Occasionally it can feel like you’re listening to in-jokes playing on repeat, but good tunes like “Eight Minute Machines” (Sleaford Mods, 1978) and “Twitchin’ In The Kitchen” (“It’s Tricky” repurposed for drug users) emerge from the funky environs with characterful fuzz intact. [May 2022, p.36]

Although A Hundred Miles Off doesn't always score a bullseye, its vibrancy and colour win through. [Oct 2006, p.133]

It is impressive on a technical level. [Jan 2015, p.76]

The songs here are mostly sparse and reflective. [May 2020, p.27]

These are strong songs, only occasionally hampered by the over-ripe allegorical nonsense advertized in the album's title. [Mar 2014, p.85]

Louis O'Bryen and Asha Lorenz paint a drunker, more heartbroken picture of twentysomething romance on this downbeat sequel. [Nov 2022, p.36]

Despite flashes of intense beauty, the going is heavy. [Jul 2018, p.30]

It's self-improvised and often raw, but bursting with vim and surprise. [Jun 2014, p.80]

Throughout his three-decade career, E has brought a hushed beauty to the act of staring into the abyss, and his use of space on EELS TIME! (all caps for added irony) makes this lonely guy seem that much more lost in space. [Jul 2024, p.32]

The first four tracks are moody, post-rock instrumentals, but elsewhere filthy, squalling guitars and a meaty swing dominate. [Oct 2016, p.40]

A set of eloquently sombre, Americana songs heavy on pedal and lap-steel. [Jul 2016, p.79]

Music Must Destroy finds original members Segs Jennings and David Ruffy in reassuringly rude health, bludgeoning their way through a bunch of songs that weld punk and metal. [Dec 2016, p.37]

It's a strong return, though bad luck for the copycatting Royal Blood and DZ Deathrays who'd been counting on their obsolescence. [Nov 2014, p.72]

It's a wild ride and brilliantly sequenced. [Jul 2020, p.30]

Their ability to turn despair to joy even stretches as far as being able to turn a song called "Everybody Dies" into a thrilling, fuzzed-out blast. [Sep 2025, p.39]

The instrumental palette is more wide-ranging in a subtler, more subversive manner. [Apr 2004, p.96]

The highlight is a creepy, prowling, marimba-driven take on The Knife's "Pass This On," which retains the female gaze of the original. [Jun 2014, p.82]

The most radical treatments are the highlights. [Oct 2016, p.40]

"Dandy," a fond-but-smart homage to Bowie that channels the spirit of "All The Young Dudes" with unashamed nostalgia. It's the standout track on his first album of new songs in six years--but there's plenty else here that's worth hearing, too. [Nov 2016, p.31]

There's nothing particularly profound here, but the combination of skanking, roots-reggae rhythms and O'Connor's still-gorgeous voice... is a winning one. [Nov 2005, p.106]

[Their indulgences] can be tiresome--"People On Strong Stuff" plods without purpose--but equally provides passages of uncontained elation. [Nov 2012, p.79]

Initially it's hard to detect much disruption to his usual winning formula of squelchy keyboards, pulsing rhythms and glassy guitar noodles, but the dank electro of "AE" and the hot-stepping snares of "O" introduce a note of disquiet that only pulls you further into his exquisitely crafted universe. [Feb 2018, p.30]

There are still missteps--the ungainly "Chain My Name" and "Spilling Lines"--but between these sit a brace of casually innovative slow jams. [Nov 2013, p.76]

There's no shortage of melancholy here, but it's of an understated and universal kind. [Mar 2016, p.74]

In Keeping it simple, Frawley speaks volumes to the gloriously messy stew of the human psyche. [Mar 2019, p.27]

The Aussie Maestros deliver seven concise tracks of electronica, largely indebted to Giorgio Moroder but with ventures into many of those elements Moroder inspired, from disco to techno and even jungle. [Dec 2023, p.33]

The title track;s urgent strums are more claustrophobic, while "Shaking"'s jangles are more prosaic. Largely, though, she's as refreshingly carefree as her lyrics are empowering. [Jun 2020, p.29]

Sleater-Kinney strike a finer balance between their established punk sound and the New Wave references that gummed up recent records. [Jan 2024, p.36]

A usefully pungent backstory enlivens this decent collection of head-nodders. [May 2015, p.73]

The musical backing is politer than the lyrics, but it can't altogether blunt the boldness of their discourse. [Jul 2018, p.30]

Patience is still a warm and uplifting record befitting this modest, meticulous band. [Jul 2016, p.74]

It works, mainly: though one or two songs could benefit from the old viciousness, these are seductive confections. [Apr 2004, p.104]

The spartan tracks without drums, backed only by clumsy piano, remain highly effective. [Nov 2016, p.31]

