There's a rich atmosphere of Americana on the faith-questioning "Falsetto" and the hop-skipping hoedown "On My Conscience," while the lover's lament "Priscilla" and emotional navel-gazing of "Half Of Me" find him dallying on the outskirts of John Grant pop grandeur. [Sep 2013, p.86]

This will make a happy memento of a rollicking show, but set against the invention and distinctive voices elsewhere in folk, it;s rather marking time. [May 2013, p.71]

There's vulnerability in Chapman's lazily charming voice. [Sep 2015, p.78]

Some of Bridges Not Walls shares a punkish musical sensibility with its ancestor, and while "The Sleep Of Reason" is an invigorating polemic, Bridges Not Walls is at its best dropping a gear for the country shuffle of "Saffiyah Smiles." [Jan 2018, p.18]

On "Operator Error" and "Less From You", the duo nimbly reintegrate the post-punk and power-pop elements of their mid-'00s selves with the more avidly dance-oriented direction of the band's last decade. [Apr 2023, p.38]

The conceit, owing as much to Thomas Pynchon as it does to the Grateful Dead, and songs like 'Jehovah Will Never Come' remain delightful. [Nov 2009, p.104]

This is raucous, relentless fun; in Parton’s own words, a musical “life raft” for shitty times. [Aug 2021, p.28]

Another bittersweet, finger-picked confection that shows their chemistry is still there. [Jul 2004, p.101]

The rhythmic, melodic and thoughtful After The Disco stands as impressive proof of the strength of their partnership. [Feb 2014, p.74]

The Living And The Dead finds her broadening her palette, enlisting Tom Waits guitarist Marc Ribot to bring a miore rock flavour. It's only partially successful. [Nov 2008, p.102]

The mournful tone is seductive, but at times the femme melodrama teeters into All About Eve territory. [Feb 2005, p.83]

The results are impressive enough, though never totally successful in effecting seamless rapprochement between cultures. [Nov 2011, p.92]

In sentiment and execution, Feeling Mortal is more Hank than Dylan, yet there's a subtle poetry in the way the lyric flits between life and death, dreams and wakefulness.

This is a focused record by Weezer standards, one that play to their strengths (sun-kissed tunefulness, nerdy introspection, loud guitars). [May 2016, p.82]

Maximalists and circus ringmasters might enjoy it, but many will be scrabbling for the stop button. [May 2012, p67]

White has not only fashioned a terrific album from less than ideal circumstances, but one that finally feels like a worthy successor to No Such Place. [Mar 2012, p.96]

It's a record packed with earworms and a deliciously deadpan charm. [Mar 2013, p.79]

Summer Camp are no longer a memory of a pop band, but the real thing. [Oct 2013, p.75]

Their witty pop vignettes are about as much fun as you can have alone with a stereo. [Oct 2006, p.109]

An overload of genre hopping and exotic finery swamps whatever attracted all the heavyweight talent to her in the first place. [Aug 2003, p.108]

He can be relied upon to sprinkle a few brilliant tunes on each release, and this is no exception. [Oct 2012, p.81]

The second album of their third coming aims for the spontaneity of the early recordings, pushing those buried melodies to the surface. [Jul 2009, p.93]

This is departure lounge pop--antiseptic, pleasant, with Photoshopped pics of exotic locales scattered around, but none of the hedonism of actually being there. [May 2011, p.82]

It's a solid rather than spectacular effort. [Apr 2012, p.87]

Political metaphors abound on this eclectically ramshackle collection. [Mar 2012, p.98]

Her acoustic leanings have been ditched in favour of a moody, downtempo sound, full of eerie loops and elctro-bleeping. [Jul 2012, p.80]

Exposed and vulnerable, Funk has seldom sounded so sensible. [Apr 2014, p.78]

The sound is low-slung, lugubrious Americana. [Jun 2014, p.76]

[An] unassumingly seductive set. [Apr 2015, p.80]

Broder at times takes the overly tasteful route, sounding like an experimental Billy Joel, but also boldly strays into latterday Scott Walker terrain. [Jun 2016, p.73]

For the most part [Blossoms] Don't disappoint. [Sep 2016, p.69]

Co-producer Tucker Martine pulls out all the stops, building the tracks from subdued openings to majestic climaxes that support but never overpower Israel Nebeker's songs and vocals. [Oct 2016, p.26]

