A couple of tracks are interesting alternatives versions of songs from A Weird Exit, while on the all-new pieces, the general mood is mellower than usual. [Jan 2017, p.31]

Reprieve is probably the easiest album to listen to that she's ever made. [Oct 2006, p.104]

It's good to hear him finally write and record with a proper band. About The Light is at its best when it takes advantage of this new freedom. [Feb 2019, p.29]

Touches of stoner metal in "Four Strangers Enter The Cement At Dusk" or a deeper psychedelic bent on "Harsho" offer variety, but the name of the game is sheer glee. [Apr 2020, p.37]

On Paradise, cleaner recording--proudly made with Pro Tools--largely sharpens instead of defangs, while bringing out guitarist Kenneth Williams' surprisingly deep cabinet of textures. [Jun 2016, p.82]

The result is pure pleasure as Black takes the trademark Brewis sound and ramps up the funk on groove-driven art-pop gems. [May 2015, p.81]

A subtly lyrical and perennially thoughtful writer, Minnesotan Gorka is both stellar and predictable on this, his 14th album. [Apr 2014, p.76]

A generic gem, full of virtuosic playing, breathtaking three-part harmonies and memorable, melodic songs about the human condition. [May 2023, p.32]

Something on High obsesses on matters of faith, most compellingly on "Bodies," a dystopian reimagining of the Ark story. [Nov 2014, p.83]

The material here moves in the jazzier vein of Zappa's early '70s LPs. [Aug 2023, p.51]

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]

Watkins' judicious arrangements and less-is-more approach throw different shades onto these songs she fell in love with a child. [May 2021, p.35]

Life & Times is a winning showcase of their uptempo moods. [Jan 2013, p.77]

Their music rarely sounds like the blues: "Let Me Get By" is a fiery funk waltz, "In Every Heart" a 6/8 Stax-styled ballad with woozy horns, while the blue-eyed soul of "Crying Over You" segues into a flute-led raga. [Mar 2016, p.81]

The basic formula may be familiar, but Mallinder’s ear for fresh noises and slippery grooves remains as sharp as ever. [Aug 2022, p.29]

This is actually their most enjoyable record in ages, largely because it draws together recurring Laibach themes. [May 2014, p.77]

It's a long time since we heard three-part harmonies as good as this from anyone. [Jun 2003, p.104]

As instantly addictive as it is disposable. [Nov 2003, p.108]

"When The End Is Over" offers a glimpse of his sweetly ruminative side, but the amped-up riffs and recorded-in-a-garage fidelity keep things firmly in the red. [May 2023, p.32]

The synth reveries outstay their welcome, but the sense is of a great talent whose early solo work vented a lifetime's pain and outrage now experimenting and recalibrating. [Nov 2018, p.30]

As befits a compilation of songs that weren't up to scratch the first time around, 24 Karat Gold contains a few tinpot tracks that even the Nashville boys couldn't fix. Most, too, spill over the five-minute mark. But as fresh testament from one rock's great survivors, it makes for a fascinating listen. [Nov 2014, p.82]

The showpiece is "Blue Remembered Hills," a 20-minute closing epic about 1970s Britian that is part musical theatre, part bittersweet lament.[Jan 2017, p.32]

In a single sitting it can tend toward the soporific, but there's unforced sweetness in this groovy drifting off. [Aug 2023, p.34]

Delightful for a dark night in. [Jan 2019, p.27]

Santigold never flags in her campaign to capture the dwindling attention spans of modern pop fans. [Feb 2016, p.79]

Any spiritual ecstasy on offer here appears to be of a more private kind, although no doubt offering a glimpse of the divine to believers. On other listeners, particularly those unfamiliar with Sanskrit and either ignorant or dismissive of the belief system of which these songs are an expression, its effects will be less certain. But the longer you listen, the more you’re drawn in and the less aesthetically confining the music’s self-imposed restraints seem. [Aug 2021, p.36]

It's a beautifully judged (electronic) psych-pop record that hums with warmth, quiet eccentricity and gentle wryness, recalling Robert Wyatt, '60s French pop and Gruff Rhys' solo fare. [Jul 2017, p.39]

Though Depayse's lyrics are often weighty, the music is energetic and raw, a contrast that speaks to the immigrant experience writ large. [Jul 2019, p.34]

All in all, an admirable comeback. [Nov 2004, p.108]

This is something wholly unexpected. [Sep 2015, p.78]

Come for songs and you'll be left wanting, but as a holy distillation of Moore's influences, Spirit Counsel impresses. [Oct 2019, p.30]

Impassioned, sparkling with energy and absurdly bouncy, it's a reminder of everything the North Carolina quartet did well. [Sep 2013, p.95]

