Wittily expressed and beautifully sung. [May 2023, p.31]

More intimate but still privy to occasional bursts of discordant, unsettling energy. Several tracks are exceptionally brief. [May 2023, p.38]

Spanning just 32 minutes, The Art Of Pleasure feels slight and light. Even so, the warm glow of liberated self-love on sparkly standouts like "Float", "Phenomenal" and "Haute" is infectious. [Sep 2023, p.32]

The songs' sense of drive and drama demonstrates RVG's growing confidence. [Jul 2023, p.33]

Younge and his horn octet create some fine pastiche of Fela Kuti's Egypt 90 band around Allen's beats. [Aug 2023, p.23]

These renditions are suffused with the joyousness with which Hatfield embraces the source material as she finds the sweet spot between emulation and invention. [Dec 2023, p.31]

An album of midnight moods. [Nov 2023, p.29]

Bandleader/pianist Bill Payne opted for an album of blues covers, making the jobs of replacement guitarist/ singer Scott Sharrard (who played a similar role with Gregg Allman) and drummer Tony Leone less daunting. The rejigged Feats perform their modest mission masterfully. [Jun 2024, p.36]

There's an appealing innocence to their songs about the daily joys and troubles of tribal life, and the overall effect is as charming as it is arresting. [Jul 2024, p.41]

The Quebecois duo channel Suicide's proto-punk minimalism on the charming, drum Machine-driven "L'ile Aux Bleuets" and take rhythmic cues from Stereolab on English language ode to simpler times "Parc De Beauvoir" - while album standout "Le Fei" is four minutes of giddy, childlike joy. [Jul 2024, p.31]

Squint hard and it could be Beck’s Midnite Vultures run through a flanger pedal and recorded on a Maxell C60, but that’s no bad thing. [Oct 2024, p.34]

Their pop songs always leave traces in the memory, but the real gems occur when they take it slow and low. [Nov 2024, p.43]

Arnold sings the heart out of her own standards – “(If You Think You’re) Groovy”, “Angel Of The Morning” and a triumphant “The First Cut Is The Deepest”. No “Tin Soldier”, though. [Review of the Year 2024, p.27]

There’s determined strumming amid “Daily Ritual”’s Americana and “Mother Natures Scorn”’s a muscular if unplugged Mazzy Star, but the title track’s almost as ethereal as its title, while “Delilah”’s waltzing, sepia psych exploits John Barry’s Midnight Cowboy theme. [Review of the Year 2024, p.35]

With its detours into glam, Southern rock and pristine ’70s-style balladry, Ramble & Rave On! often feels like a celebratory jukebox of everything Gabbard holds dear. Fabulous fun it all is, too. [Dec 2024, p.33]

The results is both familiar and strange. [May 2025, p.33]

Easy listening it's not, yet there's defiance, too ("You Mustn't Show Weakness") and even transcendence ("A World Of Love And Care") before Furman ends with a posutively harrowing cover of Alex Walton's emotionally fraught "I Need The Angel". [May 2025, p.31]

The playing is as eloquent as ever, dextrous but never overtly showy, while Richard Wats' voice delivers a pleasingly plaintive yearn. [Jun 2025, p.41]

They lurch with satisfying abandon through funereal Slint-like post-rock to unashamedly slovenly pixies-ish riffs to splenetic blasts of screaming hardcore and staccato math-rock scrapes, as Zak Bowker intermittently makes his strangled screams heard above the maelstrom. [Jun 2025, p.41]

Real-life challenges also inform fromtman John Pelant's plaintive delivery of lyrics such as "Hold On To Tonight", mourning late loved ones, and "Ring My Bell"'s plea for emotional connection. [Sep 2025, p.37]

Short and sweet, with an alluringly timeless analogue feel. [Oct 2025, p.32]

"Time" hits hardest, a righteous prayer riding on Stax brass and gospel harmonies toward safe harbour. [Oct 2025, p.28]

Hopefully, no one other than Eno and Wolfe will use the term "nong" (non-song) to describe this bridge between the Summer's ambient Lateral and song-based Luminal. Nonetheless, these 11 songs occupy that space successfully, whether Wolfe's voice is filling out Eno's eerie soundscapes as a textural but poetic component ("Little Boy") or mere embellishment (the slow-motion "Flower Women"), or conjuring Julee Cruise ("Part Of Us"). [Dec 2025, p.30]

Chrissie Hynde's worldly ache elevates any lyric, here drawing worthy partners for a set of duets. Spare arrangements coloured by organ and pedal steel mid-tempo, statically framing the singers. [Dec 2025, p.31]

The greatest pleasure of its four eloquent tracks comes from the way the duo hint at narrative, delicately suturing disparate sounds to build a complex electro-acoustic suite. [Oct 2025, p.29]

The Cribs' wild, unfinished edge is elsewhere polished by producer Patrick Wimberly (MGMT, Solange) in a lyrically rueful but musically soaring record. [Feb 2025, p.27]