The best and the worst thing about these, as with the rest of the album, is that it's impossible to think of a better descriptive adjective than "Cohenesque." [Oct 2016, p.40]

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

[An] impressive solo debut. Largely focused on synths, it still leans on hypnotic, motorik rhythm, if more reflective than her band. [Jun 2018, p.37]

The Norwegian band's seventh album evokes the storms and swells of mid-period Bad Seeds and Crime & The City Solution. [Oct 2018, p.23]

The soft-rock paradigm with its classic Fleetwood Mac/Carole King references is self-limiting, but the songs are lucid and heartfelt in their graceful ruminations on the passage of time. [Sep 2019, p.34]

It's a polite, rather repressed formulation and the most appealing moments come when they go off-piste. [Dec 2019, p.32]

"Don't Worry 'Bout What I Do" get quite heavy-metally, while James takes tracks like the wah-wah-infused "This Is Who I Is" in a distinctly Hendrix-inspired direction. [Apr 2022, p.29]

Faithful and reverential throughout, there's nonetheless clear signs of Joe's own personality shining though. [Nov 2023, p.27]

It's only on the lengthy, ambient, vaporous "La Sirena" and the pretty, dramatic ballad "ICU" that everything gels together. [Dec 2023, p.31]

Landscape From Memory surges and pulses with emotionally charged, meticulously detailed, luminescent electronica that never panders to the gridded restrictions of conventional techno. [Aug 2025, p.37]

Zips from perky jazz runs to fragrant folk odes without breaking a sweat in the elusive search for the genre she can't own. [Nov 2025, p.36]

It's an impressively strong set of songs, diverse in both lyrical themes and musical styles, and delivered with a confident range of drama and empathy by a "heritage" act resolutely refusing to rest on his laurels. [Oct 2013, p.66]

The rhythm tracks are built up from finger bells and clicking wooden percussion, while each track is overlaid with wisps of koto or zither, which shimmer appealingly over the top, adding a touch of global gravitas. [Aug 2013, p.71]

Its hard-edged synth-punk is grittier and harsher this time around, perhaps their best collection since 2001's Danse Macabre.

This compellingly skewed mix of '60s neat, garage psych and country folk is business as (un)usual. [Oct 2012, p.86]

Emeralds and Oneohtrix may do this kind of hypnotic synth drone stuff better, but Blanck Mass is still a fairly potent concoction. [Jul 2011, p.77]

Some occasional local-band lyricism proves to be an Achilles Heel. [Sep 2005, p.108]

Shiver sometimes feels like a glitchcore sound collage, where ambient passages are ruptured by harsh beats and clamorous noise. [Nov 2020, p.31]

The second brilliant Scissor Sisters longplayer and the greatest album John/Taupin never made. [Oct 2006, p.96]

Trouble Anyway announces the arrival of an artist who fits neatly into no category but thrives in the inbetween. [Jan 2019, p.13]

As guitarist Russell Marsden steps aside to let bassist Emma Richardson sing, it's less White Stripes, more Brody Dale, but momentum is maintained. [Oct 2009, p.91]

Though feelings of disaffection inevitably colour Foam Island, a tentative optimistic note emerges in songs like the title track and "Stoke The Fire." [Nov 2015, p.73]

If Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix was the album that gave Phoenix everything they'd always strived for, Bankrupt! is the record that finds them trying to come to terms with it all. [May 2013, p.80]

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]

A glorious blend of wired energy and sullen attitude.

There is splendid piano-pop, leanly recorded excursions in cosmic prog, and evidence of an occasional charming eccentricity. [Jun 2013, p.71]

If the results can be unremarkable the album is redeemed by Nelson's engagement on most cuts. [Dec 2013, p.68]

It's a risky move [a change in sound] that has nonetheless reaped rewards. [Feb 2015, p.77]

Skeletal Lamping follows the latter path, fleshing out the polymorphous persona of Georgie Fruit via brilliantly executed attention-deficit funk. [Dec 2008, p.105]

Convenanza is only Weatherall's second album, but it feels as if he's been making this fantastic, moody music all his life. [Apr 2016, p.82]

Another furious, frenetic collection of lurching tear-ups. [Oct 2017, p.28]

There are moments of real beauty, like the tenderly plucked "Of Unsent Letters," but what might be comfort via familiarity for some may well be lacking in evolution for others. [Dec 2020, p.29]

