The mix of baroque pop, prog rock and psychedelia is as bewildering as it is entertaining. [Nov 2016, p.32]

This is a seasoned master of what he does operating in his comfort zone, and doing it very well indeed. [Dec 2015, p.66]

It's all served with such a knowing grin that you can't help but love it. [Nov 2011, p.96]

The production is more sophisticated, the arrangements more intricate, the melodies and harmonies more complex. [Oct 2006, p.106]

Having branched out by working with everyone from Patti Smith to Mark Linkous, one of the UK's most gifted all-rounders returns rejuvenated with a fifth LP as positive and confident as 2006's "The Beautiful Lie" was moodily introspective. [Jul 2010, p.108]

Not only a welcome "return to form" but sounds like a career pinnacle. [Feb 2015, p.82]

The gentlest Six Organ's outing since 2005's School of The Flower, if not for the menacing rumblings in "Taken By Ascent." Even so, it's more vivid proof of Chasny's ability to create transcendental music free of psych cliches. [Mar 2017, p.39]

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

The music mirrors the persuasive charm of the narrator, hooking you in even as the singer boasts they're a bit of a heel. [Mar 2025, p.38]

Rarely has emotional repression sounded so coy, or so appealing. [Dec 2010, p.86]

Deafman Glance picks up the thread he's laid down with the stronger songs on Golden Sings That Have Been Sung. [Jun 2018, p.34]

Attains orchestral grandeur on intricate set pieces. [Sep 2021, p.28]

Galactic's Ya-Ka-May is a pungent musical fusion, adding hip-hop to mardi-gras funk, with help from a cast of local luminaries. [Apr 2010, p.86]

We Have Band seldom make things look easy--and sees them achieve a kind of punk-funk perfection, regardless of fashion. [May 2014, p.81]

His music is now more about the deep, nuanced dig into established territory than striking out to plant a flag someplace new, plus exploring different contexts for his signature sound through continued collaboration. [Oct 2020, p.30]

May be Lucero's finest album yet. [Apr 2023, p.32]

The result is her most diverse and audacious album to date. What remains rooted in her jazz origins, though, is her voice. [Jul 2024, p.40]

Pressure & Time is short enough to fit on two sides of vinyl and, quaintly, leaves you wanting much more. [Aug 2011, p.89]

Deviant, brainy re:teen angst, slightly arrogant, and they kick ass despite themselves. What's not to love? [Dec 2003, p.116]

He delivers 14 sweetly sombre neo-folk tunes that reveal just how subtly pervasive the man's influence really is. [Mar 2005, p.108]

As with Daft Punk's sleek 1970s upgrades, his accomplished 1780s meditations go past pastiche. [Jun 2023, p.25]

A troubling journey, but happily an ongoing one. [Dec 2016, p.35]

Ryder-Jones excels at finding beauty in forbidding places. [Dec 2015, p.78]

Burns and Convertino prove they can play it relatively straight, without sacrificing Calexico's hard-earned status as a band that matters. [May 2006, p.104]

For those of us who prefer Neil when he's plugged-in and splenetic, it's tempting to call the album his best since 1990's Ragged Glory. Living With War, though, is too much of a frontline dispatch, too consumed with the present, to be easily catalogued for posterity. [Jul 2006, p.82]

Demonstrate[s] the multifaceted yet coherent place Scott has arrived at as a songwriter. [Mar 2020, p.37]

Field recordings and ghostly cello further underline "Ghosts of Blaker Dyke"'s poignancy, recalling David Sylvian's instrumentals on Gone To Earth. [Mar 2020, p.29]

This wonderful record already feels like a cult classic. [Feb 2007, p.88]

She's radio-ready with the first cut from Train On The Island. Taster single "One Stop" is the earworm of the album. [Jun 2026, p.24]

Love and hope stay preciously rare yet infinitely possible, and this album’s guttering, guiding light. [Jul 2022, p.33]

Bob Ludwig's remaster job adds fine detail, and a second CD collects 18 tracks, mostly diverting. [Jan 2012, p.97]

A powerful, unusual record. [May 2018, p.24]

The real heart of this record seems to lie in moments of stillness and rest, where strung-out slackerdom attains an almost sacred quality. [Apr 2011, p.88]

Foil Deer is catchy, exhilarating and smart. [May 2015, p.81]

