These nine abstract sound paintings strip away the guitars, drums and vocals of Sigur Ros to liberate the avant-classical spirit within. [Aug 2009, p.87]

Though less avidly adventurous than his band's recent outings (or his own past activities with EL VY), the music here may be stronger for it. [Nov 2020, p.27]

His wrinkled brogue--warm, pithy, occasionally fluttering to a falsetto--is a thing of understated beauty in itself, framed in folk-shanty arrangements that make telling use of strings and bagpipes. [Oct 2016, p.32]

The project's success can be measured by the extent to which the tunes have been transformed. [Jan 2022, p.21]

Following much beauty and polymorphous perversity, the climactic take on Histoire De Melody Nelson's "Cargo Cult" is a fittingly epic finale. [Dec 2016, p.30]

The musical tone of Panhandle rambler is rich, yet supple. [Dec 2015, p.70]

A couple of missteps aside, this is Ghost's best since that '96 debut, Ironman. [Jun 2006, p.102]

A record that acts as both a good-humour history lesson and a rousing party-starter for future generations to discover. [May 2022, p.22]

The faster Avonmore goes, the better it sounds. [Dec 2014, p.70]

[A] remarkably wise and timely album. [Mar 2017, p.18]

A satisfying whole that demonstrates Taylor's mastery of his peculiar strain of zonked late-night soul. [May 2018, p.35]

Sprints' debut delivers on thrilling live shows, with singer, guitarist and songwriter Karla Chubb providing a visceral fury, not least on the furious "Adore Adore Adore", unheard since their label released Hole's Pretty On The Inside. [Jan 2024, p.36]

The man is as affecting as ever on this most traditional of collections. [Feb 2003, p.77]

Alabama Shakes are scarcely the first ornery yet soulful rock sound to have emerged from northern Alabama, but they're abundantly worthy bearers of the standard. [May 2012, p.73]

Anyone who ever felt that David Rawlings hid his light under Gillian Welch's bushel-never getting the full credit he merited as her partner and accomplice--will greet his first solo album with a lusty cheer. [Dec 2009, p. 101]

Loveless' songwriting on Real is sharp, economical and wickedly funny. [Sep 2016, p.77]

Deft lyrical touches and a persuasive commitment nonetheless lift Happyness well above pastiche. [Jul 2014, p.74]

[Soulwax has] always been great at eroding the lines between rock and dance music, utilising and harnessing the power of the riff in an electronic context. This continues to be forcefully apparent on tracks like "Idiots In Love". [Dec 2025, p.36]

Valentine is typically sturdy--piquant observation and low-key philosophy played against an impeccable musical backdrop. [Aug 2012, p.80]

A blissful affair. [Apr 2023, p.25]

The music is straight and soothing, a band coming together in a rootsy salve as Williams returns to a favourite theme, deliverance through music. [Feb 2026, p.24]

Daniel's sumptuous offering provides some brightness in days of darkness. [Feb 2026, p.39]

Harding goes wherever her voice takes her, and like fellow apostate traditionalist Richard Dawson, she is comfortable picking for shiny scraps of melody on the hard shoulder. As a consequence, these songs command close attention but – like the messy universe around them – do not necessarily beg to be decoded. [Apr 2022, p.18]

Escovedo is as reflective as he is melodic. [Juul 2010, p.116]

There's shades of both Stevie Nicks and Neko Case in Lissie's voice, a resplendent instrument that's both husky and mellow, attuned equally to the epic and the intimate. But Really the sound and songs here are a testament to her unaffected individuality. [Aug 2010, p.86]

Companion Rises is unmistakably Chasney's journey, and it's wonderful to come along for the ride. [Mar 2020, p.34]

It isn't easy to pigeonhole, but it could just be one of the albums of the year. [Feb 2016, p.84]

By far the most compelling persona on Mr Morale & The Big Steppers is the Kendrick who is trying to make sense of his own family. ... ["Mother I Sober" is] a tour de force, almost but not quite as revelatory as "DUCKWORTH", a similar family saga off 2017's DAMN. And the best moment is when the strings swell and Lamar's voice changes. [Aug 2022, p.24]

When it ends, the impression of Devendra Banhart that stays with you is of the artful songsmith, finding a confidence to express himself in something other than riddles.

As ever with such pumped up reissues, the original album is still where the value does or doesn't lie. Most of Quadrophenia has stood the test of the decades better than might be expected. [Dec 2011, p.97]

Just as the absence of the usual guitar fireworks allows the group vocals and rhythmic elements to come strongly to the fore, the shift away from the original's angry spirit opens up a richer well of feeling in Moctar's pleas for a more just world. [Feb 2025, p.37]

From The Very Depths is unreconstructed but brutally effective. [Mar 2015, p.84]

Inscrutable, unsettling and utterly unique. [Feb 2014, p.69]

This is where the kid really comes into his own.

