Woodland is ultimately about these two people, these two voices, and these two guitars. Never is it more moving than when there are simply playing together the way they might at home, blurring the line of who is singing lead on “Howdy Howdy” or who is picking which note on “The Bells & The Birds”. Adding new flourishes to their core sound, Woodland is a beautiful addition to their catalogue. [Oct 2024, p.63]

It might just be the best record of this year, and the best of Rowland's career. [Jul 2012, p.66]

Beyond the clever production and judicious musical blend is a sensibility and a voice and songs that find Plant still on his quest, still grappling with the intricacies of love, still seduced by distant, misty mountains. His Uniqueness has never been more apparent. [Oct 2014, p.61]

Along with her interest in free jazz and expressive, improvisatory styles of music, it’s possible to see these seven songs as a type of painting with sound, a messy, wild process of distillation and curation, until only sparse daubs of bright colour remain on the canvas. Limited elements, but a giant impact. It’s been worth the wait.

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

Exploratory, visionary record. [Aug 2022, p.22]

Far greater than the sum of it's parts, Vulnicura can be a challenge but, once immersed, it's hard to tear yourself away. [Apr 2015, p.85]

Instant Holograms... offers a kind of manual on how to resist the negativity and reconnect with society. Alternatively, it's another super-fun Stereolab album full of obscure synth blurps, nifty lounge-pop tunes and gnarly motorik wig-outs. Either way, you won't be disappointed. [Jun 2025, p.24]

Beautifully now. [Mar 2024, p.29]

Runaway's Diary is a record with hugely impressive depth and emotional range. [Jun 2014, p.79]

Nina Nastasia’s contributions to “Iron Bones”’s Enomeets-Yorke somnolence reminds us how Strawberry Hotel, like so much of Underworld’s catalogue, frequently renders the prosaic romantic and the banal consequential. [Dec 2024, p.34]

Lives Outgrown is a quite different prospect to Gibbons' previous work - more intimate, more personal, coloured by the grief and goodbyes se has weathered in recent years. But it is still possible to find a thread that runs from here to Out Of Season, and back to Portishead. [Jun 2024, p.23]

Grandiose, overwhelming, pretentious and absurd, Before The Dawn Heals Us is one of the first great albums of 2005. [Feb 2005, p.79]

The best moments of Inferno are tender hymns to everyday pleasures. [Apr 2019, p.29]

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

He returns in double-quick time with more selections from his 80-song lockdown splurge, but this time in a gentler, almost uplifting mood. .... Radical optimism rather suits him. [Jul 2024, p.31]

Either of Dwyer's bands would be a fine fit for Yonkers' primitive but inventive garage rock - best examples are the pummelling "sold America" and "The Thunder Speaks," both hyped-up takes on Yonkers' originals - but Damaged Bug are better equipped to tackle his more tender moments. [May 2020, p.26]

There's something deeply satisfying about the way the songs fit together as an album, their sequence strengthened both by the homogenous tone of the music with its air of wistful melancholy, and by the way each song seems to push the next one forward. [Mar 2013, p.61]

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

This is a thoughtful, empathetic showcase of his interests, of intense feelings translated into a dreamy sonic atmosphere. It’s an album that meets the world in its moment, where global issues and far-flung international voices are more amplified and connected than ever.

The album feels disciplined and enormously funky. [May 2012, p.61]

Hallelujah Anyhow may have been recorded swiftly, but the abandonment is still exquisitely detailed, as every listen to "Domino" reveal further nuance beneath the swagger. [Oct 2017, p.22]

Clarke may not have the tools to open you up emotionally to quite the same degree [as Nick Cave And The Bad Seeds' Ghosteen], but he's found an elegant and absorbing mood of despair like few have managed so far. [Apr 2021, p.24]

Utterly thrilling. [Sep 2020, p.32]

Though the variable recording quality of the later tracks can hinder their impact, the performance captured at First Ave and newly restored by engineer Beau Sorenson roars and gnashes and seethes with enough intensity to collapse the 40-year gap between then and now. [Dec 2025, p.45]

A work of lyricism and maturity, this is one of Veirs' finest yet. [Sep 2013, p.97]

Ad hoc, anything goes is the mood of what follows. Much is accomplished and playful. ... When he allows himself to forget who he is and just remember what it is that he does, he can still come up with songs to surprise you. More impressively, maybe even surprise himself.

Start Walkin’ emphasises the team’s many deviations from the mean, demonstrating how inventive and subversive Sinatra’s music could be even before her music with Hazlewood took a more avidly idiosyncratic direction with Nancy & Lee. ... 23 concise chapters that are thrilling, surprising and sometimes sublime.

