Close It Quietly is billed as a collaborative, full-band release--and while the singer's distinctive vocals prevent too radical a departure, even the minute-long cuts here sound sturdier, more confident. [Oct 2019, p.27]

There's a frayed but genuinely exploratory vibe here, that's not afraid to get tough. [Jul 2009, p.91]

Under the deft guidance of Alabama Shakes producer Andrija Tokic, even her tendency to outbreaks of over-shrill soprano trilling sounds strangely compelling. [Oct 2012, p.79]

Feck's gracious lyrical observations of the minutiae only sharpened by such a lovely contrast [to The Clientele's James Hornsey]. [Aug 2014, p.71]

It doesn't all work ... but a guest appearance on voice from singer-songwriter Barbara Manning kicks things into the next gear. [Jul 2017, p.30]

No-one writes with such wince-inducing accuracy about their target audience as their former Beautiful South pairing. [Sep 2017, p.30]

The vibe is smart, slightly soiled. [Apr 2018, p.28]

Tobin's virtuoso collaging of alien sounds is bracingly vivid in small doses, but a little chilly and disorienting over the long haul. [Jun 2011, p.96]

Deconstructing socio-cultural norms rarely sounds like so much fun. [Feb 2017, p.24]

You Heartbreaker, You lands like an accusation, with love (and other) songs which draw blood. [Oct 2025, p.23]

Although it's a shame to see eccentrics reining in idiosyncratic impulses,... they've honed their hubris. [May 2005, p.98]

Despite some interesting -co-writes with the likes of Walter Becker, it never achieves lift-off. [Apr 2009, p.82]

It's a soul-searchingly strong set. [May 2013, p.78]

This female-fronted quintet continues to connect the tuneful aggression of Blondie with the SoCal sassiness of Rilo Kiley. [Aug 2012, p.71]

The inconsistent textures, pace and flow of the album all point to a band still trying to work out who they are. [Feb 2025, p.37]

This Montreal master proves himself, yet again, a consummate songwriter and master of atmospherics. [Jun 2015, p.84]

Hardly the most disciplined or versatile singer, Shaver gets over on the strength of his writing. [Aug 2012, p.79]

Wonderful, Glorious sounds, throughout, overwhelmingly like an Eels album.... This consistency has to be admired as testament to the robustness of E's vision. [Mar 2013, p.74]

The real triumph of Easy Tiger is less rooted in the sound, more in the attitude. [Jul 2007, p.114]

If Segovia had gone electric, one could imagine the results might have sounded something like this. [Aug 2023, p.34]

The material is designed to showcase the principals' piano playing, and skilled engineer Mike Piersante has set up the mic'ing and mix by putting Russell's piano on one side of the stereo spectrum, Elton's on the other, making the record a particular kick under headphones. [Nov 2010, p.98]

A glistening second album that lands somewhere between the empyrean vision of Broadcast and the starry-eyed pulsating of Tame Impala. [Jun 2021, p.25]

Her newest pushes the format to its fullest form, wrapping expansive and intricate interpretations of the decade's sonic touchstones - synth washes, gated drums, pulsating beats, guitar jangle and romantic vocals - into tidy three- and four-minute packages. [Apr 2023, p.36]

Nine luminous, clean0lined songs focus on love's myriad complexities. [May 2015, p.84]

Passerby is an acoustic record of great subtlety and warmth, so much that it overcomes the chick-lit preciousness of Randell's lyrics. [Sep 2014, p.75]

Hilariously frenetic, perpetually distracted. [Jun 2005, p.116]

It's Roderick's lyrics that really grip. [Nov 2006, p.118]

Purring, pulsing and bathed in neon, this might actually be their essential release. [Aug 2018, p.35]

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

It's weird and enticing, hypnotic and jarring. In a word: it's Chasny. [Sep 2021, p.33]

Local Valley is positive, engaged, almost rousing. [Oct 2021, p.32]

Really rather magnificent, in its way. [Jul 2002, p.107]

With a bit of self-pruning, a bit MORE risk and space in the production, he might have TRULY self-reinvented. [May 2002, p.90]

A weird and wonderful record. [Jul 2002, p.120]

It fizzes with pent-up power and singalong choruses. [Jan 2018, p.18]

Not thrilling, maybe, but pleasingly solid. [Apr 2018, p.24]

Their tenth LP OH (ohio) lands with some nervous expectation attached. As it turns out, it’s their best record since 2000 landmark, "Nixon."