Think Veronica Falls meet Arthur Russell, and investigate further. [Apr 2012, p.83]

This collects all that, plus demos and live tracks, into a demonstration of how a fabulously obscure Glasgow indie group became one of the most influential of their time. [Jun 2009, p.105]

Their supple, smouldering songs take you back to an innocent, pre-Britpop indie era while retaining the thrust of contempories like Bloc Party. [Aug 2009, p.87]

Busta stampedes through a survey of current rap styles with boundless wit, energy and quality rhymes. [Mar 2002, p.96]

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

Songs crisp as winter sunlight. [Feb 2023, p.36]

They waltz from space-jazz ("In Cucina") to disco-dub ("Phase One Million") and library scat-funk ("Tub Erupt"), the whole thing tied together by Cathy Lucas's dusky delivery. [Dec 2021, p.35]

Morton's naive delivery gives "Purple Yellow" the poignancy of Portishead, and UB40's Ali Campbell popping up on "Broxtowe Girl" feels like a fever dream. [Jul 2024, p.38]

Back to their homespun, unforced, relatably human roots. [Dec 2025, p.37]

No boundaries are breached, but this is a loose, engaging record. [Sep 2011, p.96]

Largely recorded over six fays in Paris, it adds test-card breeziness to the bleakness of "The Amputees," and delivers a gorgeous rumination on shattered love in "Carousel." [Dec 2019, p.32]

As strong as this record is, there's a way to go to make good on the promise of its title. [Nov 2005, p.92]

Like Go-Kart Mozart or Billy Childish, Argos fashions lyrical witticisms from the commonplace. [Jan 2019, p.17]

Maybe this could have been two different records: the big-name covers album and the back-room jam session. But in terms of conveying the passions, frustrations and intriguing contractions of its restless instigator, Honora is perfect. [Apr 2026, p.27]

There is unlikely to be a more distinctive album released this year, simply because so few artists would dare put out anything so gleefully deranged. [Dec 2014, p.74]

[It] sidles forth with an easy-going aura, belying the artistry within. [Jul 2007, p.107]

Cathartic in its honesty but no less depressing for that. [Mar 2019, p.33]

Co-produced again with Jonathan Wilson, the album bristles with richness and bespoke detail. [Mar 2015, p.70]

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

Stiff flirts with mainstream etiquette--Ethan Johns produces--before resorting to the sort of hyperdriven, math-tinged choogles that have served the band so well over six albums. [Apr 2016, p.82]

A Beautifu;l record. [Feb 2009, p.88]

Merciless perfection. [May 2019, p.30]

Depending on which Paul McCartney you like the most, you may or may not like what he’s done. But the best thing about Electric Arguments is that it sounds like the work of someone who doesn’t give a stuff what people are going to think. About time, too.

Keren-Ann Zeidal has been covered by Jane Birkin and Francoise Hardy, but here progresses from chansons to create a spectacularly produced pop-art. [Apr 2011, p.85]

Funny, smart and so elegantly poised. [Jun 2015, p.73]

Not all of it works...But, as a radical overhaul of a career, it's a brave, brilliant and highly personal statement. [Mar 2010, p.83]

The LP draws on old-style American folk but expertly remodels it for a contemporary audience. [Jun 2012, p.70]

The highlights are splendid: a brass-embellished "Red Hill Mining Town", a languid piano-led "Beautiful Day", a near-calypso "Miracle of Joey Ramone". [Apr 2023, p.38]

It's poppier than ever before, with big hooks played with funk and bossa nova fills, fat Balkan brass and imaginative lyrics full of bug-eyed images. [Oct 2013, p.71]

On Chaos For The Fly, Chatten is able to chase down a succession of personal demons, while broadening his emotional, musical and vocal range. [Aug 2023, p.24]

The delicate touches and melodic strengths shine. [Jan 2017, p.23]

A real grower. [Feb 2007, p.73]

A 10-track masterclass in spectral, psychedelicised pop, it's awash with great tunes and soaring arrangements. [Nov 2006, p.117]

At times it recalls the hyper-vivid, motorik jazz of Stereolab circa Cobra And Phases; elsewhere, it's closer to Tropicalia given a 21st-Century re-boot. But the very best songs here incorporate everything, unexpectedly changing shade. [Nov 2013, p.75]

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]

The album is only 30 minutes liing, but that's plenty enough exposure to live electricity. [Feb 2017, p.26]

