Oddly calming, even if it chills. [May 2021, p.24]

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]

Too often, though, good-not-great tunes can't quite make up for generic song structures and performances that seem to have lost a certain charismatic shine during the downsizing operation. [Feb 2022, p.37]

Muse are so bursting with energy and ideas, even their joke songs are stadium-sized barnstormers. [Oct 2022, p.33]

The default setting is dancefloor hedonism with an air of wistful nostalgia. Best of all are the two Bernard Butler co-writes, “Glitter Ball” and “Home”, which sound like Saint Etienne at their most ecstatic. [Sep 2022, p.21]

An ambitious and spirited album. [Mar 2026, p.29]

Heady and infused with whimsy, their second full-length flows effortlessly from dreamy girl-group pop to electro-bossa nova. [Feb 2009, p.76]

Whether it's the ramalama of "Dorner Party," sleazy synth jam "Funny" or the brooding "Do The Vibrate," revved up and slightly ramshackle is how BL troll across this superior barroom set. [Apr 2014, p.69]

The terrific Hobo Rocket has many of the admirable assets that made BWD great, but there's a sense in the album's overall finesse that things as far as possible are being taken perhaps a little more seriously than hitherto. [Sep 2013, p.82]

Cleaner and crisper... their first [album] for half a decade where great noises... outshine august guest vocalists. [Feb 2005, p.73]

Letissier is a fascinating and riveting performer, but this passion project feels unfocused and undercooked. [Mar 2023, p.26]

Unique and inspiring. [Apr 2016, p.75]

For once they look to be towing the line rather than drawing it a new. [Jan 2011, p.85]

Exceedingly pleasant, if hardly groundbreaking. [Aug 2005, p.104]

The sheer abundance of ideas starts to wear the listener down a little ma few more slow-burners like "Bad News, Strange Luck" wouldn't go a miss. [Jun 2011, p.94]

The vibe is darkly grandiose. [Feb 2016, p.83]

It's all served with such a knowing grin that you can't help but love it. [Nov 2011, p.96]

Recording session helmed by Spoon drummer Jim Eno drew the band out of their comfort zone, with generally positive results. [May 2013, p.65]

Skip the sanctimonious turns by vegan singer-songwriters and there's enough here to make it worthwhile. [Dec 2014, p.83]

This collection, like all of his work, conjures a world unto itself, drawing from seemingly random sources to weave a work of mystic, spiritual power. [May 2008, p.102]

Classic pop songwriting with a twist is the order of the day, with watertight barbershop harmonies spooned onto layers of intricately arranged organ, while lyrics are unabashedly lovestruck. [Jun 2009, p.93]

It's far from perfect, but still one hell of a trip. [Oct 2011, p.89]

The result is a record not in step with any particular fashion, but, on songs like 'Talking To The Dog,' you get choppy and catchy with rare raw-knuckle skill. [May 2009, p.92]

A succinct, deceptively simple half-hour outing. [Dec 2017, p.25]

The Open Road finds him rediscovering his form. This is Hiatt cutting loose, heading out on his own metaphor-filled highway of song. [Apr 2010, p.96]

It's complex, uncompromising stuff. [Apr 2007, p.106]

Unexpectedly, it's all pretty exciting. negotiate the scree, and the songs demand repeating. [Dec 2009, p.121]

Lighght is a giddy rush where the 38-year-old's innocent pursuits and guilty pleasures collide head on. [Jun 2014, p.79]

It's a filthy, fun blend of stripped-back rock'n'roll, punctuated by zombie seventh chords, rasped blues vocals and an Old World punkish intensity. [Feb 2016, p.75]

Retains a uniform ambience of savage, unsmiling riffing. [Jun 2005, p.114]

Red Velvet Car finds Heart holding back on the lacquer. [Oct 2010, p.94]

Awash in plump brass, grainy mandolin and fuzzy warm electric piano, this solid second edges deeper into Fleet Foxes territory. [Apr 2013, p.78]