Their sixth album intersperses passages of barbed attack with atmosphere and nuance. [Oct 2017, p.40]

Make no mistake, the Lips have done it: three astonishing LPs in a row. [May 2006, p.94]

Adele is repeatedly cast as the heartbroken survivor. That role serves to foreground her mighty impressive vocals, but also encourage the showboating overkill that is a staple of the X Factor generation. [Feb 2011, p.79]

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

Where the album suffers, however--especially in comparision to the Jenny Lewis record--is the absence of any real lyrical verve or personality. [Aug 2008, p.94]

They strain for transcendent, neo-religious euphoria; sometimes they get there. [Feb 2011, p.99]

You can almost hear doors swinging shut in monastic apartments, as he abandons his perfectionist MO to grapple with faith and loss over mangled voice demos and musique concréte sheets of rain. [Oct 2022, p.36]

Characterised by a laid-back, full-band sound, this heartfelt music exudes the warm thrill of catching up and looking back among old friends. [Apr 2024, p.35]

The 'contemporary classical' tag doesn't do justice to their cinematic, intense instrumental narratives. [Mar 2006, p.104]

She’s made another very good album, her first in six years. [Jul 2022, p.33]

A sugary feast for the senses. [May 2008, p.98]

A richly inventive trip made off the usual musical map. [Feb 2025, p.43]

It's an impressive cast, matched by the energy and eccentricity of the contemporary and traditional songs alike. [Jun 2013, p.81]

The Blondes' expansive synth jams can sometimes feel a little directionless. [Mar 2012, p.81]

It's Cypress Hill's own B-Real who steals the show, though, his nasally raps still as distinctive as a whiff of the green stuff. [Apr 2022, p.26]

Plurality is the key to Clark Jr's appeal here. It also has to be said that this is a pretty safe, porous realm in which soul, hip-hop, Princely funk and ringing electric blues feed into one another. [Nov 2015, p.73]

This seamless synthesis of sinew and silicon is crucial to the album's slippery feel: there's a pleasing fluidity and crooked funkiness to the arrangements that Yorke sometimes struggled to achieve on The Eraser. [Mar 2013, p.66]

The ubiquitous use of the hang, a sophisticated modern take on the old-fashioned steel pan, gives a distinctive sound to this east London quartet. It's a surprisingly versatile instrument from which Nick Mulvey and Duncan Bellamy coax melodic and rhythmic patterns to complement Jack Wylie's inventive sax riffing. [Nov 2009, p.99]

Screws Get Loose is crammed with infectious pop and arch lyrics that recall The Runaways or Shampoo. [Mar 2012, p.101]

His debut illustrates a more prosaic act of creation, in which fastidious study is transformed into compelling new music. [Aug 2011, p.92]

For the most part, this is a bleak musical fable as disquieting as it is utterly compelling, as it races inexorably to its bloody conclusion. [Oct 2011, p.94]

Parker Millsap's second album is possessed of classic troubadour restlessness, drenched in the Pentecost but headed onto country/folk/blues highways tramped down by everyone from Johnny Cash to John Fullbright. [Mar 2014, p.79]

It is, for Pole, a breath of fresh air. [Nov 2015, p.80]

Essentially the second half of their epic third album, the trio are in blistering form on III's seven tracks. [May 2016, p.75]

As on debut Eighteen Hours Of Static, there's a sinister feel, as if you are being sometimes stalked an sometimes assaulted, often, as in the case of "So Much You," in the same song. [Apr 2016, p.69]

Self-aware and possibly self-satisfied, this is wildly overloaded pastiche taken to ludicrous but highly entertaining extremes. [Feb 2017, p.28]

"High Roller" and "Medina" are laidback and elegant, blessed with Wu's dazzling, twinkling keyboard runs. But "Broken Theme" adds a note of challenge. [Jun 2018, p.37]

Butler performs the same job that Trevor Horn did with Belle & Sebastian--adding a widescreen pop ambition to McIntyre's flinty personal tales. [Nov 2018, p.34]

