This south London trio are fine-tuning their battling-for-attention combination of three voices and elegantly scruffy indie-rock. [Dec 2025, p.29]

Has the feel of an artist whose rougher edges have long since been washed away. [Oct 2006, p.119]

Nelson sings like a canary and plays like a dream, Haggard growls like a grizzled jailbird, and everyone seems to be having a blast. [Jul 2015, p.72]

Against considerable odds--'Cause I Sez So is a bit of a hoot. [Jun 2009, p.95]

Horrific it's not, but with its cover of protest song "Portlandtown" and Dubya-inspired lyrics on "Laughter In The Dark", neither is it an innocent pleasure. [Apr 2005, p.105]

One of the most coherent and surprising big-ticket pop albums in years. [Apr 2016, p.79]

This agreeable sequel boasts a more coherent country-folk sound, ironing out some of its predecessor's quirky, hand-knitted allure. [May 2011, p.77]

The rest of Tripper rises to the challenge with nonchalant ease. [Sep 2011, p.87]

Arbouretum have often looked from a distance kike a vehicle for their frontman. Ostensibly Dave Heumann's first solo album, Her In the Deep more or less confirms as much. [Nov 2015, p.77]

They're pleasingly bleak on their second studio set. [Dec 2015, p.78]

Caroline's 2CD sampler of her moonlighting efforts features charming interludes from past lives. [Nov 2015, p.96]

Helm seems constrained within the immaculate settings, only intimating the emotional lift-off the material yearns for. She makes a deeper connection with the newly penned "Heaven's Holding Me," delivering the LP's most heartfelt, uplifting performance. [Nov 2018, p.30]

Allways is as mercurial as it is highly listenable. [Nov 2018, p.26]

Many of the covers are of recent blues songs, such as Joe Bonamassa's "Distant Lonesome Train," Gary Moore's "The Hurt Inside" or "Evil And Here To Stay" by John Headley, but Mayall is able to locate them firmly within an older blues tradition without ever making them sound like hollow tributes. [Mar 2019, p.30]

In less successful moments, the album idles in a mid-tempo gaze. [Jun 2019, p.30]

At first it all sounds slightly undercooked, but soon its crunched funk and sinuous synthwork, nicely judged on "Another State Of Consciousness," suggest a master grasping a new technique. [Sep 2019, p.37]

Devotees of the 2000-era indie-pop of the Clientele and Marry's former employers in Camera Obscura will be charmed by the pretty likes of "Julie: and "Gold & Lips," though Banane Bleu could've benefited from more darker hes that enriched Fleurs Du Mal. [Apr 2021, p.29]

From the hypnotic opener “Kasai Munene” to the upbeat closer “Allstars All Around” with its spiralling soukous guitars, this is celebratory music-making at its most joyously instinctual. [Jul 2021, p.27]

As peculiar as "The Doll" and "Blue Tits" are, at heart this is thrilling, possibly visionary pop. [Nov 2021, p.25]

Presented largely stripped of 1967 production values – acoustic folk with a bit of reverb – but still sound innately lysergic. [Sep 2024, p.33]

Now, at 52, Gelb’s music seems to have found a renewed vigour, a sharper focus. ProVISIONS not only has some lean 'n' lovely boy-girl ballads, wild mood swings and a frequent groove, but also a sense of intent.

While the likes of Living It Out are perfecting mutant disco, Rostron's self-consciousness means this expertly produced set suffers from too much quirkiness. [Jun 2011, p.93]

Peachy-keen harmonies, pop smarts and salacious detail make a simple but effective combination. [Apr 2016, p.78]

Once again, Daschanel demonstrates a deep understanding and irony-free love of innocent, old-school pop craft in her writing, but too many of the chorus hooks pass by without sticking, and aome of the stacked-up vocal arrangements sag under their own weight. [May 2010, p.102]

Rather than act like temporary caretakers tiptoeing around WWI's vast, eternally resonant themes, Field Music have sensibly moved in and made them their own. Not a memorial, then, so much as a remix of history. [Feb 2020, p.24]

They're on fine form with the hammered glam-boogie of "Eagle Birds" and the absurdly good-time "Lo/Hi," but underwhelm with the mid-tempo "Walk Across The Water and QOTSA-ish "Shine A Little Light." [Aug 2019, p.26]

Beneath the opulent layers and studio tweaks, however, lie some very orthodox, very average Eighties indie songs. [Mar 2002, p.96]

A remarkable return. [Oct 2003, p.130]

This is berserk, this is brilliant, this is now. [Nov 2003, p.107]