It's more than a mix, pulling out lost takes and reassembling constituent parts--a snatch of Afrka Bambaataa here, a flurry of Liquid Liquid percussion there--with phantasmagorical results. [Feb 2010, p.82]

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

Co-producers Don Was and Jacknife Lee bring an Orbisonian scale to Melody Road, surrounding him with ornate yet tasteful arrangements worked up by LA's top session cats. [Dec 2014, p.75]

Guitar fans will particularly enjoy tracks like "Life Pass" and "Let It Out," where the solos are enjoyably garish. [Sep 2016, p.73]

It's her most enjoyable record yet. [Jul 2006, p.92]

Neither MacLean nor vocal foil Nancy Whang has a strong enough voice for pop. Instead it's the surging 10-minute disco epics 'Tonight' and 'Happy House; that impress. [May 2009, p.89]

Occasionally, the sunniness and repetition of the songs can be exhausting, despite the provocative semiotic games Gibb is playing. [Aug 2004, p.100]

A dozen vivid and deeply personal songs.... Gray has made a record that anybody who cares about great songwriting should hear. [Dec 2002, p.130]

This is the pop album of 2003 which everyone else will have to beat. [Jul 2003, p.124]

There's a slight tiredness about the new album. It's too laid back to grab the attention, which must scan closer for clues. [Jul 2003, p.116]

Maas isn't confident enough to strike out in any single direction, and the LP feels too consciously aimed at crossing over to the pop charts. [May 2002, p.98]

At times it's almost unbearably candid, an unflinching examination of his devotion both to homestead and to God. [Jul 2004, p.112]

A star in the making. [Apr 2017, p.37]

This fifth album is an abstract fuzz of Floydian oddness and gothic not-quite-country. [Nov 2009, p.102]

If you're a fan, Where You Live is classic Chapman. [Oct 2005, p.94]

Burton's glassy lead lines and Corea's jerky modalism lend an unusual air to classics by Tadd Dameron. [Jul 2012, p.70]

Spanning conflicts from China to Chile, Algeria to Israel, the songs have a shared universality and power that makes up for the way the Anglification process erases cultural context. It works because Moddi's delivery is empathic and superb. [Nov 2016, p.32]

The best music here is more evocative of their own past triumphs like 2014's "Do It Again" EP with Robyn. [Jan 2023, p.25]

How To Replace It doesn't quite scale those heights [Worst Case Scenario and The Ideal Crash], but it finds the returning to the fray with particularly eloquent poise. [Apr 2023, p.26]

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]

Production touches aren't enough to elevate a set of songs that when stripped to their skeleton are sufficient if unspectacular. [Mar 2019, p.32]

Like mid-'80s Scritti Politti, News And Tributes is pop music made by young men loath to sell their intelligence down the river. [Jun 2006, p.114]

Ambitions here, you feel, do not extend far beyond ‘a good time, all the time’-–it’s probably telling that the band name derives from a cocktail lounge on Sunset Boulevard-–but then, Moretti probably wouldn’t want it any other way.

Turkey is less throwaway than its scrappy, Bandcamp-released predecessors. [Oct 2015, p.78]

The sense throughout is of awesome power, as effective simmering as it is unleashed. [Nov 2012, p.85]

Songs such as "Don't Want Move" and "Making The Most of It" compellingly frame the narrative, while "First Drum Set" and "Teenage Sequencer" joyously chronicle his escape route out of the alienation. [Mar 2022, p.35]

There's nothing quite as genuinely exciting as [the title track's] Aphex-meets-Bee-Gees disco, but its unorthodox elements are sprinkled across the album. [May 2017, p.32]

An album as strange as it is compelling. [Mar 2015, p.77]

Although less exhausting than their debut, "Terrific Sounds," this remains an attention-demanding record. [Apr 2009, p.101]

Forgiveness Is Yours sometimes becomes too diffuse, hampered by a surplus of bold ideas that do not get all the necessary follow-through. But it Abounds with queasy pleasures all the same. [May 2024, p.32]

This rather too eager-to-please set doesn't quite live up to its promise. [Mar 2012, p.82]