They're immersed in keyboard-assisted '80s pop and brooding white soul, with overtones of New Order and Lloyd Cole, while XCox's Morrissey-like vocals again underscore their love of The Smiths. [Sep 2014, p.75]

The Tom Waits-ish jazz of the title track, the slinky CCR-ish trundle of "My Baby Drives" and the gentle pedal-steel-led-weeper "White Gardenias" confirm that Earle's quieting of his demons has lost him little. [Nov 2014, p.73]

Retro-futurism at its best. [Feb 2020, p.35]

Kykeon combines that knowledge [of Greek folk music] with freewheeling homeland psych. [Jan 2015, p.76]

The synths and drum machines that supplant those albums' painstaking arrangements highlight robust songwriting underpinning standout "The Place I Live," while new vocal counter-melodies lift Elverum's "O Superman" choir out of the murk. [Dec 2013, p.70]

Fair to say, you won't hear anything like it. [Nov 2012, p.79]

It's an epic of self-conscious protest, asking questions about the way the global and the local become corporate, homogenous anti-realities, pegged to songs that play loose with genre. [Apr 2020, p.25]

Less outre than much of Patton's work. [Feb 2013, p.80]

They might've allowed the collage more space to breathe, for the bandwidth is densely layered to bursting with blissed-out sampling; but the rapture makes it churlish to complain. [Feb 2014, p.80]

There are many fine moments here. [Apr 2014, p.76]

This third album also boasts that customary lazy Australian twang, but allied with some fine songwriting and a deft lyrical touch. [May 2015, p.72]

A grouchier echo of that opening shot [their 1983 debut album]. [Sep 2019, p.27]

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

Bovell's take doesn't suggest new approaches, so much as reinforce and highlight what was already there. [Dec 2021, p.45]

Tracks such as "Dragon Bones" and "Joan Of Arc" have bigger, stickier hooks than anything he's written since "Sheila." [Oct 2016, p.39]

This is his conscious attempt to inject a sense of urgency probably not heard on a Bad Seeds album since 1994's Let Love In. [Mar 2003, p.96]

It's an assured and heartfelt work built carefully around McMorrow's falsetto vocals. [Oct 2016, p.35]

The best of Faith In The Future is among the best of Finn. [Oct 2015, p.75]

Bell's racked howl brings a hardcore intensity to it all, but there's bags of melodic nous just below the scorched surface. [Sep 2014, p.81]

The shuffling piano and accented horns coalesce in the simple wishes of "Dreamin'," while "Ancient Past" finds Parker, toying with time and memory, savouring every moment. [Nov 2018, p.34]

Here he bends the two impulses on a dark, pulsating album that sits alongside other neo-industrial work from Raime and the Haxan Cloak. [Dec 2013, p.74]

Producer Adrian Sherwood now completes the picture with this sound-system-style refashioning, breaking tracks open, resetting them in eerie dubscapes. [Oct 2022, p.25]

The washed out pastel shades and electronic frills on the likes of "Doctor M" and "Cross Off" help ensure that any latent familiarity with Johnson's influences is outweighed by reverberant production reminiscent of Broadcast's spooky psychedelia. [May 2015, p.73]

Simultaneously stupid and very smart. [Jul 2018, p.30]

If it's a little too impressionistic to last the 17-track distance, then Freetown Sound still seduces. [Aug 2016, p.73]

"Time Moves Slow" is gorgeous Muscle Shoals soul with a killer turn from Future Islands' Samuel T Herring, while "In Your Eyes" with Charlotte Day Wilson is lush orch jazz with shades of David Axelrod. [Aug 2016, p.71]

Producer Aaron Dessner’s quick working pace and embrace of imperfection have helped deliver a rawer set of songs written when Atwell was weaning herself off antidepressants and feared feeling’s return. [Jun 2024, p.29]

Despite the occasional lapse into polished AOR, this is another classy, sassy step forward from a restlessly inventive pair. [Oct 2016, p.39]

Knowingly nostalgic and highly polished, this rich debut contains retro-cool references but also chunky pop hooks. [Oct 2013, p.63]

While their pristine sound lacks grit, in lyrical terms the troubled "Lies" and "The Mother We Share" show the Chvrches are blessed with hidden depths. [Oct 2013, p.64]

Fuzz and reverb are everywhere, but The Soft Pack are also refreshingly unafraid of the sax solo. [Nov 2012, p.81]

The crystalline sweetness of Jones' voice belies the dark melancholy that underpins songs such as "Sad Kid" and "Nobody Dies." [Jan 2015, p.78]

A stripped-down production adds intimacy, though Hersh's voice isn't quite as strong as it once was. [Dec 2013, p.74]

This impressively diverse and full-bodied debut by 22-year-old Parisian producer Jeremy Guindo is a heartening advert for electronic dance music's blissful spirit of perpetual self-renewal. [Jan 2013, p.71]

