They nevertheless sound irresistibly fresh and zesty. [Feb 2017, p.23]

Haunting late-career contemplation. [Nov 2018, p.37]

Painted Image is as stylistically omnivorous as it is emotionally acute. [Feb 2019, p.24]

She's at her most persuasive, however, on the delicate waltz of the piano-led "Too Much Of Not Enough," a shimmering showcase for one of the most alluring and arresting female voices at work today. [May 2019, p.27]

Cross has created something of a mesmerising mini-masterpiece. [Sep 2019, p.24]

Overall this double album offers a rich blend of ambient glow, polyrhythmic glitch and absorbing textural detail. [Sep 2019, p.27]

A starting point for rich exploration of the variety of American popular music by a veteran who has previously tried most of them on for size. [Aug 2020, p.37]

Help is overloaded with tastefully spare sketches, but there are enough sublime soundscapes and rich ideas here. [Sep 2020, p.36]

Play loud, and be transported. [Jan 2021, p.32]

He remains a precise craftsman with a bottomless trove of '60s pop hooks and dreamy melodies, but he upends them with acute-angle riffs and scribbled punctuations. [Feb 2021, p.37]

Aambles beyond his band’s already wide palette to embrace ’70s rock and pop flourishes. Squelchy sequencers and double racked guitars add drama to “One-Way Conversation”, while handclaps and a fuzzy synth bolster the details in the verses of “Almost Home.” [Jul 2021, p.31]

There is less than usual here of the breezy country usually associated with his name. More characteristic of Triage are “Something Has To Change” and “Transient Global Amnesia Blues” – fretful, semi-spoken jeremiads set to brooding backdrops. Crowell has the wit and the gravitas to land these, however. [Sep 2021, p.27]

Wilds will continue to content those eager to brandish their knowledge of Ennio Morricone, Os Mutantes or Jacques Dutronc, but it nonetheless cries out for attention from those looking for more primal, immediate pleasures: beauty, bliss and release. [Feb 2022, p.24]

This record is a graceful, seemingly intuitive unfolding into various emotional and/or imagined physical landscapes. [May 2023, p.29]

Weird details stud essentially conventional songs by a band who sound energised, and in many ways The Coral's true kin. [Apr 2024, p.31]

It’s material that’s fascinating just as much for what it tells us about pop culture as it does Lou Reed, from a time where pop and rock hadn’t become overly codified and nobody exactly knew what music teenagers would fall for. [Nov 2024, p.55]

Even with new elements like the somewhat overly tasteful strings for the title track, the music here retains the fervent intimacy and immediacy that distinguishes Jamieson's songwriting and really ought to win her the breakthrough she deserves. [Jan 2024, p.39]

Plenty of charm and style, not much originality or depth. [Apr 2025, p.29]

The highlights are revisitations of songs from Laughing Clowns - "Collapse Board", in Particular, is as vicious, mordant and highly strung as ever. [May 2025, p.32]

It's heavy R&B with a slight goth-punk vibe thanks to the pummelling rhythm section and Childish's dead pan vocals. [Jan 2026, p.31]

Life Slime is anything but maudlin, though, as Lynch ad producer Mike Lindsay fashion spry, agreeably wonky electropop from an arsenal of synths, samplers and other instruments. [May 2026, p.34]

Roadkill Rising, merging generally strong performances with reasonable-quality recordings, manages the thorny task of excerpting some 20-plus concert tapes into a cogent history. [Jun 2011, p.94]

There's another clutch of great Real Estate songs on this gentle delight, and some clues as to where the group could go next, if they chose to really stretch out and see what else their songs could do. [Apr 2020, p.34]

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

It’s a little stiff and metronomic in places, working more as a calling card to Hollywood than a standalone album. [Jul 2022, p.31]

“Build A Fire”, too, is an air-punching anthem, though Torquil Campbell prefers lighter-waving on “To Feel What They Feel”, which, like “If I Never See London Again”, turns to polished ’80s production techniques. They can’t shake their melancholy, however. [Sep 2022, p.32]

There are rowdy barn-raisers, but also melodic, meditative grooves and strange, insidious songs. It’s an album of almost fragile beauty, intense loneliness and raging storms. Not for the last time, Crazy Horse took Neil Young somewhere he wasn’t expecting. It’s just a shame it’s taken us so long to get there too.

