From the creeping “Let That Sink In” to growling “Warpaint”, Sage Motel is super stuff: check in at your earliest convenience. [Jun 2022, p.31]

The result is a lovingly recorded scrap of splendour and beauty that takes some of the more interesting elements of MMJ and runs with them in a series of unexpected directions. [Mar 2013, p.71]

Airy arrangements, wonderfully agile musicianship, songs pooled from numerous sources into flowing ensemble pieces. [Apr 2025, p.33]

Samba Toure's fourth album in five years rocks as hard as any African record we've heard. [Mar 2015, p.83]

These nine brief songs weave together to create a bewitching, moonlit spell. [Feb 2013, p.78]

It feels as if she now trusts the power of her music to imbue even cliche with emotional power. [Jun 2018, p.29]

The musical palette, however, is wider this time round, emphasising the breadth of Helm’s interests rather than the stuff on which he was weaned--numbers by Muddy Waters and Nina Simone rub shoulders with works by Randy Newman and the Grateful Dead.

Molina here opts for a more expansive spproach with reedy harmonies, horns, soulful guitars and gospel piano. [Aug 2009, p.100]

A concept piece about man's downfall and a planet in ruins, versed in three chapters and dominated by the kind of skull-splitting metal that marked 2014's I'm In Your Mind Fuzz. [Jul 2017, p.32]

Musgraves' superpower is her ability to convey complex emotions via concise phrasing, which means quieter songs such as "Good Wife" and "If This Was A Movie" hit especially hard. [Nov 2021, p.30]

As wilfully indulgent as it is breathtakingly advanced. [Apr 2004, p.101]

Array 1 hints at unfinished business, picking up almost where A Gilded Eternity left off. [Aug 2015, p.76]

The catchiest lesson in sexual politics you're likely to hear this season. [Dec 2001, p.111]

Fratti delivers some of her most musically and emotionally rich work to date here, her dreamy voice and impressionistic Spanish-language lyrics adding an extra layer of magical realism. [Aug 2024, p.36]

Not as generous with its outtakes as a leaked CD-R suggested Rhino's 20th-anniversary edition in 2006 would have been, the inevitable round-up of B-sides does at least--and this is a big plus--reuinite "Rubber Ring" and "Asleep" in an unbroken segue. ... The Mansfield gig is a worthwhile addition to the official catalogue, though collectors will notice six of the 19 songs played that night are not included. [Nov 2017, p.40]

Pajo is not, and will never be, a great singer.... His guitar playing, though, is as quietly inventive as ever. [Jul 2005, p.96]

As always they are best when singing of brief encounters and regret. [Jun 2023, p.36]

If Heartleap does indeed prove to be the final destination of Bunyan's old horse and cart, it's entirely worthy one. [Nov 2014, p.79]

The portraits of Hey Mr Ferryman, shaped into gorgeous studies of sympathy by Bernard Butler's production, are compelling in their starkness, their raw, unchecked humour, and their kindness toward people who, as Eitzel says, are looking for "something that will lead them to light and safety." [Feb 2017, p.20]

There's a strong senes of '76 punk to All in God Time, more precisely bands like the Damned and Dead Boys. [Mar 2020, p.27]

An album that feels charged by forward momentum while also embracing the comforting pulse of a locked groove. [Jul 2022, p.31]

Both sonically and lyrically, it's an album that is explicitly, thrillingly transgressive and is already an early contender for one of the albums of the year. [Mar 2018, p.33]

Despite convoluted explanations about their relationship with nature, these compositions are surprisingly straightforward, with "Everyone Sleeps" and "Hands In The Anthill" almost primly formal. [Mar 2019, p.29]

A supremely sassy swansong. [Jan 2012, p.90]

They've pulled together their most digestible record yet. [Feb 2008, p.84]

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

A band that couldn't ddcide if they preferred the caustic post-grunge of The Jesus Lizard or the absurdist, singalong witticisms of Half Man Half Biscuit, so choose to do both. Happily, the band have the muscular riffs and eloquence to pull off both. [Jul 2009, p.88]

She has fashioned a still eccentric but bracingly focused collection of songs that blend her acrobatic and soulful Afro-jazz vocals with a collage music that defies any attempts at categorization. [May 2011, p.96]

Like a rolling stone made of avant-garde music and sadness. [Sep 2020, p.27]

Let England Shake is the sound of someone as maddened as they are enthralled, aglow with anger and passion.