What A Terrible World continues to sharpen the band's sound. [Feb 2015, p.81]

There us ab agreeably lo-fi C86 sloppiness to much f this debut, even if it sounds more cheap than raw in places. [Feb 2014, p.81]

All 10 tracks on his solo debut album are effectively reiterations of the same song, but it's a terrific one. [May 2016, p.79]

Deborah Harry's voice has rarely sounded better, perhaps energised by material worthy to stand alongside the group's brightest back pages. [Jun 2017, p.24]

Talkin To The Trees finds Young largely preoccupied with matters closer to home. “Family Life” begins as an open-hearted acoustic address to his children – until a jarring reference to his grandchildren, “who I can’t see”. He follows this with “Dark Mirage”, a glowering ball of knotted noise. .... The mood shifts with “First Fire Of Winter”, a hymn to domestic happiness in Colorado with Daryl Hannah and the first of three gorgeous country tracks on the album. [Jul 2025, p.28]

Field recordings, ASMR, personal effects and various metals combine to conjure some magical moments. [Jul 2025, p.31]

Well-annotated five-disc boxset. ... The collection does include a fair bit of drearily competent pub blues, but even here there are some glorious moments. [Jul 2019, p.48]

As bleakly dystopian as that sounds, the music is colourful and bursting with joyous melodies. [Mar 2024, p.26]

Shouty Japanese pop-punk quartet Chai guest on wonderfully bleepy “More Joy!”, Giorgio Moroder assists with the thrilling digital disco of “Beautiful Lies”, Bowie’s pianist Mike Garson guests on the elegant ballad “Falling”, while producer Erol Alkan adds a dancefloor-friendly sheen to proceedings. [Dec 2021, p.27]

The result is an album that displays Wolfe's versatility and ability to stir power from whispers as easily as she does howls. [Oct 2019, p.39]

Her most wide-ranging LP, Iconoclasts is also her most unwieldy, but she finds no small catharsis in letting the music overwhelm. [Review of the Year 2025, p.29]

Springtime isn’t some hopeful calling card made inside the industry machine. More infernal than vernal, it’s a document – of the coming together of three old hands and kindred spirits at a time when everything around them (and us) was coming apart. [Jan 2022, p.18]

The lyrical balance of wit and poignancy is still here... plus stronger melodies than we've heard from him in some time. [May 2005, p.96]

The sound of Ono gravely warbling "Imagine" at the close of Warzone may invite more ridicule from longtime haters. But believers in her musical vision will deem it very much of a piece with the boldness that marks these new renditions of many of her most furious songs. [Nov 2018, p.34]

Barrie Cadogan is a guitar phenomenon. [Mar 2005, p.102]

The pram is in the hall, perhaps, but the art remains in the right place. [Nov 2012, p.85]

All in all, an interesting exercise, far less arch and shamateurish than Kisses On The Bottom. [Nov 2012, p.74]

A spirited response to their detractors. [Nov 2005, p.106]

It's one for the lonesome and broken-hearted, a great excuse to shut out the world and have a good cry. [Mar 2020, p.35]

Highlights dim somewhat, though, with the earnest and/or bombastic originals on the album's second half. [Jan 2015, p.78]

The results is both familiar and strange. [May 2025, p.33]

Despite its many-handedness, Rainbow Ends is an intensely personal vision. Indeed, it feels more like a companion piece to his great ’70s work than it does a postscript.

While it might have played better in 2003, it's a welcome return regardless. [Jun 2017, p.23]

The playing is as eloquent as ever, dextrous but never overtly showy, while Richard Wats' voice delivers a pleasingly plaintive yearn. [Jun 2025, p.41]

Postcards From... represents a diary of five years of travel, though these 10 instrumentals are less reflective of the locations where they were conceived than the moods they inspired. [Jul 2016, p.70]

Pop-minded producers Dimitri Tikovoi and Dan Grech-Marguerat add a sheen to the Up The Bracket-style clatter, and unexpectedly stately arrangements. [Mar 2024, p.32]

Sequenced into an almost seamless tapestry, most of these tracks flow along in a pleasant but unremarkable vein of propulsive, melodic, Hot Chip-style synth-pop. [Jun 2014, p.83]

Sumptuous, orchestra pop lace with lyrical acerbity. [Oct 2016, p.28]

Skelton's music has an ascetic quality that gives these tracks the sense of little rituals, pagan prayers brought blinking into the present. [Jan 2021, p.32]

Aside from the pleasantly Britpoppy "50,000 Kilowatts" and "Drown All The Witches," This is fast, fun, and full of piss and vinegar than one might expect from such seasoned campaigners. [Dec 2014, p.71]

It's less punky and psychedelic than anything they've done before, sounding more like a piece of self-conscious, well-crafted Americana by, say Richard Hawley or Alex Turner. [Feb 2019, p.30]