The songs are warmly hypnotic: pitch-perfect pop. [Dec 2013, p.66]

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]

The blend of Owen Brinley's choirboy vocals and a raft of prog-tinged riffs is a source of promise, magic and drama. [Mar 2009, p.87]

This very fine third album carries much of Okkervil River or The Decemberists in its piquant narratives, though the banjo-led music is more akin to the erudite hillbilly-folk of Jim White or even The Be Good Tanyas. [Apr 2013, p.73]

An oddly uneven set. [Nov 2013, p.67]

Creepy but beautiful. [Apr 2014, p.73]

The result is an assured, mostly instrumental album with freeform jazz as its guiding imperative. [Oct 2016, p.40]

The bruising "Madder" betrays the influence of Scott Walker producer Peter Walsh, but there are flickers of respite, notably "The Bomb," which tethers its emotional unravelling to a lovely piano figure. [Jun 2018, p.24]

This set borrows from those same Nebraska recording sessions [of 2017's Tomorrow Forever] with nary a weakling to show. Pounding rock'n'roll colludes with lethal hooks, while jangly guitars and soulful harmonies mesh with ethereal melodies. [Jul 2018, p.34]

The resulting album is a joy. [Jan 2026, p.27]

It's Hit-and-miss but lots of fun, with real skill and joie de vivre behind the incessant experimentation. [Jan 2012, p.90]

There are a few moments of longueurs, where the songs come off a little too session muso. But this new, becalmed Perhacs reveals a clear eco-political message articulated with subtlety and nuance. [Apr 2014, p.79]

The results is something scrappier, but loveable than Deerhunter's billowing drone. Less sonic cathedrals, more tripping at chapel. [Apr 2009, p.91]

Honey finds Snaith embrace sampling and AI vocal processing to refine a sound that pops with possibility. [Nov 2024, p.34]

So aesthetically perfect was the formula that Clinic displayed on their earliest singles, an acidic blend of The Velvet Underground, '60s garage and The Monks delivered with frenetic intensity, that subsequent attempts to branch out have felt strangely limited. Bubblegum, however, succeeds quite neatly in making some distance. [Nov 2010, p.83]

Even back-porch sketches like "Free" and plaintive instrumental "First Snowfall In Detroit" radiate a warm, freewheeling, unforced beauty. [Jun 2014, p.91]

Lucinda Williams' version of Gentry's iconic "Ode To Billie Joe" leaves much to be desired but. ... Overall, this one's worth it. [Mar 2019, p.30]

So much of Okie is overly sentimental, mono-paced balladry. [Nov 2019, p.27]

Mostly fine results. [Feb 2020, p.25]

Joyous cosmic weirdness. [May 2022, p.36]

In the same jolie-laide class as Red Krayola and Pere Ubu at their most ungainly, its ugliness may be a new form of beauty. [Oct 2016, p.37]

The songs here reveal their author's love of The Beattles, Fleetwood Mac, Paul Simon, Elton John et al, and confirm Newman's growing status as college rock's most tasteful magpie. [Apr 2009, p.91]

Too often, Belong manages the almost interesting feat of sounding both overcooked and half-baked. [May 2017, p.39]

The players' tight grip on the material reveals a first-rate band in peak form. [June 2008, p.98]

There's a brooding undercurrent to their upbeat sound that echoes what darkwave scenesters like The xx are currently doing. [Nov 2010, p.90]

DiFranco remains an utterly singular performer. [Mar 2005, p.91]

It's largely composed of pretty humdrum strum and twang, defining The Feelies less as the missing link between The Modern Lovers and Vampire Weekend, more as the founders of '80s college rock ordinaire. [Jun 2011, p.82]

These are gently rugged country-folk songs made all the more authentic by a chewy voice that, with age, now seems to have deepened its resolve.