Some of the best moments here are twitchy funk miniatures, driven by tuba basslines, distorted Fender Rhodes riffs and chant-based vocals, which leave you wanting more. [Aug 2021, p.35]

Girly-Sound to Guyville is something much more revealing than an anniversary commemoration. It's a document of an artist finding and raising er voice: a souvenir from an era that questions long-held assumptions about the sex and the business of rock'n'roll. [Jun 2018, p.38]

Her voice alone is worth preserving humanity for, hitting peaks of gorgeous, sleek torment on the cosmic beauty of "A Given Thing". [Dec 2022, p.36]

Spare, beautiful, outstanding. [Jul 2003, p.128]

What strikes you, above all, is the innocence and affection in their breezy blues, at odds with the heavy weather White has made of his post-Stripes career. [Feb 2021, p.49]

It's the vivid, virulent product of the Maels' warped imaginations. [Mar 2006, p.90]

It’s the Phenomenal Handclap Band’s Daniel Collás, as producer, who brings Jackson’s long-lost creations to life. The eight tracks here, written during the Scott-Heron era, re-emerge more relevant than ever, courtesy of a strong backing band. [Jul 2022, p.26]

This is audaciously modern in its textural absorption of outre sounds from the 21st-century dance underground. [Dec 2002, p.136]

For him a song is no older than the last time it was sung. His fifth album, Good And Green Again is his most thoughtful, his most eloquent, and his most poignant explication of this idea. [Feb 2022]

Whatever the provenance of these songs, Indoor Safari is marvellous, by any reasonable critical metric a glorious confection. [Sep 2024, p.26]

Cunningham and Stewart also know how to write a killer pop melody. [Jul 2020, p.33]

While Phasor standouts such as "Flores" evoke Os Mutantes in a narcoleptic fugue. .... On "Colores Del Mar" and "Out There", he strikes an equally deft balance between aqueous abstraction and buoyant, big-hearted avant-pop. [Mar 2024, p.34]

Never short on vocal confidence, here, she trades divadom for arresting, unconventional shapes. [Jul 2016, p.69]

It begins with Michael Stipe's stunning interpretation of "Sunday Morning." ... The tracks that fly highest here are in fact the least faithful, more subversive. [Oct 2021, p.22]

An impassioned and resolute statement imbued with clarity of vision, emotional depth and the hum of boundless creativity. [Apr 2024, p.33]

You don't expect progression from such evident classicists, but there's a new clarity, poise and refinement. [Apr 2004, p.107]

Majestic, life-affirming and touched by magic. [Nov 2004, p.102]

It may have been assembled as a lockdown stopgap, but Songs From An Old Guitar is overall glorious, a career highlight in a career full of them. [Feb 2021, p.47]

Despite the number of musicians there is a more focused feel to tracks like "Eye For Keys" and even a drop of trippy folk on "In The Tall Trees." Fans of Comets On Fire will find much to enjoy. [Feb 2025, p.39]

Few, if any, artists are pushing the boundaries of traditional music further. [Feb 2013, p.79]

Mordechai is a great record, made by deep listeners who believe that discerning taste does not equate to snobbishness, Through it, we're reminded that good music is for everyone. [Aug 2020, p.20]

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]

Soul Of A Woman proves to be so much more than your average swansong. ... Sly, spirited and sublime, it packs a whole lot of action into its 36 filler-free minutes. [Dec 2017, p.16]

The Ruby Cord won't fail to impress. You leave it mind reeling, happily baffled, dazzled by the scope of its achievement. [Dec 2022, p.22]

Richer textures, but no luxury-studio sheen or indulgence: the expanded resources are deployed with the care and rigour that characterised her previous use of humbler tools. Her voice is so distinctive and her writing so personal that a strutting backbeat and a flying hi-hat don't affect the essential character of the music. ... Perfect. [Mar 2021, p.36]

The early US albums are particularly punchy, while Beatles ’65 makes an interesting counterpoint to its corresponding European release Beatles For Sale, and this version of A Hard Day’s Night includes four George Martin instrumentals. [Review of the Year 2024, p.43]

Hitchcock sounds more energised and vibrant than he has in decades. [May 2017, p.31]

Playful wordplay and minor-chord ingenuity bound. [Jun 2023, p.23]

June has given us an album that is powerfully, elegantly subversive. [April 2021, p.20]

Ellis' purist, even traditionalist, voice is the perfect vessel for his sanguine portraits of ordinary people, battered and bruised but never without hope. [Mar 2014, p.72]

This ensemble, particularly the dynamic front line of Henderson and Shaw, didn't last very long, making this impeccable-sounding set of stone-cold Silver classics an even more crucial addition to the historic record. [Review of the Year 2025, p.44]

It doubtless works best heard in the cinema or the home theatre, and especially in the context of Julian House's beautifully lurid title sequence.