The riffs are polite, the vocals maddeningly limo, and more than half the tracks are mere sketches they couldn't be bothered to colour in. [Sep 2012, p.73]

Every element of Certified is exaggerated.... It frequently makes for energised hip hop. [Jan 2006, p.105]

The choice arrangements are alive with conviction. [Jul 2015, p.73]

It's their best since 1995's "LP5." [Apr 2008, p.83]

The producer's penchant for tinsel and bluster tends to obscure the duo's strengths. [Jun 2012, p.80]

Devil Music's relentless velocity and heaps of fuzz and reverb are easy to savour even if it could use more songs as strong as "Lion's Den" and Patterns." [Jan 2017, p.27]

It all feels quite timely. with Butler exploring the state of the world. [Nov 2020, p.27]

It's gratifying to hear this veteran crew sounding so scrappy. [Oct 2008, p.113]

The Endless Not sees the whirring tape-loopsof old replaced by iMacs, but not at the expense of sheer abrasiveness. [May 2007, p.113]

The songs--period pieces, admirably researched--lack that spark that turns pastiche into profundity. [Dec 2015, p.73]

The album's undisputed highlights are "Hit Somebody! (The Hockey Song)" and "Genius." [Album of the Month, July 2002, p.100]

Sounds like the product of a sloppy but inspired band enjoying the straightforward art of making a noise. [Jun 2002, p.114]

As ever with Reed, when it's good, it's blistering. [Apr 2004, p.104]

Their heart is evident; they need to find their voice. [Oct 2009, p.115]

Fine fully fledged songs share space with fragmentary 'interludes,' creepy half-songs, found sounds and noodlings. It could be irritatingly incomplete , but there's much to recommend it. [Mar 2010, p.107]

There's a passion and naturalism to these songs that make them worthy of the hubbub. [Apr 2012, p.75]

Field recordings and ghostly cello further underline "Ghosts of Blaker Dyke"'s poignancy, recalling David Sylvian's instrumentals on Gone To Earth. [Mar 2020, p.29]

The Civil Wars proves more than capable of producing its own dark drama. [Sep 2013, p.79]

Now bolstered by Joanna Bolme of The Jicks on bass, American Gong feels like a calculated attempt to juice up thier smart, literate rock. [Apr 2010, p.97]

Puny production and fey, knowing, songwriting provide little to hook the attention. [Nov 2009, p.88]

Shelley deliver[s] his best songs in years. [Apr 2006, p.96]

The songwriting basks in his love of music, freedom, friendship, dogs and tractors. [Jun 2013, p.78]

Deborah Harry's voice has rarely sounded better, perhaps energised by material worthy to stand alongside the group's brightest back pages. [Jun 2017, p.24]

It's the dumb, heads-down rockers that show BRMC at their best. [Feb 2018, p.24]

A peculiar take on neo-baroque folk with an utterly contemporary twist. [Apr 2005, p.100]

A strange, untethered creation. ... But when Romano Keeps it simple, he's terrific. [Feb 2019, p.32]

Their prevailing operatic bleakness has barely changed in the intervening 14 years. [Jun 2015, p.72]

He overthinks the rambling "JTR" and overstuffs the messy collage "Monkey Man."[Dec 2018, p.33]

A set of abstractions that are essentially pop in nature, rather than avant-garde. The seduce from the start. [Feb 2016, p.84]

The faster Avonmore goes, the better it sounds. [Dec 2014, p.70]

Nathan Williams and his brat-punks have reverted to the DIY route--surely the natural seedbed for their scattergun sonic brainstorms. [Jun 2017, p.38]

Her lyrics remain to-the-point, just more upbeat, with her wispy, whimsical vocals sitting snugly on top of crunchy guitars. [May 2009, p.85]

BPM works its vibrational magic with quietude and organic peace, and comes across more like a n ancient Zen ritual. [Apr 2012, p.71]

Kill The Wolf is another ruralist fantasy furnished with tales of witchcraft and maypoles. [Aug 2013, p.67]

Charms abound. [May 2015, p.73]