Sometimes excessive technological trickery gets the better of them, but there are some icy anthems. [Sep 2010, p.101]

There are fewer surprises here than on previous offerings, but enough ideas to cement their position as this generation's most creative guitar band. [June 2008, p.90]

Fidelity's default setting of mid-tempo, mid-'80s rock isn't remotely revolutionary, but there's no mistaking the power and passion driving it. [Nov 2010, p.93]

Producer Thomas Bartlett enlists the likes of Rob Moose and Brett Devendorf to add sharp edges to the Australian's singer's dreaminess. [Jul 2012, p.83]

Blues reveals itself to be a barnstorming triumph that channels Led Zep, Free, early Fleetwood Mac, Jeff Beck and even Dire Straits into something fresh and invigorating. [Apr 2016, p.70]

The resulting confluence of country, soul, gospel and R&B is a delight, Langford's originals imbued with a keen sense of time and place. [Dec 2017, p.23]

The overall effect is immersive, wallowing, sad but often beautiful. [Feb 2019, p.27]

Spending a little too long in the shallows of pastel-shaded easy-listening minimalism. That said, there are sublimely beautiful and lightly experimental touches here too. [Dec 2019, p.30]

While The Streets' five LPs each had a distinct narrative, this is different - skittish investigations into the expanded and exciting taste of a now fortysomething workaholic. [Aug 2020, p.36]

Almost succeeds through sheer force of personality. [Aug 2006, p.108]

The template remains classic American pop-rock served with a glaze of summer-fried weirdness, redolent of The Shins, Flaming Lips and Neil Young, but now there's real heart beneath the often twee facade. [Oct 2014, p.67]

It's actually more satisfying as a piece, a folksy ambience lapping up against muted psychedelia and reverb'd pop. [Nov 2009, p.102]

His latest is no less a mixed bag. [Oct 2013, p.75]

Deep, warm, fully rounded and with no slack, Prairie Wind is Neil at his best. [Oct 2005, p.101]

The Tarnished Gold, mature, with a revelatory appreciation for the simple life, might prove to be the true spiritual heir to their auspicious 2000 debut. [Jul 2012, p.81]

The Black Dirt Sessions is roughly the equivalent of The Replacements going straight from the rowdy delinquency of 1981's "Sorry Ma, Forget To take Out The Trash" to the ashen resignation of 1990's "All Shook Down," with nothing in between. [Aug 2010, p.74]

It's a svelte, consummately accomplished change, although Burnett's reliably polished, sometimes even laidback, settings allow plenty of room for grit and sweat. [Apr 2017, p.32]

These nine abstract sound paintings strip away the guitars, drums and vocals of Sigur Ros to liberate the avant-classical spirit within. [Aug 2009, p.87]

A 21st-century alienated soul album that slips the Eels back into your heart. [Jul 2003, p.120]

His idiosyncratic rhyming style can grate without the leavening presence of other rappers. [Apr 2003, p.116]

[An] unapologetic throwback to straight-assed songs about guns, girls and drugs. [May 2003, p.109]

Where earlier material flowed freely, here his fiddly funk and plastic grooves contrive a kind of new-age electro that at times is suave and smooth but rarely settles into anything satisfying; as much as they exude a sense of wellness. [Aug 2022, p.23]

Novelist Michael Chabon's lyrics fail to illuminate the theme, while the music settles for tasteful reverence. [Mar 2015, p.81]

Delicate, desert-baked confessionals a plenty. [Nov 2020, p.33]

This self-titled debut is a joy. [Dec 2012, p.64]

It feels like Albarn in transit, both physically and mentally. [Aug 2018, p.27]

More intriguing are the songs that tap into Throwing Muses' vein of chiming offbeat indie-pop, familiar tales of teenage yearning elevated into something more glowing and magical. [Mar 2016, p.80]

Breathless power-pop offset by an innuendo-laden lyricism. [Mar 2006, p.98]

It manages to be forceful and intricate in equal amounts. [May 2006, p.129]

Drawing on every rhythmic tradition they can find and master, they corral impressive guests like Edan, Mr. Lif and Quantic to confound all expectations of contemporary funk LP. [Mar 2010, p.107]

If the second stash contains a suspicion that the best stuff got smoked first time around, the spirit and energy of the first record are still here in abundance. [Jan 2012, p.95]

Knapp's sweet voice is closer to Olivia Newton-John than [Stevie] Nicks, but nevertheless tracks like "Glasses High" and "The Right Place: have abundant charm, some superb, glowing arrangements. [Apr 2012, p.81]

Everything here is much as you'd expect. [Jul 2012, p.85]

Charmer plies the familiar recipe on a bed of pealing guitars and burbling synths. [Oct 2012, p.84]

You Should Be So Lucky is tailor-made for connoisseurs of musicianship at its headiest and most tasteful--the kind of record you're proud to own, matching the pride of all those who participated in its creation. [Mar 2014, p.68]

Menzies fuses his recent interest in classical work with glitchy dystopian techno, painting a nine-more-black picture that lurches between bruised James Blake and after-hours heroin party with no little elegance before ultimately losing its way in all the fog. [Feb 2016, p.80]