Smart and slick but vulnerable too, it's the point where Blonde On Blonde meets Voulez-Vous. [Apr 2020, p.33]

Their playing is more expressive as ever. Happily, the maturation of Larkin Poe's sound coincides with a step forward in songwriting. [Feb 2025, p.39]

The LP struggles a little in variation of pace and tone, and the auspicious spark fizzles out somewhat but the end. [Jan 2017, p.24]

Cameron nonetheless hits the mic with the total hip=grinding conviction, as if daring you to proclaim him an ironist. [Sep 2016, p.70]

Shrill, theatrical, and unhinged. [Feb 2007, p.71]

Live with it a little and Algiers reveals itself to be a warm and compassionate affirmation of the band's deep-rooted DNA, with enough fresh twists to keep this compelling story moving forward.

An album that shines light, albeit dimly, into hidden corners of the soul. [May 2007, p.100]

Gleefully adulterated here with generous slugs of dubstep, dancehall, rock, R&B, baile funk and anything else that fits the fervent party mood. [Jan 2012, p.82]

Although his take lacks Bob's iconoclasm, there's something deeply reassuring about his laid back schmooze on abiding classics such as "Night And Day" and "Fly Me To The Moon." [Nov 2018, p.34]

The MC's focus on Escape 2 Mars is mainly ecological, the music packing ample punch to underline his message. [Feb 2010, p.86]

In the wrong hands this mish-mash could be a colossal disaster, but delivered through the inimitable vocals and presence of Eno Williams, it melds gracefully. [Apr 2019, p.31]

Erasure has yet to really match the duo's early imperial phase, but here Andy Bell and Vince Clarke dish out the cosmic showstoppers with all the elan of their 30-year-old selves. [Oct 2020, p.31]

The intense grandeur... is still quite a shock. [Feb 2007, p.73]

This is a rock record, and Samson's band functions as the sharp teeth to his lucid tongue. [Jan 2008, p.112]

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

The primary revelation of Elsie is Fallon's voice. [Oct 2011, p.90]

The duo of Matt Carlon on Modular synthesiser and Joanthan Sielaff on bass clarinet, are onto something with Seer. [May 2014, p.74]

It's clear Masin has not catered to his new hipster audience but rather remained true to his elemental vision. [Mar 2020, p.33]

The likes of “D&T”, “Alice” and the cheekily titled “A Gaslight Anthem” are destined to inspire sessions of air-punching by anyone who still believes a life might be saved by three chords, the truth and a glass of the good stuff. [Nov 2024, p.37]

Flashbacks to The Orb's Adventures Beyond The Ultraworld and the KFL's Chill Out are inevitable, but there are woozy hints of early Black Dog on "C," too. [Mar 2015, p.77]

With the aid of some of the finest session musicians in Chicago, Hayes concocts a creamy rock'n'soul fantasy that answers the question: what if Jimmy Webb had teamed up with Thom Bell to write for Marc Bolan? [Oct 2009, p.98]

Everyday Robots is a less ebullient, more intimate and reflective affair, as befits the tentative revelation of a man's soul. [May 2014, p.63]

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]

It's the natural, assured way in which Heaven Is Whenever moves between building on past glories and breaking fresh ground that's so impressive. [Jun 2010, p.85]

You have to adjust to its lack of ornamentation and let it settle, seep, uncurl like smoke or love. And there are songs here to equal his best. [Album Of The Month, Dec 2001, p.100]

A vivid, shapeshifting debut album. [Nov 2013, p.74]

His wavering voice embraces sun-kissed pop on "Always The Right Time," twilight noir on "Leaving California"--and most emotions in between. [Mar 2017, p.28]

Their gem-like guitar pop songs start meandering a little. Altogether, though, In Mind feels like a collective exhale. [Apr 2017, p.37]

"Tired" and "A Couple Highs" rather drag their feet, but the freewheeling "Lies" and terrific title track easily compensate. [Jul 2019, p.34]

A quietly spectacular bunch of songs. [Jun 2020, p.28]

It's unsurprisingly a multicultural, extravagantly arranged collection. [May 2021, p.32]

The results are radical without losing sight of Garcia's original vision. [Dec 2021, p.27]

It takes up where 2019's Infest The Rats' Nest left off, though was pieced together from improv jams. [Aug 2023, p.33]