Bursting with raw energy and renewed vigour. [Feb 2023, p.25]

All suggest that this band is in the process of remaking itself for a vital midlife. [Mar 2010, p.85]

The songs on Tare's fourth solo effort brims with joy, wonder and the sheer pleasure to be found in making sounds. [Mar 2023, p.25]

Lyrically, relationships dominate, if unconventionally. ... Her effervescent voice like muted Liz Fraser. [Jun 2023, p.32]

John Lee Hooker was the most adaptable bluesmen. ... King Of The Boogie is a career-bridging overview that highlights these abundant qualities across five discs. [Nov 2017, p.50]

So Runs The World Away is vivid, artful, expressive and more besides. [Sep 2010, p.100]

Northern Passages is just that [promises both new delights and reassuring old comforts], their banked harmonies as warm and familiar as the blissful psych-country of "Riverview Fog" or the Clarence White-era Byrds stylings of "God Bless The Infidels." [Mar 2017, p.39]

It's Hit-and-miss but lots of fun, with real skill and joie de vivre behind the incessant experimentation. [Jan 2012, p.90]

Wonderful, Glorious sounds, throughout, overwhelmingly like an Eels album.... This consistency has to be admired as testament to the robustness of E's vision. [Mar 2013, p.74]

Presley's righteous fury and mordant wit burn even brighter on this follow-up. [May 2017, p.28]

While Forsyth is mindful to retain his more spontaneous impulses, this wonderfully intense set is dominated by "Techno Top", a pounding 20-minute groove that recalls both Talking Heads and Television. [May 2019, p.29]

It may sound like a gimmicky stunt but it produces mostly beautiful results. [Jun 2018, p.30]

In short, it's a quietly beautiful record: anthemic but not bombastic, introspective yet universal, simply drawn but beautifully coloured in. [Apr 2011, p.82]

Apocalypse is a wild thing which dances from one side of that line [between brilliant and bizarre] to the other with never-less-than-compelling abandon. [May 2011, p.89]

As guitarist Russell Marsden steps aside to let bassist Emma Richardson sing, it's less White Stripes, more Brody Dale, but momentum is maintained. [Oct 2009, p.91]

Particularly interesting among the demos (and these really are early sketches) is the entertaining “Out In The Country” (banjos, acoustic guitars, an Eagles vibe), which is taken two radically different ways; seeming to show that the band didn’t just have one route out of the perpetual summer of 1964 and into the introspective, soft-rock 1970s, they had several – this one even involving country rock. [Jan 2023, p.28]

Strong on characterful production, writing and lyrical fronts, it's a country-pop tour de force that showcases her insight and humour as she addresses everything from the economic precarity of her homeland to the devastating harm done by body shaming. [Sep 2025, p.29]

Innovations are few.... Still, when these nocturnes, crescendos and intimations of apocalypse remain so musically rich and emotionally powerful, it seems churlish to demand more. [Dec 2002, p.130]

Musgraves' willingness to address a life built on knotty contradictions give her songs resonance far beyond Golden's borders. [Jul 2015, p.82]

Despite its DIY origins and almost hallucinatory feel, this is a peach of a pop record. [Apr 2004, p.108]

Jeffreys' serves up a vibrant stew of musical styles while taking the pulse of his beloved New York. [Jun 2012, p.74]

Traditionally, country music and club-derived electronics make for awkward bedfellows, but it's a testament to the strength of Gibson's strange vision that Me Moan might well become a touchstone of modern-day Americana. [Aug 2013, p.66]

Rennie's lyrics remain full of transfixed wonder, sketching places where ghosts swim in the air and sea kelpies call fro, the shallows, while Brett's lugubrious tones are a perfect conduit for songs like "Gold," "Gentlemen" and state -fair attraction "Tiny Tina," the world's smallest horse. [Oct 2016, p.32]

Occup[ies] the same sonic territory as The Dandy Warhols' underrated Come Down. [Aug 2003, p.108]

The whole thing feels like a dusky gambol through America's musical past. [Sep 2014, p.81]

Amos has never been in rangier voice. [Mar 2005, p.102]

This isn't mere sonic overload; Corin Tucker and Carrie Brownstein's vocals are still towering. [Jun 2005, p.107]

It’s all strong enough to hopefully attract listeners beyond Tindersticks’ hardy fanbase. [Oct 2024, p.43]

Blessed with a baritone unmatched in modern pop, he delivers 15 exquisite ditties. [May 2006, p.108]

Intriguing. [Jul 2007, p.116]

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

Another sly masterstroke by the canniest widow in rock. [May 2007, p.103]

T Bone Burnett combines his vast understanding of American roots music with Randolph's vital grounding in gospel on the sacred steel virtuoso's third studio album. [Jul 2010, p.117]