Often these widescreen productions are more effective at the most minimal. [Mar 2016, p.76]

Though occasionally wearying in its frenzy, this is the best kind of world music, loud, liberating and explosively experimental. [Jun 2016, p.76]

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

It comes across, surprisingly, as a wildstyle update of the bricolage fusions Weatherall started out exploring in the early '90s. [Nov 2017, p.39]

Wave finds beauty in the belief that all's not lost. [Dec 2019, p.35]

Lush as it sometimes is, too often disappears into an indecipherable cloud of smoke. [Apr 2020, p.30]

Prime cuts like "Words" and "City In The Country" bristle with renewed vigour and clarity of purpose. [Jun 2020, p.30]

While the straight guitar-janglers sometimes border on generic, the eerie psych-rock incantation "Red Virginia Creeper" and the clanging, reverb-drenched barbs of "Charm And Tedium" prove more rewarding. [Jun 2020, p.29]

This is a marvellous collection of hooky acid rock that nods to UK '80s indie as well as '70s classic rock. [Mar 2024, p.32]

Echoes of early MGMT also haunt the like of "Delete Ya", but he's at his best when he lends a touch of falsetto-sung acoustic soul to "Potion" and "Fly" floats off into wistful wanderlust. [May 2025, p.29]

This is an engaging piece of minimalist minimalism: Steve Reich with a battering ram. [Oct 2015, p.71]

She's full of ideas on this sonically, adventurous effort. [Oct 2010, p.108]

As a reminder that music is fundamentally there for our pleasure, The Jazz Age is splendid. [Jan 2013, p.68]

The result is a lovingly recorded scrap of splendour and beauty that takes some of the more interesting elements of MMJ and runs with them in a series of unexpected directions. [Mar 2013, p.71]

Their debut to Sam & Dave is plain, but there;s as much Alabama Shakes and a pre-stadia Kings Of Leon too. [Oct 2015, p.81]

Exec producer JR Hutson's scratch beats and jazzy interpolations give a spark to velvet soul confessionals where he aching but pliant, octave-scaling vocal colours across the emotional spectrum. [Aug 2011, p.98]

A potential Urban Outfitters house band, yes, but very far from just brainless cool. [Sep 2013, p.87]

There's less emphasis on programmed beats and samples and a greater dependence on live instrumentation. [Apr 2005, p.114]

While it frequently feels like a particularly inspired "Mighty Boosh" number, the absurd ambition, chutzpah and execution of it all is perfectly awesome. [Nov 2008, p.89]

Fans of Iron & Wine and The Acorn take note. [Jun 2009, p.96]

Cornershop's 2009 incarnation may not have the kinetic energy of the 2002 model, or the accidental pop brilliance of "Asha", but it isn't short on inventiveness.

Though the sonic palette, beautiful and immersive, warm like a hot mug in the frost, the dubstep-derived hints of double-time, perpetually held in reserve, create the ominous feeling of an attack dog straining at the leash. [Apr 2016, p.69]

Inessential, but huge fun nevertheless. [Mar 2005, p.91]

Nova's smoky, sullen vocals sometimes sound a little stilted, but she surpasses herself on "You Wanna See My Teeth," a cinematic mini-symphony inspired by the killing of Trayvon Martin, which moves through nervy electro and anguished rock to screaming rage. [Feb 2019, p.30]

Her keenest yet. [Jul 2006, p.108]

Although its boundary-stretching ambition is cheering, Hidden ultimately struggles to engage. [Oct 2012, p.87]

It's a treat to finally hear Moyet stretch herself on a classy and engaging modern collection that's only really let down in places by the santitised electro of one-time Bjork and Robyn producer Guy Sigsworth. [Jun 2013, p.76]

As history lessons goes, it's a lively one. [Mar 2015, p.81]

Little Windows has an easy charm, but doing this stuff well is harder than it looks. [Jun 2016, p.81]

The Colourist & Emiliana Torrini draws on the singer's back catalogue, infusing it with added warmth, texture and elegance. [Jan 2017, p.31]

Effective, if not quite thrilling. [May 2018, p.30]

As a whole, West of Eden is extravagant and ridiculous, but it embraces its own erraticism. [Mar 2020, p.29]

The woozy, lovely songs on their third album now have an unexpected urgency. [Jun 2020, p.34]