The Dreamin' Kind is far more persuasive when it allows room for his more nuanced tendencies. [Jan 2026, p.30]

Choruses are big, lyrics purposes stripped, side and Hammond summoning rock's halcyon days. [Jun 2026, p.30]

The scratchy lo-fi production doubles its mystery, resulting in an album of sensual pleasures and magical power. [Mar 2013, p.77]

A tough job hitting both funny and funky bone at once, but they mostly pull it off. [Apr 2005, p.102]

A confident reiteration of this singular group's virtues. [Mar 2021, p.38]

The pill is somewhat sweetened by Braids' glossy new sound, a feelgood revamp that pairs swooning electronics with upfront drum'n'bass and will do some damage at large outdoor events. [Jun 2015, p.72]

This is an album that twitchily turns away from a pat genre tag. [May 2014, p.81]

Moonshine Freeze is an impressive conduit for their upward trajectory. [Aug 2017, p.36]

Gravenhurst prove that kicking arse is neither beneath nor beyond them. [Oct 2007, p.93]

More than standing as a document of a particular time and place, it makes not having been there feel like a real loss. [Jan 2014, p.68]

Death Peak takes you on a journey of sorts. [Jun 2017, p.26]

A pleasant surprise: engaging, exciting, and a much better album than most bands can muster after 25 years together. [Nov 2005, p.106]

At times it resembles a dream playlist from some forgotten '70s FM station. [Jul 2005, p.94]

Effectively embracing the entire history of the band's sound, the album sprawls over an hour, and has so many peaks and valleys it's practically topographical. [Apr 2005, p.98]

Matangi is her most exhilarating and mulch-faceted album. [Jan 2014, p.75]

Costello... sing[s] with the enthusiasm and fun of a true fan. [Jul 2006, p.110]

Arcade Fire producer Craig Silvey and a slick session band sculpt an impressively spacey sound, but LaVere's self-conscious, bored voice strangles everything at birth. [Aug 2011, p.93]

It's exasperating at first, but the rewards are there for the dedicate dreamer. [Apr 2015, p.77]

The Riptide glides by satisfyingly. [Sep 2011, p.83]

Kate NV's urge to pixelate manically - see recent album Wow - is reined in by ex-dirty Projector Deradoorian's cool krautrocking. [Sep 2023, p.24]

In his own way, Swift is as vivid a newcomer as Joanna Newsom or early Rufus Wainwright. [Mar 2007, p.84]

A meaty maximalist feast, richer and riper than its predecessor. [Mar 2019, p.27]

They're following their "first thought" instincts while allowing space for the full expression of Garbus's mighty soul voice. [Jun 2025, p.41]

Trevor Sensor's very good debut hits its mark. [Aug 2017, p.37]

Restrained, but deeply satisfying. [Apr 2005, p.100]

Crowell conjures a collection both wryly whimsical and devastating sincere. [Jan 2019, p.19]

Little on Painkillers would sound misplaced on any given Gaslight Anthem album. Which, if one is predisposed to the band's hearty but thoughtful brand of rock'n'roll, is no bad thing. [Apr 2016, p.73]

The listlessness of the structures is initially offputting, but the tracks begin to reveal luxurious depths. [Dec 2013, p.69]

The words are often stark and painful, the singing is almost religious, and the tunes tend towards exultant. When they remember to be lovely, as on "Yes I Would," the chemistry is intoxicating. [Mar 2010, p.84]

The title is Williams’ name for the world in which her music is set and it’s one where disaster looms large – dark, evocative and minor-key rich; menacing live drums and corkscrew bass hanging heavy in the atmosphere. [Aug 2021, p.33]

There's a naivety at play here, recalling Daniel Johnston, Vashti Bunyan and Syd Barrett. [Jul 2006, p.86]

Cassadaga is fulsome, epic, and swirling, by far Oberst's most sophisticated, seamless effort. [May 2007, p.89]

The minimalist grooves grow ever tighter. [Feb 2004, p.71]

As with Daft Punk's Discovery and Playgrou's eponymous 2001 debut LP, Handcream For A Generation puts fun back on the agenda, offering a blurry picture of marathon socialising and the frazzled warmth of the morning after the night before. [Album of the Month, May 2002, p.88]

Exceptional in its melodic prosperity and calculated grandeur. [Mar 2002, p.96]

Wasner and bandmate Andy Stack wield sharp production touches, like the breaths that pan "On Luxury," although Tween can suffer from a slight surfeit of scale over melody. [Sep 2016, p.81]

A record that is intensely visceral, loud and charged yet not needlessly overblown. [May 2022, p.26]

Sleater-Kinney strike a finer balance between their established punk sound and the New Wave references that gummed up recent records. [Jan 2024, p.36]

It's unmistakable, unsettling, classic Linkous. [Oct 2006, p.120]

However unappetizing it may first appear, this is grimly funny food for thought.

