Remarkably alluring. [Apr 2007, p.93]

Encore is a perfectly good record. ... But one can't help but wonder how Dammers' wayward genius might have added a level of glorious unpredictability to proceedings. [Mar 2019, p.22]

He has a weakness for think, hackneyed lyrics, but a flair for inspired juxtapositions, too. [Jul 2015, p.71]

Unexpected digressions often invigorate their third full-length. [Apr 2020, p.28]

Impressively, the lustrous-voiced Reid has changed tracks without derailing the train. [Feb 2025, p.39]

That spirit of garageland spontaneity pervades Fuckbook. [Apr 2009, p.84]

Harding here ups the comeback ante with a baker dozen of frothy, breezily melodic gems. [Dec 2011, p.84]

The ballads are typically wry and pretty, however, especially the Christopher Cross-alike "Crack The Case," through "Feed The Fire" might have benefited from more rigorous editing. [Aug 2018, p.26]

It's a warmly pristine, groovily poignant set, with vocals pitched for gender neutrality and an ear for a great hook. [Jan 2019, p.23]

It's audacious stuff, but emotionally unengaging, with the lyrics being the weakest link and those songs remaining ultimately elusive. [Sep 2010, p.99]

This injection-moulded pastiche isn't exactly bad, but feels totally pointless. [Jul 2011, p.86]

What's remarkable though, is the seamless way in which they carried on from where they left off after their two-decade hiatus: although this sounds modern, it still has enough of their early urgency, once more balancing the anthemic ("SSL83", "One Day We Will Live There") with a thrilling sense of a band about to career off-course at any moment. [Jan 2010, p. 121]

This appears to be a case of limited resources and/or dubious decisions undermining a potentially captivating album. [May 2015, p.76]

There's little of the playful invention of 1997's astonishing Fantasma, but imaginative details abound, even at these slower tempos. [Sep 2017, p.24]

With Oberst's frail and quavering but steel-lined voice high in the mix, it clarifies how exceptional his lyrics are, and what exactly they're about. [Jan 2006, p.104]

It all too often sounds like Metronomy's secret Hackney-themed indie project. [Mar 2014, p.78]

Lush, lightly electronic chamber-pop arrangements dominate. [Oct 2015, p.84]

[Hames] combines the stately emotionalism of '60s torch singers with the all-caps exuberance of a particularly sharp garage-rock band and the eloquent twang of late-period Replacements. [Apr 2017, p.30]

The guitar-loving chums churn out suitably entertaining, sludgy fare, a bit like a Neanderthal, fuzzier Fuzz with occasional electronics. [Aug 2016, p.76]

In some ways, ...Absence is his most diverse record yet, but it's at its brilliant best when spare and uncompromising. [May 2005, p.104]

They rise to each other's challenges surprisingly well, with sinuous lo-fi beats brushing against saxes, woodwinds and vintage synths. [Jun 2011, p.96]

He's backed by an orthodox guitar/bass/drums trio, which sometimes renders inert his unorthodox rhymes. [Apr 2015, p.76]

The songs are autobiographical, but not always straightforwardly so. [Apr 2018, p.22]

In short, dense, mesmerising, involving. [Oct 2013, p.63]

They're now coming across as though they're seriously indecisive, unable to take their upbeat dance-punk to its extremes. Tellingly, As If takes off when the group remove their vocals from centrestage. [Nov 2015, p.69]

Sick Scenes is certainly a messy affair, stylistically, and overrun with densely packed lyrics, though it's not entirely without charm. [Mar 2017, p.32]

Many of their songs go on for weeks, doing little but reiterating banal refrains, badly confusing hypnotic with merely repetitious. [Nov 2007, p.96]

There are some pretty-ish tunes here, especially "Butterfly" and You Don't," but an awful lot of workaday garage rattling. [Jun 2016, p.81]

It moves somewhat uneasily through Celtic folk and rural string music. [May 2011, p.92]

One of the finest Americana albums of 2004. [Jan 2005, p.128]

Crisp, tight and fluid. [Aug 2004, p.92]

She has all the signifiers of deep soul experience: the husky, rich timbre; the confident testifying; the honeyed transitions. But the ruefulness, grime and pain... aren't there. [Feb 2004, p.73]

This is the polite, less freaky end of modern American indie folk: earnest, well-intentioned, Obama-fundraising, National Public Radio-supporting... and cumulatively a little dull.

