches menacingly between euphoria and tranquility. [Mar 2010, p.89]

It's a rich, invigorating and mischievous affair and, for older fans, possibly their best since 2004's The Dirty South. [Mar 2011, p.87]

It's the change of pace and mood on the reflective "How Far" that marks Run Around The Sun as a real advance. [Jul 2019, p.34]

Lanegan's lyrics are as daft as ever. But that growling baritone voice and the soundscapes are never less than compelling. [Nov 2019, p.27]

Spaces Everywhere has arch, but craft aplenty. [Apr 2015, p.80]

Oddly, this works a treat. [Feb 2014, p.77]

There are still big choruses here. But they now layer things deftly. [Jun 2010, p.86]

The six tracks are minimalist to the point of vanishing, crafted from gently shimmering electric guitars and murmuring keyboards, while Silberman's soft, high voice, polished like fine silver, delivers a series of quietly emotive haikus. [Mar 2017, p.39]

Lots to unpack, and it's a pleasure to do so. [Oct 2019, p.30]

“Son” and “Chernye Tsvety” feel a mite glossier than their earlier records, which had a smudged and lo-fi feel that gave them the quality of samizdat recordings. Still present and correct, though, is a sense of dislocation and alienation that’s positively Kafkaesque. [Oct 2024, p.37]

What prevents this all from becoming a mish-mash of textures is Hoop's single-minded passion, which lends a self-assured cohesion to her diversity.

These songs offer a smart inversion of the usual gender roles in mainstream music, all set to a propulsive, bass-heavy backdrop. [Oct 2015, p.81]

Kirk's fondness for gloomier realms prevails, especially in his noteworthy wordplay and on the ominously noisy title track. [May 2017, p.40]

Here is Can, warts and all. [Jul 2017, p.49]

Sodden with emotional profundity. [May 2004, p.104]

Reassessing the past and reengaging with the present, Revival lives up to its name.

The uninitiated may hear only a wonky Julian Cope at 25rpm, but somewhere on Screen Memories is the point where performance art ends and genuine mania begins. [Nov 2017, p.32]

It's the sonic equivalent of a Douglas Gordon video installation. [Jun 2021, p.27]

Closer "Underdog", a stripped-back self-portrait of a striver still "trying hard [to] leave a mark", provides an intimate coda to Harwood's depiction of his teeming inner world, a hermetically sealed ocean of emotion. [Jul 2022, p.27]

“Savage” and “Maps” could be John Foxx’s Ultravox remixed by Larry Levan, the songs’ harder synth and post-punk textures continually softened by Polar’s emotive vocals and Geist’s love of warm, soulful grooves. [Sep 2022, p.23]

The title track lurches woozily like it's about to break out into a waltz but never does, and "hard Times" is an aching Celtic/Appalachian ballad. We end with the loveliest take on "Home On The Range" you've ever heard. [Mar 2026, p.31]

Taylor maintains the intimacy of Yorkston's sound, highlighting the weary warmth of his voice, and adding instrumental shading, while KT Tunstall and The Pictish Trail bring harmonic depth. [Sep 2014, p.81]

Her debut British release showcases a vivid and fully formed talent clearly versed in quirky, often humourous songcraft. [Nov 2007, p.125]