On the fifth album this East Coast trio make it patently clear this is not the same band whose 2005 debut placed them in the rustic shadow of former Young God Records labelmate Devendra Banhart. [Jun 2009, p.83]

This version has been remixed and remastered to beef up the sound and integrate Chris Cornell's glorious vocals more fully into the songs. ... Six demos, recorded on eight-track the previous year, give a good idea if where the band were coming from. [May 2017, p.52]

Mostly, though, youthful folk-rock tendencies are sacrificed for Wilco's mature Americana, as on "Only Dream Would Breathe," while additional late-Beatles flavours enhance "Barely Living Room," and "The Bottom Of It" adds hints of Jeff Lynne. [Jul 2019, p.27]

These are impenetrable walls of off-kilter guitars, skronking saxophones and icy synths, topped off with Richard Butler's mournful rasp. ... For the most part, Made Of Rain cleaves closest to the sense thrum of Talk Talk Talk. [Jun 2020, p.37]

The lullaby-like psych of “Side By Side” and the more insistent rhythms of Amama’s title track are both enriched by the avidly experimental bent. Even better are the summery “(Alone In) Brussels” and “Dust Bunny”, which sound like they could be long-forgotten yé-yé hits gone warped and frayed after too long in the sun. [Jul 2024, p.32]

It's certainly more assured and less wilfully angsty than Cast Of Thousands. However, it still lacks the special unified mood or thread of Asleep. [Oct 2005, p.110]

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

Each of the 12 tracks on The Life Of The World To Come is named after the [Bible] verse that informs it. The settings are gloriously apposite. [Nov 2009, p.96]

The follow-up [to Absent Fathers] is an even more impressive progression. Marriage and impending fatherhood bring both focus and exuberance to Earle's seventh album. [Jul 2017, p.28]

Ice cool and white hot by turns, Emika is a singular and significant new voice at the interface between pop and dubstep. [Nov 2011, p.83]

Little is overstated, but Low fans will find much to love in "New Lights For A Sky." [Feb 2014, p.80]

The Original Faces is very lovely indeed. [Oct 2015, p.77]

They've added influences from '80s Brit-funk ("Just Can't Wait") and '90s R&B ("My Father In Heaven") to timeless psych-soul ("Together We Are"), joining up the dots across the black music diaspora. [Aug 2025, p.33]

There is much here that is wonderful, but less of the tone set by the self-parodically chirpy 'Turqouise House' would have improved matters. [Nov 2007, p.132]

It's a facinating listen, one that feels like it could collapse at any time, but just about hangs together. [Apr 2010, p.90]

CO's fifth album clothes Campbell's vignettes of thwarted romance in increasingly sophisticated arrangements. [Jul 2013, p.72]

Thoughtful sixth album, which sees the songwriter wrestle with the growing challenges of life as she enters her early thirties. [Jul 2025, p,27]

Boy, so they know what they're doing on this whipsmart debut. [Jul 2025, p.31]

Guitars play more of a supporting role, and the tonal shifts suits the band, with Philippakis's voice given much more room to float elegantly through the record, [Apr 2019, p.29]

A gem. [Apr 2005, p.105]

Working with producer Jack Splash, they craft a dense, bracing, kaleidoscopic avant-soul backdrop for frontman Paul Janeway's musings on religion, politics and family. [Oct 2018, p.32]

A wonderfully anomalous effort. [Jun 2015, p.81]

"Escape From New York" and "Halloween" can't top the cold desolation of the originals. ... Pretty much every one of the album's 13 tracks confirm Carpenter's skill for an eerie earworm. [Dec 2017, p.25]

Akin to labelmate Brian Eno's early ambient work, its nine, often lengthy tracks of ghostly yet graceful desolation are intended to evoke the forgotten histories of enduring locations. [Jan 2018, p.18]

Blistering opener "Straight To Hell" sets the carpe diem tone. [May 2020, p.32]

Those in thrall to Modest Mouse’s well-honed blend of ramshackle punk-folk and predilection for dispensing off-grid wisdom will find much favour with the latest addition to their canon. [Aug 2021, p.31]

These are McCartney's most arresting songs for a long, long while. [Oct 2005, p.94]

Without altering her style drastically, Orton has broadened her approach on what is her most accomplished record to date. [Mar 2006, p.94]

These are beautiful songs, penned from midlife. [May 2014, p.82]

"Dog" is a reverb-heavy highlight, but the whole set is as instantly likeable as it is smart. [Apr 2018, p.35]

It might be best to appreciate Call The Comet as a sublime soundtrack, possibly the most atmospheric, widescreen guitar album you'll hear all year. [Jul 2018, p.25]

To anyone over 16 it's Suicide/Velvets karaoke, a hacky homage to heroes rather than anything with fresh blood on its teeth. [Mar 2005, p.96]