Too often Cunningham fails to develop his tracks, which start thrillingly only to fizzle out. [Jul 2010, p.101]

Collapse Into Now can only sound like an afterthought, but it nevertheless one which bristles and fizzes with invigorating qualities of wit and fury. [Apr 2011, p.76]

As ever: endlessly clever, utterly inessential. [Feb 2006, p.81]

It's '80s pop, but not as you know it. [Sep 2014, p.69]

It's very generously produced, with effects bursting from every crevice, but the melodies are (just) strong enough to weather it all. [May 2013, p.73]

It is the instrumentation that offers the complexity, bringing texture to this deceptively simple-sounding album. [Jun 2013, p.72]

"high Road" is melodic enough, for sure, and Mercer is a clear-voiced singer, but the album's interest palls when Mouse's answer to life, the universe and everything proves to be "pedestrian breakbeat." [Apr 2010, p.83]

They have at times found themselves mired in over-fussy arrangements, but here recapture something of the crisp economy of their breakout 2007 LP ...Are The Dark Horse. [Feb 2016, p.73]

Crucially, it always feels as if Crystal Antlers are having a blast, continually cold-shouldering the obvious and pushing each other to the limits of their musicianship and beyond. [May 2009, p.87]

Sometimes the union flourishes, but at times it's a grab-bag that's fallen apart at the seems. [Apr 2012, p.87]

His final album--and first since 1979--not only demonstrates the durability of the musical format he pioneered but also proves his indefatigability as an entertainer. [Jul 2017, p.25]

Nude with Boots follows their last album, 2006's "(A) Senile Animal," in being one of the most straightforward, epically rawk albums of the Melvins' career. [Aug 2008, p.99]

Ness' songs tackle his experiences with hard, unforgiving honesty. [Feb 2011, p.99]

Solidly crafted but with few surprises. [Nov 2017, p.28]

If once she was sweetly sardonic, now she sounds utterly bored, and collaborator Greg Kurtsin hardly helps with an anodyne synthpop production that makes excruciating excursions into rawhide country, pallid polka and Bontempi showtunes.

This is a very fine album... even if it's surprisingly business as usual in many respects. [Oct 2002, p.108]

Yasuda provides most of the brightest moments with a new wave/elecro style that wrings real delight from revelling in pop art/trash. [Oct 2003, p.116]

Ol' Frank hasn't had this much twisted fun since 1994's Teenager Of The Year. [Oct 2003, p.111]

A quietly remarkable record. [Aug 2005, p.92]

It's quite fun picking off the trio's various folk-pop influences, with traces of The Mamas & The Papas, Astrud Gilberto and Natalie Merchant filtering through the mix. [Jan 2008, p.90]

It feels like a step up in terms of songwriting. [Feb 2011, p.96]

It doesn't always work, but when it does, it suggests a great artist finding new and surer ground. [Jun 2012, p.77]

SeiTang's solo project is about extracting the trance-inducing goodness from equipment resurrected from the cusp of analogue and digital ages, so Badalamenti/Lynch Twin Peaks and Vangelis' Blade Runner are key reference points. [May 2013, p.78]

Rather than the '80s rock Oh Yes I Can or the guest-strewn covers of 1993's Thousand Roads, this frequently lovely, folky album instead recalls the ease and space of that debut [1971's If Only I Could Remember My Name]. [Feb 2014, p.73]

Producer Joe Henry's tribute to that album, 1964's Bitter Tears, reimagines it beautifully. [Nov 2014, p.83]

Malin would've been wise to trim the 13 songs down to 10, thus eliminating the soggy middle of this otherwise crisp platter. [Apr 2015, p.80]

It feels as if this album is only half the intended project. It's a strong half, fortunately. [Aug 2015, p.81]

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]

Andrew Dragazis' fifth album is masterfully serene. [Nov 2016, p.25]

"Close To You" confirms how much she sounds like Karen Carpenter but, amid the over-familiar songs, most interesting are the relative obscurities. [Dec 2016, p.35]

Bathed in a languorous mood of intimate romance, it's served without schmaltz and only occasionally flirts with the soporific. [Jun 2017, p.33]

At its most interesting when their minimal electronica is almost unplugged and drumless. [Jun 2019, p.30]

They are clearly enjoying the ride, and flexing their potential to be Brazil's most exciting musical export since Tropicalia. [Jun 2019, p.36]

It's consistently charming. [Oct 2019, p.29]