This fifth album immediately feels well adjusted and familiar. [Feb 2020, p.25]

An engaging thing it is too. [Apr 2020, p.28]

Turin Brakes makes no attempt to fix what isn't broken, honing their melodic, acoustic-based forays into rootsy genres. [Mar 2016, p.81]

Understated acoustic shuffles give the record a sense of the passing of time, as does the tender regret of "Snowflakes In The Sun." [Feb 2014, p.81]

Though the band's affection for Blonie, Pixies and Osees is plain, it's not intrusive and music's x-factor is an ominous undertow, notably provided by the keyboard on breakneck instrumental "(Post Apocalypstick)". [Jan 2024, p.28]

Motorik grooves underpin the most bracing songs on the band's second effort. [Jul 2017, p.40]

She's actually more effective when slowing things things down a notch. [May 2014, p.77]

At once punchy and overwrought, and blessed with some extremely good, if slightly monotonous, tunes. [Nov 2003, p.120]

Channels a palpable love of early Fall... and Daydream Nation-period Sonic Youth... into a convincing half-hour that teeters, teasingly, on the brink of collapse. [Jul 2004, p.102]

A record varied in tone and rhythm, capturing a band over 35 years in who are experimenting and sounding rejuvenated. [Sep 2018, p.32]

Hynde's default here is swoon and ache. Add her incendiary guitar to Mingus instrumental "Meditation (On A Pair Of Wirecutters)" plus a lovely dubbed-out, spacy "Caroline No" and her one-of-a-kind signature is writ large. [Oct 2019, p.29]

Dico's strong, rich voice dominates an intense, and rather Cohen-esque suite of songs which frequently find her switching gender roles. [Sep 2014, p.73]

Although the record is unlikely to convert any sceptics, the presence of wide-eyed improviser Alex Ward gives Thomas the perfect foil. [Jul 2023, p.33]

Their sound is now driven by a dark undertow, with heavy psych-rock and muscly R&B inflections. [May 2006, p.119]

It's gorgeous, and though its 27 minutes may seem slight at first, that's somehow perfect for the songs' capture of moments in the life, singing melancholy and joy in equal measure. [Jan 2018, p.21]

Even if Howes favours an almost cosy retro futurism, the results are unpretentious and often lovely. [Feb 2016, p.77]

All are delivered with a raw and earthy folk spirit that eschews prettiness, laced with electric guitar tropes of which Richard Thompson would be proud. [May 2017, p.28]

Their reformation record is a surprisingly substantial pleasure. [Apr 2019, p.36]

Glass Riffer dials back the bold orchestrations of 2012's America in favour of a rapturous electronic pop with Deacon's voice pushed upfront. [Mar 2015, p.75]

Often have a touch of the Broadway musical to them, but some are great. .... But it's only on "When This Old World Is Done With ME", a hymnal elegy where a weary-sounding Elton accompanies himself on piano, that we get a glimpse of genuine emotion. [Apr 2025, p.32]

All up, a convincing shift. [May 2016, p.73]

For the first time, Toth wrote the melodies before the lyrics, the result is a set of lush, free-born soundscapes, yet without any diminution in his narrative powers. [Jul 2017, p.40]

Album number three enlarges their sonic palette with piano, dobro and touches of strings and woodwind but maintains the same folksy charm. [Apr 2012, p.71]

What's particularly impressive is the way their distinctive approaches combine. [Jul 2019, p.33]

Drummer and percussionist Adrienne Davies again lays down a solid foundation for Carlson's slow motion riffage on instrumentals that eschew the more ornate sensibility of recent efforts in favour of a leaner, meaner kind of swagger. [Jun 2019, p.27]

It frequently sounds terrific. [Apr 2002, p.104]

While nothing new, a hypnotic hum and gently insistent melody sees them through. [Aug 2003, p.102]

It's a dense, courageous storm of an album, revved-up and snarling. [Jul 2016, p.73]

The self-assured swagger that enlivens the 17-track ush! emanates from the focuses attack of the band members, whose playing thrums with attitude. [Mar 2023, p.32]

A Distant Call is full of songs that are pretty good, but it rarely stops you in your tracks. [Oct 2019, p.36]

Sardonic opener “Down From London” showcases Caravan’s pop smarts, while they make complex fun on the title track, exploding into Steve Hillage-style Euro-rock around the nine-minute mark. [Dec 2021, p.25]

Despite the band’s unabashed borrowing, it’s hard to deny a song as huge as “Sweet”; the record’s obvious smarts and dynamic wallop carry it. [Jul 2024, p.31]

It's gritty and urgent, but the powerful lead vocals are melodic and traditional, and the lyrics eloquent. [Aug 2012, p.75]