You won't find it hard to reciprocate Open Your Heart's approach. [May 2012, p.79]

Jambu is the best starting point, a genuinely revelatory voyage through the mythic sounds of the Amazon. [Aug 2019, p.90]

Sub Pop reckon they've unearthed a gem in the form of 18-year-old Avi Buffalo frontman Avigor Zahner-Isenberg; the superior West Coast jangle of his debut album suggest they might well be right. [May 2010, p.92]

The duo's liking for repetitive Royal Trux-style riffage forms the core of their debut but they frequently explore more sparse territories. [Apr 2003, p.110]

Sparse yet graceful, these 14 songs of love and loss interpret wispy folk and slow-burning country via brittle, lo-fi angularity. [Mar 2003, p.100]

Here, on "Afraid" and "Theo", she articulates her feelings in lush folk ballads, whose effortless warmth belie the challenges facing Wasner. [Nov 2025, p.32]

It's the sound of two people deeply interlocked. [Feb 2022, p.25]

As ambitious and compelling as psych-tinged pop gets. [Nov 2004, p.122]

This is a leftfield party album bursting with personality, wonky charm and random sonic mischief. [Feb 2021, p.29]

Pure pleasure with an experimental edge. [Oct 2024, p.34]

Year Of Meteors is no flat-out masterpiece.... Still, Veirs is clearly moving in the right direction. [Sep 2005, p.102]

It's clear The Essex Green have joined The New Pornographers and The Shins among indie-pop's most insinuating and accomplished bands. [Jun 2006, p.100]

Add sublime dimensions to James's already impressive canon. [May 2022, p.36]

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]

Not a game-changer, but a solid mid-career statement from a true original. [Mar 2020, p.37]

The album has a hazy, deeply romantic quality. [Nov 2006, p.112]

If Funeral was organic, and Neon Bible was force-fed, The Suburbs makes do with being merely delicious. (And a little wistful, wounded, and wise.) [Sep 2010, p.80]

Time Flies, though fun, is no more than a handy place to nab all 27 Oasis' singles in one unfilteresd, undescerning grab. [Jul 2010, p.124]

As bootlegs from the period have shown, there's a good three hours of stuff out there from these and the so-called "Brown Star Sessions" for Clear Spot. On the fourth disc here, you can find the pick of it. [Dec 2014, p.85]

Bold, sunless and fabulously unsettling. [Jun 2021, p.47]

"Drips" hovers between Hot Chip and late-period XTC, while the meticulous detail of "Babymaking" and "Don't Sit Back (Frankie Said)" recall lost studio gems like Rosie Vela's Walter Beck-helmed Zazu. [Mar 2015, p.75]

It's certainly easy to believe that these sublime pieces could have inspired such a profound reaction [from director Cameron Crowe]. [Apr 2012, p.81]

Herren calls Savath And Savalas his vision of "Catalan acid folk"--and that should be all the encouragement required for fans of Four Tet, Tropicalia and early Animal Collective to dive right in. [Jul 2009, p.97]

You can't help but be charmed by the sincerity of these beautifully crafted homages. [May 2015, p.81]

Short, but invigoratingly sweet. [Jun 2015, p.77]

There's a clutch of self-penned gems, "In The Middle Of It All's" momentous heartache, and some superlative country-soul interpretations, the pinnacle being Dan Penn and Donnie Fritts' "Rainbow Road." [Sep 2017, p.45]

A deft patchwork of stories and impressions largely drawn from first-hand experience. [Aug 2015, p.72]

Overall, Go To School is a blast, a joyous, ridiculous journey that treads a perfect line between silly, funny and heart-breaking. [Oct 2018, p.33]

What went Down is their most fully realised yet. [Oct 2015, p.75]

Almost every one is a pure and lovely miniature. [Aug 2013, p.69]

The collection not only shows the unexpected range of Gano's songwriting ability, but leaves you humming and wanting more. [Oct 2002, p.104]

Here, as always, he turns out to be a natural. [Sep 2011, p.81]

Jones displays a fluid keyboard touch and nuanced vocals, not unlike Diana Krall's recordings. [Nov 2016, p.31]

The musical settings are crisp, spare, folksy, recalling '96's The Doctor Came At Dawn and allowing Callahan to play one of his best roles: a campfire-friendly Leonard Cohen. [Jun 2005, p.97]