While the music has incorporated a more expansive but similarly idiosyncratic palette. Fripp-esque sustain, synths and drum machines colour a beautifully constructed record that brings to mind Aztec Camera’s High Land, Hard Rain or Scritti Politti’s Songs To Remember. [Nov 2024, p.40]

A sweltering sun-baked quality. Lyrically, meanwhile, the concept--of discomfort with technology--comes a little more into focus here. [Aug 2017, p.31]

White's material feels freer than usual, full of spirals of organ and keys, collapsing new rhythms and delirious jazz-funk riffs; Holley's one-take improvisation edge towards visionary incantations. [May 2021, p.35]

Like Bryan Ferry aglow after the best afternoon stroll of his life, stylish and uncharacteristically serene. [Apr 2013, p.72]

As with most "difficult" albums, the more one listens, the more forgiving they become. [May 2013, p.77]

So how does that chaos translate into making music in your fifties? With greater depth and variety, it would appear. [Jun 2024, p.36]

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

Rather than a departure from the zig-zag folktronica of The Beta Band, [it is] more an incremental shift in oddness. [Jun 2006, p.105]

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]

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

They've developed a needling, post-punk style that nods to Joy Division, Gang Of Four and Shellac. [Feb 2015, p.84]

Ryan Adams is very much Ryan Adams being Ryan Adams. [Oct 2014, p.68]

American is seldom better than its title track, searing swamp-punk that recalls Grinderman in its diabolic abandon. [Apr 2013, p.78]

Will is an irresistibly immersive set-piece. [Jun 2016, p.69]

While this album is furnished by post-rock's brittle, metallic sound, Prewitt's songs are full of chamber pop's gilded warmth.... A fine, if overlong, album. [Jul 2002, p.118]

A worthy West Coast counterpart to El-P's superb Fantastic Damage. [Apr 2003, p.108]

Signals a further burst of creativity, suggesting there are still great things to come from the Australian Lennon & McCartney. [Jul 2002, p.123]

The acid-daze reveries are rich in detail, thought the baleful undertow and samey melodies lose momentum over the 22 tracks. [Apr 2002, p.113]

Undeniably the work of a modern underground pop maestro. [Apr 2002, p.113]

Inpressive stuff, but like the Beastie Boys' tinnitus-inducing whines, Northern State's gonzoid yelps suffer from diminishing returns. [Jun 2003, p.110]

The Brooklyn-based veterns have beefed up the arrangements on LP number five, and Matthew Caws' material happily carries that weight. [Mar 2008, p.96]

A resounding power chord marks the confident introduction to this fine debut album. [Nov 2010, p.113]

Tasteful without being sterile, diverse but grounded in Knopfler's melancholy mumble and quicksilver guitar, Privateering is a quietly soulful triumph. [Oct 2012, p.83]

The fragility in her performances is delivered with just the right amount of internal integrity. [Oct 2014, p.79]

The breadth is a big part of the charm. [Jul 2015, p.83]

The overall effect is a carefully constructed, complex yet breezy, psych-pop collection. [Dec 2015, p.69]

A much-devalued word--and probably one of the creator despises--still seems apposite for this lovely album: ethereal. [Jun 2016, p.75]

There are stormy rockers and stately, fevered ballads. "Music For Love," meanwhile, condenses Sweet's philosophies into one joyous singalong. [Aug 2017, p.38]

Like a long walk in the woods, it's richly and deeply transporting. [Jun 2018, p.35]

Mix[es] up The Bends and OK Computer with a pinch of late Fugazi and Talk Talk. [May 2019, p.37]

A funny, peculiar, epic piece of pop minimalism that could be no-one else but Hannon. [Jul 2019, p.27]

There's a uplifting buoyancy to these eight tracks. [Oct 2019, p.30]

The songs are uniformly strong, for one thing; the delivery is smart, a kind of airy, gently gothic arch-pop, completed by Jean's conversational vocals. It's a wonderfully dynamic set of songs. [Apr 2020, p.28]

Fear Of Death plays mortality for dark laughs, while The Lemon Twigs and Foxygen's Jonathan Rado help Heidecker to whip up a note-perfect Randy Newman sound. [Dec 2020, p.30]

A heavily disguised break-up album, which secretes its sorrow beneath waves of gushing pop. [Dec 2021, p.29]

It's the restlessly inventive guitars, from silvery solos to swaggering glam rock, where Metallica find ageless redemption. [Jun 2023, p.32]

For the acoustic half, she genuflects a little too readily, but the limberness of her voice hades new contours for the songs; the electric half takes a while to ignite, but "Like A Rolling Stone" is gorgeous. [Dec 2023, p.27]

The result is a revelation. “As Above So Below” and the joyous, sax-assisted “Love Weapon” positively glow, Clément’s gentle chanson like a golden cord that guides you through their labyrinthine twists and turns. [Dec 2024, p.35]

They can still surprise, too, with tinges of organ psychedelia, anxious time-signatures and, on the sweet acoustic reverie of "Salt Water", evocative found sounds. [Dec 2025, p.29]

You’d be even more surprised to hear that it features 'songs'--proper, beautiful, well-crafted songs.

