While Heather McEntire's wonderful voice is a natural country conduit, there's not quite enough around it, her bandmates opting to frame her tones in fairly pedestrian roots-rock settings. [Mar 2016, p.76]

It helps that Wilkinson sings sweetly, too, distancing and layering his vocals for that dewy, lost-in-the-woods effect. [Aug 2009, p.87]

A song cycle that straddles inescapable anxiety and persistent optimism. [Feb 2018, p.24]

Infinite loops and surging crescendos constitute a psychedelic session more about melancholic beauty than foreboding. [Mar 2014, p.83]

After two decades, a band that could easily feel like part of the wallpaper remain hungry to show that you never know what lies beneath. [Oct 2015, p.68]

A Blessing... is perhaps a more personal and introspective record than usual. But truly there's still a lot to marvel at. [Apr 2006, p.112]

It's not a ballet or a string quartet, but Costello sounding more "Attractions"-like than he has in over 20 years. [Oct 2008, p.83]

It seems weird--if delightful-that the folk polka of "To A hammer" and the Eels-like electronic of "(Put The Fun Back In The Funeral)" could come from one career, never mind one album: a creative blessing, if a commercial curse. [Dec 2009, p.103]

On Dissolve, his best LP to date, he's gone full colour. [Jun 2011, p.79]

The Low Highway settles into a sustained crosshatching of strummed and plucked strings, paralleling the feel of a road trip, the initial elation giving way to an endless pattern of forest and farmland as America whizzes past as a steady 90mph. [May 2013, p.72]

Peace On Venus is a fine example of what they produce. [Dec 2013, p.65]

The band maintain their impeccable standards for muscular riffage and structural sophistication while still making the occasional flourish that further confirms their shame-free allegiance to prog. [May 2017, p.35]

Happyness gets more interesting when they dig deeper into rock history. [May 2017, p.32]

The expansively layered arrangements here are a testament to a bolder ambition than the acoustic troubadour shtick that once defined him. [May 2017, p.37]

Where once were "chat-up lines and stairwells" ("Take Me There"), beige luxury apartments now stand. [Jul 2018, p.24]

They do it so well. Particularly impressive are the two lengthiest pieces. [Sep 2018, p.29]

Jemaine Clement and Bret McKenzie play a whirlwind hits set complete with numerous diversions and wonderfully bathetic between-song anecdotes. [Apr 2019, p.29]

Though Depayse's lyrics are often weighty, the music is energetic and raw, a contrast that speaks to the immigrant experience writ large. [Jul 2019, p.34]

By facing up to their demons, they've recaptured what made them special. [Mar 2020, p.37]

It's a lovely listen, unassuming as ever. [Apr 2022, p.32]

The group confidently flits between low-key funk, lush symphonic Philly soul and the more punchy post-Motown dance grooves of Chairman Of The Board, the constant being Rowland's powerfully assured vocal delivery of his mea culpa confessionals. [Aug 2023, p.28]

Band Of Horses specialise in melodic melancholy with a sheen of hope. [May 2006, p.107]

The fact that Time On Earth takes several listens to sink in practically ensures that it will be undervalued, if not ignored, which is a shame, because this taut album possesses the immersive qualities and cumulative impact of a good novel.

While English Oceans carries its quota of Truckers staples, there's also much that sets this fantastic 10th studio album apart from its predecessors. [Apr 2014, p.82]

Ritual Union makes it three alums without a remotely duff--or dull--moment. [Aug 2011, p.93]

Much of Mediation of Ecstatic Energy is content to sit, lost in a maze of Echoplex, navigating its own navel. [Nov 2013, p.81]

Patchily exhilarating, but the blasts lack freshness. [Apr 2017, p.25]

It's hard to imagine anyone but the previously committed fan will be signing up here. [Sep 2010, p.99]

A focus on electric violin adds a mildly jarring echo of Curved Air to the Canadians' seventh, but the apocalyptic "Austerity Blues" and wistful "Rains Thru The Roof At Thee Grande Ballroom" encompass their extremes of post-rock paranoia and Popol Vuh transcendence. [Mar 2014, p.83]

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

Saicobab whip up a sonic maelstrom that's every bit as intense as the shock tactics of Boredoms' early noise recordings or the polyrhythmic psychedelia tat followed. [Dec 2017, p.30]

Through its grooves she invites the listener inside her world without the glow of a screen, a much needed respite from Zoom. [Dec 2020, p.27]