Similarly to Lambchop's Nixon, it weaves together new and old, soul and country, black and white, love and hate, to form an understated masterpiece. [Feb 2006, p.74]

You'll be hard pushed to find a more adventurously self-assured debut this year. [Mar 2021, p.27]

An unqualified triumph. [Jun 2006, p.122]

This is Cheap Trick at their purest: a fierce, streamlined rock'n'roll gang. [Feb 2023, p.44]

He’s on top form for the slow-burning, “Wish You Were Here”-ish title track and the wonderfully dreamy “Sings”. .... A hidden gem is the bonus track “Yes, I Have Ghosts”, a harp-led Celtic waltz that’s as affecting as anything in Gilmour’s canon. [Oct 2024, p.34]

Images Du Futur is an altogether sleazier affair on which Suuns, toughened and grubby from two years on the road, come into their own. [Jun 2013, p.79]

This anthology perfectly encapsulates The Go-Betweens' irresistible, evergreen and still expanding appeal. [Jan 2020, p.34]

The music flits between rock, folk and jazz, providing an emotional experience that is as affecting as anything you are likely to hear in 2025. [Feb 2025, p.43]

A kaleidoscopic trawl through formative memories, cascading with melody and intimate reminiscence. [Apr 2015, p.83]

Sinking Into A Miracle is absolutely beautiful--otherworldly, often, and quietly ecstatic, in its own, strangely pop way. [Jan 2019, p.17]

There are surprises everywhere. While "R&B" and "Nearly Daffodils" are sprightly, irreverent post-punk, the influence of Black Country, Nee Road nd Radiohead are evident on the complex, proggy title track and the diverse, hushed final third of the album. Lily Fontaine's lyrics, to are deep and funny. [Apr 2024, p.32]

Plum feels very much like a landmark in his still-fresh career. [Oct 2017, p.38]

A fabulous treat it is too. [Apr 2021, p.37]

If there’s any justice, Mug Museum should break Le Bon out of her current cult status. [Dec 2013]

Serves as both a potent primer on the traumas and triumphs of life in a not-so-racial America and an enthralling demonstration of her playful musical sensibility. [Jun 2019, p.37]

A sublime composition. [Feb 2024, p.37]

Although What If's nine instrumental tracks are heavily rhythmic, this is a refreshingly gridless and affecting music, with serrated clicks and muted arpeggios wandering organically in and out of time. [Apr 2017, p.30]

A soulful, adventurous, state-of-the-nation classic. [Apr 2013, p.73]

For all its muddied textures and sideways lurches, it is a magnificently engaging and expansive work. [Jul 2003, p.112]

Secret Love, produced by Cate Le Bon, obliterates the thought [they would struggle to surprise a second time] entirely. [Jan 2026, p.29]

A highly original band in its prime. [Jun 2005, p.107]

Opening up the album to new ideas and interpretations without obscuring the man himself. [Mar 2020, p.35]

An exhilarating band set that mixes electric and acoustic instrumentation, it’s at once fiercely modern and as ancient as the Niger river. [Jun 2021, p.22]

The results are spectacular. [Jul 2014, p.66]

While the album is rooted in Ennio Morricone’s dusty spaghetti western soundtracks and Daniel Lanois’ high-lonesome ambient, songs like the spacy “El Fantasma” and the kaleidoscopic title track ground their psychedelic drift in the intense chemistry between the two brothers and the way they play off each other supernaturally. [Jun 2024, p.33]

This record has all the earmarks of Vernon's next big thing. [Oct 2013, p.69]

A previously unreleased version of Dylan’s “She Belongs To Me” mesmerisingly set to the narcotic pulse of The Velvet Underground’s “All Tomorrow’s Parties”, a take on country tearjerker “Oh Lonesome Me”, weirdly reminiscent of Leonard Cohen. .... The set ends with Ferry’s first new song in a decade ["Star"]. .... Its smouldering brilliance sounds less a postscript to everything it follows than a new beginning, Ferry nearing 80, still alert to the sound of tomorrow calling. [Dec 2024, p.90]

More mellifluous than menacing despite its formidable display of power, Life Metal may be the richest work in the band's 21-year-mission to reconfigure Tony Iommi-worthy riffage into a soundtrack for mindful meditation. [May 2019, p.34]

Dion's unknown recordings are a lavish tour de force of folk-into-rock and blues-into pop. [Jul 2017, p.50]

Offers the kind of transcendental electronics that burrow into your brain. [Mar 2021, p.37]

A record that yields a procession of hidden treasures. [May 2017, p.38]

The group's commitment and almost minimalistic sense of repetition resulting in a metal longplayer of unrivaled scope. [Jul 2012, p.96]

Finely honed reflections that add a new perspective to the conversation of politics. ... The songs here are simple, but they contain multitudes. [Oct 2019, p.25]

A debut album bursting with character. [Feb 2022, p.37]

It's one of those records that is somewhat sui generis, and yet with an appeal that is universal and accessible at the same time. [Apr 2018, p.33]

It's not only Jones' most absorbing album since 1997's beats-drenched Ghostyhead, but a record that crowns her career, not as an end but as a culmination. [Jul 2015, p.85]

Epic debut, an emotionally rich and stylistically broad mediation on homeland, exile and identity. ... A lavish feast of an album. [Nov 2019, p.30]

An unqualified triumph. [Jul 2016, p.73]