It's frequently wistful, sad and nostalgic. Yet Cooder's eccentric storytelling style and his prankish, Sufjan Stevens-ish take on Americana also sounds oddly contemporary. [Apr 2007, p.99]

This Yorkshire quartet's debut deserves similar acclaim to Shame, Idles, Fontaines DC and their ilk. [Mar 2020, p.33]

Pharrell is just one of the 11 producers on a record that shows Kidjo's full range. [Jun 2026, p.28]

White Jesus Black Problems fizzes with indignation and exults in contradictions. [Aug 2022, p.25]

Hiatt has rarely rocked harder than on Forever. Yet those moments are also smartly tempered by songs that sometimes flirt with '80s psychedelia ("Ghost Ship") and the kind of country-roots balladry with which she first made her name over a decade ago. [Jan 2025, p.34]

They’ve managed to make tonal inconsistencies feel like an actual consistency, rather than being a jarring and detracting experience. They’ve wrangled chaos into submission, and currently sound like no other band out there. [Aug 2022, p.34]

Cheat Codes finds Danger Mouse rolling with a new lyrical foil and this one feels like it could run and run. [Sep 2022, p.22]

The exhilarating collision of muscular breakbeats and ripe trance synths makes this one of the most enjoyable dance albums in recent memory. [Apr 2012, p.84]

Sounds Of The Universe is Depeche's most tune-packed and sonically adventurous album for over a decade. [May 2009, p.82]

Despite being her most superficially conventional work to date it may be her most slow-burning, with less of the bricolage charm that distinguished the earlier work. [May 2009, p.89]

De Souza's ability to balance the brute force of "Real Pain" and "Bad Dream" with something as sunny as "Hold U" is another reason to look forward to more of her shapeshifting. [Sep 2021, p.27]

Given that their spectrum of nods and references runs from early Warp techno to bluegrass to Trout Mask Replica - horn-heavy freakouts like the full-bore "May Brigade" also demonstrate a kinship with The Comet Is Coming - the focus and coherence of Comradely Objects is even more impressive. [Dec 2022, p.28]

There's a mellow-late-Beatles vibe at play, especially on "Full Moon," and this may be the band's finest to date. [May 2014, p.83]

The air of melancholy on display throughout is as enticing as Beirut's. Impressive. [Nov 2009, p.94]

Fragrant ballads "When The Night" and "Marie Cheri" add a softer dimension to a bold collection on which Annie rarely puts a foot wrong. [Nov 2009, p. 81]

This is the challenging, take-no-prisoners result, an audacious fusion of the reliable and the experimental, as daniel and Eno continue into the new decade a musical conversation as lively and uncompromising as that of Jack and Meg White. [Feb 2010, p.99]

Often, she comes across as heir to songwriters such as Todd Rundgren and Randy Newman--raising a jaded, critical eye to the world. [Sep 2017, p.38]

It’s an instantly captivating set – 10 resonant but unfussy songs distinguished by a balance of up-close intimacy and understatedly elegant composition, attuned to the power of repetitive flow.

One of Amos' most deeply felt, spiritually astute and finest albums. [Dec 2002, p.138]

Waits -- now in complete mastery of his unique art -- knows what he's doing, and the stark, unforgiving brutality is leavened, or granted grace, by passages of purple pathos. [Co-Album Of The Month, June 2002, p.106]

The songs are neither dogmatic nor whacked out. Like fine pop writers before him, Oberst's simply wrestling with something troubling he feels thick in the air. [Feb 2005, p.72]

True, this may have benefited from the inclusion of, say, 2013's "Lucinda Byre," but the man's unerring ability to quietly lift the heart with melody as he foes in "Rumer" and "Josephine" is ultimately the more valuable sensation to hang on to. [Nov 2017, p.30]

The set's ordering is exemplary, especially given its size, but diving in at random reaps the richest rewards, throwing up unexpected complements and contrasts. ... It's a trip for devotees and newcomers alike. [Jan 2019, p.41]

For anyone who fretted that Glory Hope Mountain might have been a beautiful fluke, No Ghost confirms The Acorn's credentials, building thrillingly on the band's ability to access a variety of moods and textures. [Jul 2010, p.121]

It's easily her most accessible album yet. [Jun 2026, p.32]

This lovingly compiled box is the perfect place for anyone curious about The Staple Singers' remarkable 50-year career to get acquainted. [Feb 2020, p.46]

Let It All In is all kitchen-sink realism and mordant one-liners best exemplified in the TS Elliot-influenced "Some Day Better."

The duo can do softer moments like the melancholic "The Mothership," but are at their best when offering principled and comedic disgust. [May 2020, p.28]