As odd and beautiful as it is thoughtful and contemplative. [Dec 2020, p.39]

Continues their quest to reunite as many of the myriad splinters of pop music on each track as possible. [Sep 2001, p.87]

The resultant raggedy, in-the-moment feel suits the Neil Young-ish "Show Me" and harmonica-hinged "Guardian Well," as well as "I've Got Reason," less so "Feel It All," which drags its feet over five minutes. "Lost A year" is a sax-assisted winner, though. [Nov 2019, p.24]

Mostly, he comes across as a one-man Arcade Fire. [Jan 2013, p.79]

Williams, subtly shadowed by Anthony da Costa's harmonies, delivers elegantly inflective performances on these bittersweet. deeply affecting contemplations of love lost and regained. [Jun 2019, p.37]

Cardinal's fine harmonized vocals and muzzy, Byrds-like melodies are still intact. [Apr 2012, p.73]

Froot is another big, unabashed pop album astutely balanced with sufficient melancholy and restraint to stop it from all getting too Katy Perry. [May 2015, p.77]

I Quit is at its best when the trio juice up old tactics with a jolt of the new. [Aug 2025, p.31]

His debut is characterised by frantically over-driven beats, but is as soulful as it is dance-insistent. [Jul 2015, p.80]

It's an immersive and emphatically pulsing ride along Detroit techno lines. [Oct 2015, p.77]

On their third album, this Brighton via London quintet seem to have finally harnessed their Krautrock pulses, shoegazy guitars and MBV distortion to some decent songs. [Dec 2016, p.38]

The results are frequently bewitching, if blatantly nostalgic. [Nov 2015, p.76]

Dangerous Visions is a curious half-and-half. Side One collects raucous new material. ... Side Two, meanwhile, rests on an exhumed Peel session from 1989. [Feb 2021, p.30]

As is the case with his band's startling fusions of space rock, doomy metal and motorik grooves on its four albums, there are many surprising developments here too. [Jan 2018, p.23]

[It] curbs some of the excesses that made 2005's Worlds Apart so unfocused. [Dec 2006, p.101]

Psychedelic beguilement a la Syd Barrett and Wyatt-ish pastoralism bent into eccentric shapes figure, but variety is key. [Feb 2019, p.30]

The results will gladden devotees of fractured, footsore indie-rock. [Jul 2007, p.127]

A fairly ravishing listen that brings to life to Remy's Cindy Sherman-style identity politics. [Mar 2018, p.35]

It's certainly cinematic, and there are nods to Morricone. [Jan 2013, p.79]

The roller-disco gallop of "Wallpaper" epitomises Be Your Own King's catwalk-sang-froid and quiet Joie de Vivre. [Mar 2013, p.69]

L'Aurore finds Cedric Benyoucef and Charlie Boyer pursuing a rawer, more improvisatory approach than on albums prior. ... Actual songcraft can take a back seat, though. [Apr 2016, p.82]

Less reactionary souls will thrill to the dynamic Zoo. [Apr 2012, p.73]

Despite a tendency to drift slightly, BSP remain a reliably warm-hearted antidote to the bustle of modern life. [May 2013, p.68]

The chiming and charming likes of "Scratching At The Lid" and "Wanderlust" are typical of the second effort. [Sep 2021, p.31]

More fully realised than 2014's Season Sun, this second album adheres its predecessor's summery disposition while adding new elements. [Sep 2018, p.30]

A neat sampler of MacKay's unshowy virtuosity, at once brisk and mellow. [Jun 2017, p.33]

It's a little disorienting at times, but it's a vibrant and varied listen nevertheless. [Nov 2025, p.35]

Shrines sees this young Canadian duo tamper with generic electro to create often sparkling results. [Aug 2012, p.78]

A lugubrious lo-fi treat. [Sep 2015, p.69]

This score to the latest in the Halloween franchise sees his sonic hallmarks - repeating piano motifs, desolate synthesisers and sudden moments of gut-wrenching tension - intact. [Dec 2021, p.25]

For all the widescreen grandeur and fresh perspectives of the orchestral arrangements, they're curiously at their most rousing when just voice and acoustic guitar embellish "Won't Get Fooled Again". [May 2023, p.38]

Ian Gillan doesn’t attempt as many sky-scraping howls as he once did but still delivers characteristically rascal-ish lyrics such as “Lazy Sod” and “A Bit On The Side” with swagger and relish. [Aug 2024, p.32]

[The] second album painstakingly recreates the sounds and melodies of peak-era My Bloody Valentine, Cocteau Twins, The Jesus And Mary Chain and Joy Division with a slavish devotion that borders on the obsessive-compulsive. [Dec 2012, p.77]