Hang In There With Me radiates everything great about Rigby’s trademark Phil Ochs-y folk-punk, and the spectacular “Dylan In Dubuque” is a droll, defiant promise of more where it came from. [Sep 2024, p.39]

While the recitation by guest Moor Mother lends form and force to “Our Mother’s Lights” and Fujita’s saxophonist father adds Jan Garbarek-like lines to three other tracks, the album is otherwise distinguished by the music’s shimmering beauty and other sounds that glide overhead like the birds evoked by the title. [Sep 2024, p.33]

Tracks like “Our Hometown Boy” and “Chrome Mess” stand out, all high-chiming happy-sad harmonies and fuzzed-up bubblegum psych-pop jangle, but a richly flavoured, wonky-fringed, charmingly sloppy-slouchy mood shapes the whole album. [Nov 2024, p.37]

This is a larger-sounding, less homespun set than thte sisters' previous two albums. [May 2007, p.102]

You can occasionally hear [Adem's and Hebden's] trademark sounds punctuate these proggy, Tortoise-like instrumentals. [Jul 2007, p.102]

The result is an album of glorious hybridity, rooted in ancient griot tradition but serendipitously transformed into an audaciously cosmopolitan melting pot. [Apr 2021, p.28]

An inspired left turn. [Oct 2023, p.25]

It offers astutely resonant personal ruminations at the dame time as honouring Baez's enduring search for material which speaks to the social condition of the age. [Apr 2018, p.25]

Smith sounds urgent, fresh and revitalised. [Sep 2008, p.100]

these are largely piano-centric tunes, tastefully embellished with pedal steel, guitar and subtle gospel harmonies, armed with a baroque-pop sensibility that claims the middle ground between Harry Nilsson and The National. [May 2016, p.69]

You Should Be So Lucky is tailor-made for connoisseurs of musicianship at its headiest and most tasteful--the kind of record you're proud to own, matching the pride of all those who participated in its creation. [Mar 2014, p.68]

There are rich pickings here. [Jul 2020, p.39]

It's the first time Grandaddy have in any way rooted themselves in a specific genre, and it proves strikingly successful; Lytle's more experimental electronica pushing against any notion of nostalgia or country pastiche. [Feb 2024, p.24]

It's a surly, spiky piece of work, on which the few shafts of sweetness are soon soured with guilt, recrimination and reproach. [May 2012, p.66]

A 4LP limited box adds a typically transcendent live set from Ann Arbor, mixing new tracks with retooled classics: a 19-minute take on "Tutankhamun" still feels far out. [Aug 2019, p.26]

A brave, thoroughly welcome comeback. [Dec 2022, p.28]

Fatherfucker pillages Missy Elliott, Suicide and "Justify My Love"-era Madonna, and even outfoxes the Yeah Yeah Yeahs. [Oct 2003, p.126]

The impressive Alternative Light Source sees Barnes picking up, with a snarl, where the pair left off. [Jul 2015, p.78]

The Latin syllables are well suited to Patton's croon and snarl, and he attacks Fred Buscaglione's cavalier "Che Notte!" with relish. [Jul 2010, p.117]

Lidell's vocals are alternately anguished and joyous but always supple. It's quite a ride. [May 2010, p.97]

By using layers of shoegazey guitars and powerfully mic'd-up drums, they create soundscapes that combine Americana with English pastoralism. [Sep 2016, p.67]

This is a rich offering crammed with songs that are heavy with atmosphere and humour, all wrapped round a voice that demands attention. [Oct 2016, p.26]

This time they've come armed with an acoustic guitar to counterpoint their love of reverb--something that works well with their generally playful attitude. [Aug 2011, p.100]

It seems he's at peace with trip-hop and his legacy. However, the punky "Dark Days" with Mina Rose and a minimal take on Hole's "Doll Parts" with singer Avalon Lurks suggests he remains restless for what might be over the next smoky horizon. [Nov 2017, p.36]

This is uncluttered, radiant music with the lightest touch and muggiest of voices. [Mar 2005, p.102]

If its pace is funeral, though, its mood is elevating. [Jan 2020, p.31]

Skyway Man's fantasy realm is absorbing enough that he can pull off increasingly audacious musical combinations. [Dec 2020, p.38]

Impressively, in a nod to Avery's crowd-pleasing and circuit-bending skills, this is a techno album that seldom sags. [Nov 2013, p.65]

The rest of the album freewheels around American music with a virtuosity and spontaneity that belies the group's indie-rock roots. [Dec 2013, p.67]

Cray's oft-overlooked voice croons with rare tenderness over the Bobby "Blue" Bland cut "You're The One," and there's a spiky funk to Don Gardner's "My Baby Likes To Boogaloo." But Cray's own compositions are just as striking. [Apr 2020, p.26]

“Waters Of Nazareth” yawns like a car crusher, mashing hip-hop, electro and funk into gleaming slabs of sound, while “D.A.N.C.E” displays a lighter touch, channelling Chic disco in a whirl of sugary keyboards and euphoric violin stabs.