The greatest interest lies in the lyrics--intriguing, charming, highly insightful and sometimes violently confessional, often on a par with the very best of Elliott Smith. [Dec 2003, p.118]

Amid snatches of skewed beauty, it seems Akron/Family have lost a sense of who they really are. [Dec 2006, p.101]

At times their desire to wrongfoot the listener can seem deliberately perverse, but when they properly collapse down a wormhole, as they do on second-half highlights "Magicville" and "Success In Circuit," the results are terrifically psychedelic. [Jan 2014, p.72]

It's all very pleasant, but somewhat weightless. [Jul 2017, p.26]

Six albums in, they remain fond of that very Swans pursuit of ecstasy through repetition. [Jul 2013, p.69]

Falling Off The Sky is the rare comeback effort worthy of its legacy. [Jun 2012, p.82]

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

It's a mixed bag in the best, revelatory sense. [Jan 2016, p.91]

Adopt[s] a more relaxed approach than 2003's obsessively intricate Kish Kash. [Oct 2006, p.106]

Rolling Blackouts is as invigorating as their debut. [Feb 2011, p.87]

Texis sounds like a band having more fun than they have had in years. [Dec 2021, p.33

Tosca is now... a band proper as well as a studio concern, and the change shows. [Jul 2005, p.106]

The songs on You Were Right are orthodox but unusually clever, evocative of fellow wry strummers such as Nick Lowe and Old 97's' Rhett Miller. [Jan 2014, p.71]

A rewarding evolution by a band that could easily coast on their rugged laurels. [Aug 2016, p.72]

Snapping snare, pump-organ and wiry guitar frame Jenkins' mood of stoned baroque beautifully. [Jun 2006, p.122]

This psych soundworld demands full sensory immersion, but once inside there's much to enjoy. [Mar 2017, p.32]

A deftly underplayed album. [Sep 2011, p.87]

The ingrained instinct for grandiosity can grate, but Gahan has never sounded better, his voice bringing power, purpose and unity to a project that's previously delivered less than thew sum of its parts. [Jun 2012, p.83]

La Futura sounds at times overly relaxed, but never less than a fun, frill-free ride. [Dec 2012, p.79]

Somehow, Turbines suggests both consolidation and progress. [Jul 2013, p.83]

One of the missed opportunities of Cass Country is that it isn't especially revelatory about Henley, as a man in late-middle-age taking stock of his life. As a country album, it is perhaps a little too neat, a little too polished. [Nov 2015, p.68]

As a stand-alone album it's ultimately more laudable than loveable. [Oct 2009, p.92]

Arcade Fire have delivered a triumphant restatement of purpose that 2022 probably doesn’t deserve but is brightened by all the same.[Jun 2022, p.35]

Stuff is a comforting listen, startlingly consistent in mood and featuring some of Yo La Tengo's most touching moments. [Sep 2015, p.70]

Stupendously silly but... indisputably proficient. [Nov 2005, p.103]

[An] instant classic. [Sep 2006, p.84]

Their fourth studio album combinds poignant odes to former drummer Ben Eberbaugh with a joyous refusal to take itself seriously. [Oct 2007, p.83]

A surprising mutation, for anyone familiar with Dwyer at full-tilt, but Memory Of A Cut Off Head proves his magic straddles genres. [Dec 2017, p.30]

Total 15 initially feels a bit slight. The second disc more than makes up for this though. [Sep 2015, p.83]

Whether the album has scratched Stewart’s solo creative itch remains to be seen, but it’s hard to imagine a better record to finally put their own name on. [Dec 2022, p.34]

Every one of these 11 songs is a work of wayward genius. [Apr 2007, p.106]

Rated O delivers more often than falters. [Aug 2009, p.98]

Superorganism benefits from a surprising amount of focus and discipline that belies the woozy feel of the group's fun and savvy synthesis of the bricolage hip-hop of vintage Gorillaz and Avalanches, and the Day-Glo psych-pop of Animal Collective. [Apr 2018, p.35]

The supersized culmination of the Chili Peppers' artistic journey. [Jun 2006, p.102]

For all their deft intricacies, they're somewhat characterless. [Dec 2004, p.140]

Her creamy voice canters over deft fingerpicked guitars and celtic violin throughout the rest of the album, and although the heights of the aforementioned song are barely hinted at elsewhere, Marling’s promise--she’s just 17 years old--is as clear as spring water.