In the end, it comes down to little moments of bliss, and those seven or eight words. "I don't know how I made it" Scott sings, as Taylor Goldsmith essays an angelic harmony. "but I made it". As a funeral march, it's a humdinger. [Apr 2025, p.22]

She alternates between fighting the current and giving in. That approach, coupled with vocals balancing despair and determination, lends "The Smoke", with its cathedral synths, and especially "Division", with its narcotised krautrock drumbeat, an unsettling energy that's both treacherous and cathartic. [Mar 2026, p.29]

It sounds timeless, and oddly familiar. But subsequent listens add intrigue. [Feb 2014, p.70]

At two hours, it could use pruning, but Belomancie has a visionary quality. [May 2014, p.80]

Through it all runs an ingrained psychedelic streak which is organic rather than synthetic, James and co tripping out on the glory of a sunset, a beach at dawn, a mile-high mountain view. [Jun 2015, p.68]

The album's palette feels broad, with electronics switching from twinkling and melodic to antagonistic industrial clangs. [Apr 2017, p.40]

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]

Guitars still sound like they were recorded in an igloo, while the singer's Dylan obsession only really pays off on woozy waltz 'Red Moon,' assisted by Matt Barrick's skeletal drum accompaniment. [Nov 2008, p.128]

The combo of an unadventurous set-list and cutting between several different shows makes Under Great White Northern Lights an oddly detached experience. [Jun 2010, p.111]

It fuses disparate cultures with such joyous irreverence that, for 40 inspirational minutes, entire notions of national borders and racial divides cease to exist. [Apr 2011, p.77]

Containing only nine lithe and varied songs, Multi-Love is anything but a whimsical indulgence. [Jun 2015, p.79]

VanGaalen's clear talent as a producer and arranger still shines through in even the less spectacular moments. [Oct 2017, p.40]

Sounds alarmingly authentic to boot. [Nov 2008, p.102]

It's a delicate, individual record, from the same neighbourhood as Paul Weller's recent excursions in rustic soul, but instead of Weller's creosotey vocals, the emotion is carried in a Minnie Riperton trill.

The Broken Wave, her debut album, is refreshing folk-pop bursting with beautiful melodies and a production carefully designed to emphasise her memorably pristine vocals. [Feb 2011, p.95]

Like Maja Ratkje, Jenny Hval and Bjork, Hukkelberg adds another to her already impressive catalogue. [Mar 2012, p.87]

The Glasgow guitarist's follow-up is more singular, placing Hubbert's spidery flamenco-influenced instrumentals alongside some less compelling vocal outings. [Oct 2013, p.70]

Best yet and then some from an artist whose vision continues to expand with every release. [Oct 2014, p.68]

The Haze is a good go at [spontaneity and sense of fun], maintaining the propulsion while tying songs to sharp pop hooks. [Apr 2017, p.37]

Metz, whose fusion of sludgy guitar tone, boiled-down hardcore attitude and smartly sardonic lyricism, if not quite outright throwback, certainly has the quality of a studious tribute. [Oct 2017, p.32]

All up, an(nother) apparently effortless hitting if the sweet spot. [Oct 2019, p.27]

Things Happen That Way isn’t an exemplar of his style, nor (clearly) is it a late-career blooming, but it is a richly resonant farewell from a maverick veteran. [Oct 2022, p.32]

The music is spectacular, of course. But if you want to know how the deal really went down, you'll still have to go under the counter. [Jun 2023, p.48]

The result is an album that bursts with life and invention. [Apr 2011, p.89]

It's quite lovely, and manages to be simultaneously mournful and innocent-sounding. [Oct 2009, p.106]

This terrific second album from the ex-jazz singer Shah carries with it a clear air of assurance. [May 2015, p.81]

A far more ambitious affair as producers Black Dog and Custom Blue underpin her crystalline vocals with subtly pattering lite beats, clever jazz inflections and humming electronic textures. [Dec 2001, p.102]

Though attempts at Amy Rigby territory ring hollow, a couple of country weepies bear redemptive powers. [May 2003, p.102]

The musicianship lifts Sad Songs... even further into the realm of the extraordinary. [Dec 2003, p.133]

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

It's compelling from start to finish; if OW's main is simply "to slay," then mission accomplished. [Nov 2014, p.81]

Rough-hewn thrills abound. [Jan 2019, p.21]