A so-so collection of lushly orchestrated Brazilian bossa novas and ballads that unite Mrs. Costello with Frank Sinatra's arranger claus Ogerman. [Apr 2009, p.82]

Brakes, and this is not a criticism, are at their best when they do the opposite, pretending to be a nerdy indie-rock group while actually recording songs that are dumb as rocks. [May 2009, p.79]

These are finely detailed hymnals with a deceptively light touch, led out by Beam’s warm-blanket voice and brittle guitar.

Ignoring the misstep--'O Mensageiro'--this is a pleasure. [Oct 2009, p.106]

Mi Ami makes a joyfully ungovernable tribal noise on this second album. [May 2010, p.99]

Gimme Some's relentless melodicism arrives with a harder edge than the dreamy naivete that powered "Young Folks," but the results frequently feel just as fine. [Jun 2011, p.93]

It all sounds intensely personal and pleasingly remote. [Nov 2011, p.104]

The duo delivers all the exuberance of the Ting Tings, channeling the joys of domesticity, parenthood and conjugal intimacy with an infectious giddiness. [Oct 2011, p.93]

It's immaculately produced and performed, full of gorgeous vocal harmonies, extravagantly wafting flutes and often arresting melodies. But for some listeners it might be wither lacking in rawness or uncomfortably in thrall to the past. [Oct 2011, p.100]

Reeling Skullways is a paean to the previous step on techno's evolutionary ladder: the analogue acid sounds of Detroit, Chicago, and Manchester. [Jul 2012, p.69]

The melodies drift rather aimlessly but the wonderfully groggy textures will stay with you like the best kind of sonic Valium. [Aug 2012, p.75]

It's a little too polite to beak new ground, but it certainly draws attention to more than a dozen fine--and largely overlooked--melodies from Elton's golden era. [Sep 2012, p.91]

Pretty straight by the Puppets' wobbly standards, but still bewitchingly unhinged. [May 2013, p.74]

The pair's voices twin eerily and sound effortlessly young and restless on a stream of adorable alt.pop melodies. [Dec 2013, p.70]

The meanings might be obscure, but Chiaroscuro is still deluxe cinematic pop by hugely accomplished composer-producers. [Feb 2014, p.76]

It seamlessly blends his classical talents with an avant-garde flair and experimental rock dynamics. [Jun 2014, p.83]

Mark Nevers, on production, ensures Singer's grave is the lushest Oldham LP since Beware, and "So Far And Here We Are" is a stinging all-new effort. Motives, though, remain even less clear than usual. [Nov 2014, p.71]

A very fine record, for sure, but Earle has a nagging habit of stopping just short of the hands-down classic he's capable of. [Feb 2015, p.78]

Italian jobs come no finer. [Dec 2015, p.73]

A blurring of fictionalised murder ballads and heartfelt break-up songs, Feed The Fire clothes breathy, emotive vocals in weeping strings, tremolo guitar twangs and ethereal electronica. [Mar 2016, p.78]

Two fetching female voices bring a soft-focus glow to the linchpin songs on this incandescent album. [Apr 2016, p.79]

It's solemn stuff. [Oct 2016, p.39]

A feelgood record with a troubled soul. [Sep 2016, p.70]

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]

Theirs is a shambolic but tuneful take on glam and punk, one in which everyone sings and spunky attitude is more important than production polish. [Aug 2017, p.38]

Conceived to celebrate the band's 20th anniversary and features everybody who has ever recorded with the band, which basically means they called in a bunch of old drummers to thump out a backing rhythm for Jason Simon and Steve Kille's incessant groove, snarl and swing on choice tracks like "Here With The Hawk" and "Nobody Home." [May 2018, p.27]

Wells favours minimal lyrics and skeletal, looping arrangements that an feel overly austere, but the improvised viola scraps and sampled splash of New Orleans jazz on "A Quiet Life" show an evolution towards Matthew Herbert territory. [May 2018, p.30]

Their fourth album is a quietly audacious work, careful but not cautious, an expansive blend of woozy country, skewed folk and cracked torch songs. [Aug 2018, p.30]

Strikes a deft balance between hooks'n'riffs and meditative drifts. [Jul 2020, p.33]