Hey Venus! is an attractive album with a broad appeal – Rough Trade wanted a pop record and got one--but it also feels like a missed opportunity, a consolidation of affairs rather than a step forward.

With Fallen Angels, Bob Dylan, like Linda Ronstadt and Rod Stewart before him, has seen fit to continue his exploration of the Great American Songbook begun with such unexpected poise and humility on last year’s Shadows In The Night.

"Dirt" and gentle gut-wrencher "Showdown", on which Baker takes vocal lead, boast the same sparse, clear-eyed lyricism of her 2021 album Little Oblivions, while Scott's earthy alto is the perfect foil, whether campfire storyteller or wisecracking sidekick. [Apr 2025, p.27]

Great, if a little pointless. [Apr 2012, p.77]

With I Can't Imagine, she's hit on the right combination of inspiration, kindred spirits and setting. [Jun 2015, p.78]

Collett's debut album reveals him as an alt.country confessionalist akin to Paul Westerberg. [Apr 2006, p.108]

Skittishly improvisational without undermining the overall serenity. A good time for your chakras guaranteed. [Dec 2018, p.18]

Broke is an pleasant surprise. [Feb 2015, p.73]

Love Hates lacks some of the naive charm of their debut and a couple of attempts at Garbage-style industrial pop set the album off on the wrong foot. But the all-or-nothing passion that courses through "The Breath Of Light" and "For The Wild" is quite something. [Feb 2019, p.29]

A slickly accomplished affair, rarely inspirational. [Jul 2006, p.101]

Dream Attic has the brio that matches any of Thompson's past few studio albums. [Sep 2010, p.84]

Roots For Ruin burns with their reignited love of Fugazi, Pixies and Pavement. [Oct 2010, p.98]

Inventive, playful and utterly engrossing, Celebration, Florida has much to revel in. [Jun 2011, p.92]

This is the sound of a valuable, extravagantly vital band in full swing. [Jun 2011, p.91]

The residency produces inspired results. [Apr 2012, p.87]

Ultimately Bailiff sounds too much in thrall to her shoegazing peers. [Dec 2012, p.69]

Achieves a drifting, beautiful desolation that many of their peers lack. [Sep 2017, p.24]

He injects these economic songs with a modish sense of sophistication. [Nov 2017, p.35]

Emotional Mugger is as funky as it is twisted--a heavy rock record that truly groves in a way that heavy rock rarely does any more. [Feb 2016, p.85]

The music is accordingly spectral, with sparse piano teasing its way into break-out crescendos of strings, French horns and a children's choir. [Dec 2009, p. 87]

Laughing in the face of mortality is a preoccupation, from the honky-tonk close "When I Get To Heaven" and "God Only Knows", but Prine's playful wit is best captured in "Egg & Daughter Nite, London Lincoln Nebraska, 1967 (Crazy Bone)." [May 2018, p.33]

The Calling finds her in fine voice, nestling somewhere between Shawn Colvin and Helen Reddy. [Apr 2007, p.116]

Abstract, but curiously engaging. [Mar 2011, p.83]

A continuation of a grand tradition rather than a feeble descendant, Jones' custom tunings strike sourly sweet notes, occasionally--as on the title track--touching on raga modes. [Oct 2011, p.89]

He drifts boringly into pure pastiche on "Crystal Caverns 1991," but what keeps the rest fresh is the pace. [Jun 2012, p.77]

Gentle pedal-steel weepies and shimmering, folk-rock beauty are testament to her new-found freedom. [Sep 2013, p.92]

The venom and rage of the Jim Jones live experience is captured more effectively on this third album than its predecessors, but there;s also greater depth to the playing and writing. [Nov 2012, p.76]

It's an insinuating set, bordering on morose in places. [Aug 2013, p.74]

When Sexsmith does finally pull a heartbreaker out of the bag, it's a doozy. [Apr 2015, p.83]

Their latest leans Southern Gothic, in songs about death, drink and doing the hard thing. [Oct 2015, p.78]

It's an agreeably raw listen. [Mar 2016, p.80]