Old weaknesses remain, with Sullivan's declamatory lyrics often mistaking grandiosity for gravitas, but Between Dog And Wolf is mostly an impressive beast. [Jan 2014, p.76]

Singer Ciaran McAuley's words get lost in the dry ice a little, but a sense of quasi-religious wonder prevails. [Feb 2014, p.80]

Though sometimes a tad one-dimensional, at its best this music is as warm, sad and effortlessly beautiful as a midsummer sunset. [Apr 2014, p.69]

[An] atmospheric and generally likeable debut LP. [Mar 2015, p.76]

Marr has hit a rich vein of middle-age form. [Dec 2014, p.74]

A witty and fresh response to America's current commander-in-chief. [Sep 2019, p.34]

Songs about divorce, disillusionment and middle-aged spread combine vintage singer-songwriter styles with languidly funky scribbles of guitar. [Dec 2020, p.27]

Opener “Globe” is a bubblegum headrush: giddy, kinetic, punctuated by smile-inducing cries of “you got this”; “Champagne”, with its shared bassline, a bittersweet mirror image. The skittish “TV Flicker”, inspired by a sudden family bereavement, breaks the mould somewhat, adding range to the mix. [Oct 2022, p.33]

Makes good on the promise of 2022's Big Love Blanket by finetuning their melodic instincts without sacrificing the anything-goes chaos that makes them such a thrilling proposition. [Sep 2024, p.37]

Quietly lovely, sporadically sublime solo debut. [Apr 2026, p.26]

The harmonies are undeniably pretty. [Nov 2006, p.120]

Fishing For Fishies encapsulates many of their musical charms, foregrounds their deeper lyrical concerns and also shows they don't need to rely on gimmicks to get their point across. [Jun 2019, p.25]

The Coral don't put a foot wrong on this album, and therein lies its one flaw: by polishing their technique and perfecting their craft, they've become slightly less interesting. [Aug 2010, p.81]

It trades in giddying, irresistible, full-steam-ahead-and-damn-the-torpedoes rock'n'roll. But at its heart, it's essentially a thoughtful wander in search of personal and national innocence.

Most of these songs remain too simple to bear the weight if their fuller, more conventional arrangements. As a result, St. Catherine often feels stodgy. [Aug 2015, p.73]

Glasper's keen-eared stewardship throws up some astonishing alchemy. [Aug 2016, p.75]

[Mettavolution] may not be quite so astral-minded or ambitious, the apr continue to impress with their ability to shift through a variety of Latin, folk and rock styles without ever taking the easy routes. [Jun 2019, p.34]

The band's core strengths--Loz Colbert's hyperactive drumming, Steve Queralt's incisive basslines, Mark Gardener and Andy Bel's grasp of melody--are all intact. They continue to wear their influences with endearing frankness. [Jul 2017, p.36]

Though his songbook, like theirs [Jagger and Richards], is already abundant, Seeds We Sow suggests that there's plenty more to come. [Oct 2011, p.88]

It's all acoustic guitars, rich jangling melodies and heavenly harmonies. [May 2003, p.102]

An auspicious introduction. [March 2002, p.96]

Occasionally tentative songs and wonky arrangements mar them here. [Dec 2001, p.117]

A slight disappointment. [Oct 2003, p.124]

The all-together family vibe permeates this unabashedly life-embracing album. [Sep 2009, p.83]

[It's] a kind of remedial emo-psych-rock, where dunderheaded riffs meet go-nowhere spurts of electronics, while ponderous guitar shadows equally ponderous keys. [Mar 2013, p.68]

There aren't too many surprises here, just a well-honed primer in what Harper does best, fusing blues, rock, folk, country, R'n'B, gospel and reggae with politically conscious lyrics into a dynamic stew. [May 2016, p.74]

There's a fair amount of Fugazi worship on display with track like the churning punk of "Ruptured Line," but the album really flies when the metal influences come to the fore. [Nov 2018, p.]

Disturbing, but also enthralling. [Jan 2020, p.23]

The music is decent enough. .... The problem is Jake Duszik's vocals, which are soft and blank of affect in a way that is oddly characterless. It leaves Rat Wars feeling, if not completely without merit, a bit of an empty vessel. [Review of the Year 2023, p.29]

For all the overwrought sentiment, A Wave... is strangely compelling. [Jun 2026, p.35]

You can't help thinking that by ironing out their creases, The Sleepy Jackson have lost a little bit of their spark. [Aug 2006, p.111]

If the piano melodies lapse into sameness, Russo sprinkles John Barry and Carpenters motifs on top to keep it trembling. [Feb 2005, p.74]

The intensity builds relentlessly. [Jun 2005, p.102]