The music is similarly diverse [as his guests], combining orchestral strings and beats, flamenco guitars and rap, and an array of other global styles. [May 2021, p.32]

Driven by beats and rhythmic synth, the songs are meticulously constructed yet warm and intimate, if low on distinguishing characteristics. [Jan 2022, p.22]

The 24-track album is a considered work, avoiding the trappings and tropes of string-heavy bombast and cheap urgency, instead allowing woodwind, strings and ambient textures to coalesce and build slowly. [Feb 2022, p.25]

This is good-time instrumental party music that mixes Turkish Psych, South American cumbia, surf-rock and reggae, sometimes with the poise of Khruangbin but more often with the tequila swagger of a Tarantino caper. [Mar 2022, p.31]

An album of skippy, infectious, electronics-soaked disco rock. [Jul 2022, p.26]

This carefully recorded and intimate performance captures their cool command of Texas rock'n'roll better than most. [Sep 2022, p.32]

The brutal realism Greil Marcus heard in X’s debut Los Angeles remains in John Doe’s solo incarnation as hard-bitten Americana troubadour, here offering 1890s tales of spartan hardship, his songs’ killers and victims chased across the South by poverty and guilt. [Jun 2022, p.26]

It works at least as well [as 2018's The Colorist & Emiliana Torrini] on this collection of new originals. [Apr 2023, p.38]

Newdad's first full-length shows them expanding on their indie-pop roots, adding extra gnarly, post-punk bite and more sophisticated textures to their updated mix of The Cure, Slowdive and Curve. [Jan 2024, p.34]

So closely and carefully has Brooks shadowed the sounds of those times [1980s]. [Feb 2025, p.33]

Is by turns light, sunny and soulful, if a bit self-satisfied in places. [Feb 2025, p.34]

The playing is admirably under stated throughout, and the highlights numerous. [Sep 2025, p.29]

Rich and immersive debut. [Review of the Year 2025, p.28]

The vibe is mid-'60s grindhouse. [Jan 2026, p.25]

[Almanac is] pleasantly dreamy for a while, but over the course of 40 minutes feels just a little insubstantial. [Apr 2013, p.79]

Finn maintains his novelist's eye for detail throughout. [Apr 2017, p.28]

Quality is spotty, though. [Feb 2012, p.106]

It is the clan's most successful production since 1996's "If You're Feeling Sinister." [Jul 2009, p.88]

Spread over two discs, it can get a little samey, but "Here Comes Revenge" and "Moth Into Flame" have plenty of bounce. [Jan 2017, p.27]

Sound Mirror pursues a roving brief set to a pop aesthetic. These are compact but restless songs. [Jul 2014, p.81]

Once you've digested the background information, tracks that seem slightly twee and aloof spring into focus. [Sep 2005, p.100]

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]

A couple of tracks suggest exits from the familiar labyrinth. [Oct 2010, p.88]

All in all, another album of low-key brilliance. [Sep 2005, p.114]

Caracal has the market in mind, but not at the expense of quality. [Nov 2015, p.75]

Strange Weekend drifts and delights. [Feb 2012, p.97]

Number 14 sees them rejigged as a quintet, allowing their reverb-drenched sounds to spread where they will. [Oct 2012, p.87]

Their debut reveals a talent for taut, punkish, pivot-on-a-penny songs that cemented their live reputation before they'd even recorded a note. [Apr 2013, p.74]

Often shambolic and in-jokey, it's also sensationally good fun. [May 2004, p.93]

It's unfortunate that these splendidly rumbustious tracks make the lumbering ballads even harder work by comparison. [May 2014, p.81]

It;s an easy, unchallenging ride, but a satisfying one. [May 2014, p.76]

Rarely do you sense the real pain that underpins these limp ballads and her aggressively mannered delivery. [Apr 2016, p.75]

Ignore the arch titles and you'll find some lovely psych pastiches. [Jun 2012, p.69]

The band's trademark punky abrasiveness and arty dissonance now serve a more dancefloor-friendly dynamic. [Nov 2006, p.106]

Vol 1 is reflective and rootsy, all folkish acoustic guitars, from the elegiac melancholy of "End Of The World" to the hushed vulnerability of "Rejection." [Oct 2017, p.26]

Ploughing through the second disc's "Electronic Battle Weapons" techno jams is a stifling experience, punctuated by rushes of euphoria.