Composed for the 10-strong Montreal modern dance troupe Animals Of Distinction, in ways it conforms to the template of Canadian post-rock – extended instrumentals characterised by gradual builds and ecstatic climaxes. But “Scanner” and “Grid-Wall” explore a sleek, synthetic sound palette, all glitching electronics and halogen synths. [Jun 2021, p.25]

At under 34 minutes, it necessarily swerves dense improv passages, instead highlighting the nimble, airy interplay of multiple guitars. [Feb 2022, p.29]

[It] isn't so much More Fish as it is Cheap Fish. [Mar 2007, p.81]

Benjamin "Raffertie" Stefanski invents a kind of haute couture techno-soul on this classy debut. [Sep 2013, p.94]

It's a cathartic and necessary release in these dark days of America, a riot reverberating through political resistance, social inclusion and sheer cathartic gyration. [Sep 2019, p.27]

Credit Dalhous, aka Marc Dall, for making something beautiful but still somewhat unreadable in its intentions. [Sep 2014, p.71]

A more contemplative, intimate offering that in its own heavy and soulful way is just as thrilling. [Oct 2014, p.79]

The duo's lesser songs may not stray from a familiar pocket of retro-soul, but it's a very fine pocket nonetheless. [Jul 2019, p.24]

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

Despite the glistening production and seamless craft of it all, his wired intensity is often missed. [Jun 2019, p.32]

So Beck is finally fun again, and you suspect the person most surprised by how well Modern Guilt turned out is the guy who made it.

Super Furry Animals have just made perhaps the defining record of their career. [Sep 2005, p.100]

By expanding their repertoire, taking a few risks, and nailing those harmonies, they’ve made what feels like the first great British album of 2009.

Wainwright is newly hitched herself (to producer Brad Albetta) and I Know... is for the most part a decidedly mature singer-songwriter album.

Kath's basic approach to synth-pop means most tracks adhere to a glitchy arpeggiated formula that resembles a Faithless record, but with added indie weirdness. [Jul 2010, p.104]

While traces of heaviness remain--see the cacophonous climax to "B&E"--Guilty really finds itself in tender moments. [Apr 2014, p.78]

As with its predecessor, the album cherry-picks from the past, but comes with a contemporary sheen. It's hard to imagine her bettering this. [Aug 2016, p.80]

The standard violin-mandolin-accordian corduroy rusticity is shoved aside here and there with musical and emotional ferocity. [Jun 2017, p.34]

Among The Ghosts is Lucero's most cinematic album. [Sep 2018, p.37]

A bleakly beautiful record that smuggles moments of elation into its ambient dread. [May 2023, p.28]

I'm Bad Now feels as much a modest masterpiece as Spring Hill Fair or Tigermilk. [Apr 2018, p.32]

It's a gorgeous and gutting return to Jurado's Rehearsals For Departure-era roots, wandering and bare, wielding only guitar and voice and recorded in one afternoon. [May 2019, p.30]

Moments of startling beauty emerge from the fuzz-drenched experiments. [Sep 2005, p.112]

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]

It secures Midlake's future with small yet significant shifts that haven't erased their identity. Not deeper waters, necessarily - but running clearer and on a newly energised course. [Apr 2022, p.22]

It displays a sonic ambition, an openmindedness and a melodic gift that puts so much modern pop to shame. [April 2010, p.85]

This is one record on which his ultimate masterplan to weld R&B sass to thumping club beats comes good. [Aug 2010, p.84]

This study of youthful misadventures gives the 97's ample opportunity to re-immerse themselves in the punk-fuelled exuberance they brought to the alt-country movement two decades ago. [Jun 2014, p.82]

The most infectiously tricked-out rock LP since El Camino. [Oct 2012, p.77]

Neither the songs nor their delivery are perfect, but that's perhaps the point. [May 2018, p.30]

This handsome sequel stays mostly within their comfort zone of melodic, propulsive dance-pop tailored both to clubs and home listening, an impressive balancing act even if the formula sometimes feels over-polished. [Feb 2021, p.25]

It's a record that finds The Jayhawks in pristine fettle, it's country-rock stylings evoking the blithe warmth of 1995's Tomorrow The Green Grass while punching a little harder with age. [May 2016, p.70]

There's a fine line between the sincerely wistful and contemplative and the nostalgic and morose, but Merrie Land understands where the borders are and stays within them. [Jan 2019, p.18]