The way it weaves this constellation of influence and artfulness into 10 songs that are lighter than air, deceptively simple, yet cumulatively, surprisingly moving. [Aug 2022, p.32]

An album from a band that still sound truly individual. [Oct 2023, p.25]

A blend of delicate, hypnotic electr-folk and pulsating prog--a tantalizing treat. [Sep 2008, p.99]

The songwriting is always of a high quality. [Mar 2012, p.79]

Imagine John Fahey channelling the pulse minimalism of Steve Reich or Hendrix jamming African highlife on a digital drive pedal. [Dec 2010, p.119]

A fuzz-tinted spaghetti-western vibe holds it all together. [May 2016, p.75]

Quade's trump card is the way they balance graceful solemnity with little sparks of discontent. [May 2025, p.35]

If the initial effect is underwhelming, after several plays you find the tunes have buried themselves in your head and layers of intriguing subtlety are revealed. [Aug 2009, p.98]

If--as you should be--you're in love with Luna... you'll come over all swoonalicious to this subtly sparkling spin-off. [Dec 2003, p.130]

The lackadaisical nostalgia for childhood beach holidays is certainly evocative--as indeed, is the way Real Estate recall New Jersey Antecedents The Feelies and Yo La Tengo, plus any number of old Flying Nun bands. [Feb 2010, p.96]

The noise they make is thrilling. [Jun 2011, p.78]

There's plenty of uncommon beauty in these four hours of stalagmite electronica. [Sep 2016, p.69]

Transform a set of ancient griot tunes into something dramatically new. The Kronos crew seem to calibrate each piece exactly right. [Nov 2017, p.36]

The Original Faces is very lovely indeed. [Oct 2015, p.77]

At 72 years of age, Crowell remains both a vital link to Van Zandt's classic sensibility and an enduring force whose vitality shows few signs of waning. [Jun 2023, p.28]

Moonchild Sanelly guest on “Streets Is Calling”, woozy dub soundscapes accompany “The Traveller”, Afrobeat and Afro-Cuban rhythms collide on “Shaking Body”, and the sense of jazz as a hybrid, liberating form is unselfconsciously embraced. [Oct 2024, p.33]

There's more here for Oldham fans than Tortoise fanciers. [Feb 2006, p.76]

This is a ceaselessly unpredictable and eclectic record that manages to sound as traditional as it does experimental. [Sep 2023, p.23]

Guthrie folds delicate electronic treatments into his statuesque, joyous melodies. [Jul 2006, p.95]

Unorthodox methods prove highly persuasive. [Mar 2020, p.27]

A groovy, engaging listen. [Mar 2016, p.83]

At 68, Hiatt is producing some of the best work of his career, mapping his inner life with an eloquence that most can only aspire to. [Jun 2021, p.24]

Her most gently ambitious and dazzlingly diverse album to date. [Apr 2025, p.32]

Earle also seems acutely aware that it’s impossible to forage deeper under the skin of these songs than Van Zandt did himself. But he’s able to summon the same air of desolation and disquiet by other means.

Loud and lively, fast and fuzzy, this scattering of creative energy is the most persuasive solo record Coxon has released. [May 2012, p.64]

Something dignified and yearning arises from the mass of programmed details. [Sep 2009, p.88]

They've lost none of the vigour of second (and last) album, 1988's Woodenfoot Cops On The Highway. [Mar 2014, p.85]

Skulk is impeccably sung and flawlessly executed by the handpicked musician on show. [May 2012, p.79]

An engaging distillation of Weiss' rumbustious style that locks the listener into a groove and doesn't let go. [Jun 2014, p.74]

Their selection is most impressive during climactic moments - the opening double whammy of an explosive "2=2+5" and impatient "Sit Down. Stand Up" a frantic "Where I End And You Begin", a thunderous, almost unhinged "Myxomatosis" - but quieter moments like the skittish "The Gloaming also flourish. [Nov 2025, p.50]