There’s the customary minor-key acoustic lilt played out at a range of tempos somewhere between rumba and reggae, served with the occasional light garnish of bleeps. Far from being a problem, that’s almost certainly the way Chao’s fans like it. [Oct 2024, p.35]

It's when they seemingly reach straight down the devil's throat, as on the ferocious "Deacon Brodie," a strangled punk/blues bottleneck, that this debut really distinguishes itself. [Dec 2015, p.81]

Martin’s work as The Bug has always dealt in heaviness, but Machine is particularly inspiring for its lethality, its intensity. [Dec 2024, p.32]

This is a record that genuinely sounds like nothing you have heard before. If you can rise to its portentous challenge... The Drift will prove to be a frightening, bewitching and rewarding experience. [Jun 2006, p.96]

This gradual sense of revelation is reflected in Gas’ musical development. Each album has its own characteristics.

There's little on her 16th album to suggest it's anything other than business as usual. [Jul 2023, p.36]

Confirms Lewis's now crucial role in their pummelling yet emotional propulsion. [May 2026, p.33]

Never did the Pumpkins build more sonically gorgeous than this...For those that haven't plumbed the depths of the Pumpkins catalog, it's a fair brace. [Jan 2012, p.97]

Massed cymbals’ shivering traceries and guitar glints adorn the drones, as sonic quantity bolsters quality, the ritualistic glide of Indian and kosmische influences roiling with stray, fuzzed-up incident, in an inspired meeting. [Apr 2021, p.37]

Harding lays bare the pain and discomfort felt in her previous work, though the road to it is far more dynamic and winding. [May 2019, p.33]

A most welcome return. [Aug 2021, p.23]

Self-indulgent in all the best ways, their third album isn't afraid to explore an idea for nine minutes, locating that revelatory moment when structure caves into soul. [May 2009, p.105]

The Brutalist Bricks isn't quite the match of 2004's career highlight Shake The Streets. But "Gimmee The Wire" mixes punky, Mission Of Burma dynamics with a garrulous, troubadour storytelling, while "Bottles In Cork" unfolds as a bar-hopping travelogue as colorful as anything Craig Finn has put his pen to. [Jun 2010, p.92]

It's a rootsy affair that evokes the spirit of the MC5. [Jul 2003, p.112]

He seems to have found his metier on his new label, Lost Map, where he delights in roving electronica. [Oct 2016, p.37]

Utopia Defeated justifies the hype. [Nov 2016, p.26]

Splendid. ... All the crafty hooks, Haim-worthy vocal harmonies, sumptuous layers of synths and unabashedly prefab beats belie the poignant nature of Girl Ray's odes to post-millennial love and longing. [Dec 2019, p.26]

Full of hooks as stubborn as burrs. [Aug 2005, p.94]

The immediacy is obvious, and the band stretch Yorkston's reassuring vulnerability in new directions. [Feb 2021, p.37]

Adopt[s] a more relaxed approach than 2003's obsessively intricate Kish Kash. [Oct 2006, p.106]

The only downside to this soundtrack is that you can’t watch Prince slink around stage or pretend to take a bath with the audience, but at least the Blu-ray. [Jul 2022, p.44]

There's a clear path being charted, expanding the grammar of R&B into the heart of the modern-day mainstream. [Oct 2023, p.34]

Standouts such as "Rocks Of Time" and "Next One, Maybe" have all the depth, richness and candour that Veirs' admirers have come to expect. [Dec 2023, p.36]

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]

Andrew Weatherall has been employed to help build Tarot Sport a beaty backbone and the results are brutally mesmerizing. [Nov 2009, p. 88]

Unhurriedly crafted songs full of bona fide thrills, unexpected twists, and an elegant but never gratuitous grandeur. [Mar 2023, p.33]

Artists from Phil Lesh, Bob Weir and Steve Earle, to J Mascis and Aaron Lee Tasjan, whose "Travelling After Dark" is a strong cut - interpret Casal's lifetime of work, fittingly as radio staples. [Feb 2022, p.37]

1992 – 2001 does a fine job of collating their best moments from a career that spawned four albums and two EPs, as well as offering nine unreleased tracks from the hours of music they recorded in an empty bedroom that served as a regular rehearsal space.

An album that uses traditional African instrumentation and state-of-the-art electronica with a boldness that is extraordinary. [May 2023, p.31]