Newfound sobriety has sharpened Lilly's focus since her previous release, as does the backing of dad's touring band and the unfussy production by Shovels & Rope's Michael Trent. [Mar 2018, p.26]

This release compiles non-album tracks, remixes and a couple of new tunes, but it feels like a perfectly focused set of retro-modernist dance. [Jan 2012, p.90]

Tracks like 'Couples' prove their trademark sound is still as strong (and smart) as ever. [May 2008, p.102]

A quietly spectacular bunch of songs. [Jun 2020, p.28]

Hippo Lite feels like Le Bon and Presley's own little musical microclimate. You don't have to know exactly what they're on about to recognise that it's something special. [May 2018, p.25]

Here they sound truly alive, impassioned and buoyant on their finest LP to date. [Jun 2018, p.33]

Despite ts sometimes laidback nature, Sparkle Hard also bristles with an energy that proves he's got a place in the present, and a new accessibility that compromises none of his eccentricities. [Jun 2018, p.18]

Grey Britain builds upon its predecessor without diluting any of its rabid energy and grinding, oppressive negativity. [Jun 2009, p.86]

Initially foreboding, its laminar abstractions give way to the stealthy textural seductions of centrepiece "Line Angel," where shards of electronic glass penetrate a wavering organ drift, and the choral minimalism of closer, "MFBK." [Jun 2016, p.78]

Submerged are the country/folk ramblings of 2012's Arrow, replaced with a challenging density. [Jul 2015, p.77]

Somehow, Turbines suggests both consolidation and progress. [Jul 2013, p.83]

Her lyrics and voice remain major draws. ... Soothing balms following the drama of Songs. [Nov 2020, p.26]

Consistently entertaining beautifully recorded, enough lyrical Malkmusing to occupy a generation of decoders, plus it rocks. [Sep 2011, p.92]

Despite the obvious threads, songs as good as “Nullspace” and “Soonish” transcend any cynicism, and you’re left bathing in a welcome optimism. [Dec 2024, p.35]

A bold step into more contentious terrain. [Feb 2021, p.34]

Effectively picks and mixes from the Jansch stylebook. [Oct 2006, p.130]

A beautiful album, and one that conveys such stillness that time itself seems to hang suspended. [Sep 2010, p.104]

Severant works better than you'd think, and at its best it is breathtaking. [Jan 2012, p.90]

A well-rounded triumph. [Mar 2013, p.76]

At first the music seems hermetically sealed; only with repeated listens - and an emphatic twist of the knob - do the subtle splendours burst out of the aural chrysalis containing them and take flight. [Jun 2020, p.34]

Any Day is their sharpest set of songs to date, but Sam Prekop's languid melodies still prove defiantly elusive. [Jun 2018, p.35]

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

Rain is a fetching guitar-pop wonder, a melodic feastm blending vintage Marshall Crenshaw-like hooks with elegant, acoustic scenes-in-miniature. [Mar 2010, p.89]

Who Will You Believe is the sound of a man who has not only grown into himself, but is finding that, despite dents and losses, he's kind of enjoying life. His trademark country-rock jangle glistens. [Apr 2024, p.39]

Terrific follow-up. [Oct 2020, p.29]

Wagner has achieved a fusion of the outgoing, string-driven country-soul heard on 2000's Nixon... and the reluctant intimacy of 2002's low-key Is A Woman. [combined review of both discs; Feb 2004, p. 68]

It's entirely fantastical stuff. [Apr 2022, p.32]

The 'contemporary classical' tag doesn't do justice to their cinematic, intense instrumental narratives. [Mar 2006, p.104]

It's Roderick's lyrics that really grip. [Nov 2006, p.118]

The results shimmer like rivers at dusk. [Sep 2010, p.111]

Highlights include Idles’ explosive “Peace Signs”; St Panther unlocking the irresistible pop heart of “One Day”; and “Love More” given a rhythmic, world-weary makeover by Fiona Apple. [Jun 2021, p.46]

This meatier effort offers more of the same dog-eared melancholy. [Oct 2007, p.90]

Highlights include the waltzing "About As Helpful As You Can Be Without Being Any Help At All" and a breathless canter through the Broken Social Scene stylings of "Post-War Blues." [Jan 2012, p.93]

A collection that aims to sweep up the moments when the spotlight isn't on, Sawdust, therefore, might just be their defining document [Jan 2008, p.91]

Country Sleep will never get a party swinging, but if you're in the mood to have your heart ripped out, it does the job beautifully. [Mar 2013, p.75]