Perhaps inevitably, it's female voices that fare best. [Aug 2015, p.81]

This mass-market music deserves more than a minority audience. [Feb 2006, p.75]

Lyrically, as ever, Garvey's skill lies in combining romantic poeticism with sandpaper wit. [Dec 2015, p.80]

It’s an album that is as broken as it is beautiful, a balance that Elverum appears to be gleefully embracing. [Dec 2024, p.28]

90s alt.rock influences proudly displayed. [Sep 2023, p.24]

"The Look You Gave (Jerry)" feels plucked from an '80s synth-pop record. The album manages to avoid nostalgia however, instead offering the pair's own doomy electronic voyage into the uncertainties of the future. [Mar 2019, p.24]

Its watery, dreamlike soundscapes are totally immersive on one of those records that - temporarily at least - can make the cares of the world seem to melt away. [Mar 2025, p.29]

His spacious and captivating 2020 LP Alexandra felt like a breakthrough in this respect; Fleeting Adventure is even better.

Awash with Crosby, Stills & Nash chemistry, 12-string trills and the Joni-inspired "Seemed She Always Knew". [Apr 2025, p.28]

Collecting from 10 years of album offcuts, Death To False Metal will be a treasure chest for the disenchanted. [Jan 2011, p.106]

XOXO is, astonishingly and hearteningly, the sound of a group still finding new ways to be themselves. [Aug 2020, p.24]

Brace yourselves, naysayers, for a tour de force.

These commercial frailties have come to be seen, quite rightly, as cultish strengths. But it all goes to make Keep An Eye On The Sky much more than a repository of extraordinary music; it acts as the most thorough and articulate explanation of why Big Star never became superstars.

Nootropics is a slow burn that lingers long. [May 2012, p.78]

They have come remarkably close to achieving the contoured crispness and in-your-face immediacy of their greatest achievement. [Jun 2011, p.79]

It is his most beguiling release yet. [May 2010, p.85]

Coomes rasps and hollers across the kind of gurgling voodoo boogie that Suicide or Clinic would consider too deranged to release. [Sep 2016, p.71]

Their largely extemporised debut traverses free jazz, drone, spiritual music and experimental rock, establishing moods from contemplative to panicky and eruptive. [Jun 2024, p.29]

Flicker is never derivative or predictable, with Bell using these influences to craft often beautiful songs, from the groove of "riverside" to the lovely strum of the Simon And Garfunkel-influenced "lifeline" or the springy disco-beat of "Sidewinder." [Apr 2022, p.32]

Like 2008's Slime & Reason, Bleeds can come on a bit like an episode of "Grumpy Old MCs." But there's always room for salvation in Smith's world. [Dec 2015, p.92]

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]

There's a sharper focus this time round. [Apr 2022, p.31]

Infectious. [Aug 2023, p.26]

With [Belle & Sebastian] now seemingly lost to soft-pop pastichery, CO have come out of their shadow and flourished. [Jul 2006, p.84]

One Breath is a boldly cinematic work that is filled with passion and drama. [Nov 2013, p.67]

Once again transforms himself from a nerdy Clark Kent to a kickass retro-soul man, shapeshifting through Promenade Blue's 11 period-piece originals. [May 2021, p.35]

These days Chacon can't stop telling it like it is - and long may he do so. [Jan 2025, p.32]

The Connecticut pair's third album taps into the best qualities of alternative music, circa 1988. [Oct 2007, p.99]

Brave, challenging and arrestingly original. [Mar 2016, p.79]

For a record that often shifts all over the place--someone busks "Wonderwall" on "U1"--it's an absorbing listen. [Jan 2014, p.74]

The songs here are lean, supple, confident. [May 2018, p.18]

This is the first Cure album in a long time that’s more than just another Cure album.

It's the range of styles that impress most, from slow cowboy ballads and Western swing to full-throated honky-tonk, Tin Pan Alley and exquisite break-up songs. [May 2009, p.90]

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

John Darnielle shares Haines' nostalgic affection for the stars of Martial pantomime, and deploys his deadpan indie rock and trademark wordiness to fine effect. [May 2015, p.78]

Best is "Sylvia", where Bon Iver's intimacy, Arcade Fire's ambition, Sigur Ros' other-worldly reach and Flaming Lips' psych experimentalism collide. [Dec 2009, p. 98]

The effortlessly adroit songwriting on this, his second album shows why [in-the-know Kiwis have long talked up the talents of James Milne]. [Jan 2010, p.118]