The instrumentations are the highlights. [Mar 2016, p.82]

All up, a convincing shift. [May 2016, p.73]

The fruits of his change of mind are bittersweet and eloquent alt.pop songs that recall Bon Iver. [May 2016, p.82]

Cosmonaut is as stylishly warped as ever. [Oct 2016, p.35]

It's not quite as majestic as last year's self-titled album, but still a cut above. [Nov 2016, p.32]

The gambit [space-age sheen and quantised grooves] works on the trippy title track and the confrontational "If You Want It," but elsewhere it robs the band's hyper-rhythmic attack of its viscerally human feel. [Jan 2017, p.28]

There may be too much on Electric Lines--including Jess Mills, American nwo R&B upstart Daniel Wilson and an uncharacteristically low energy Taylor on the title track. [May 2017, p.30]

A stylistic leap forward. [Jul 2017, p.35]

Gibson's follow-up to 2016's Empire Builder finds her tinkering with the complexion of her sound, bringing piano and strings to the surface, mostly at the expense of guitar. It turns out to be a clever fit for the songs. [Nov 2018, p.29]

Mostly it's ambient background music in search of a movie, but standout moments include the sinister Marricone guitars on "The Prairie" and the distorted tablas and minimalistic vibraphones on "Damascene Slap." [Mar 2020, p.33]

Album number nine sees them dipping into some slightly experimental territory. ... But they're at their best in slightly melancholic territory. [Apr 2020, p.33]

Rats On Rafts are shooting for something bold on their third LP. They land their shot too. [Mar 2021, p.35]

It still possesses a certain screwball charm, particularly the curdled croon of "I Don't Mind The Wait," but too often sounds like smug pastiche. [Nov 2021, p.30]

That unsubtle drive for huge hooks can sometimes be a bit exhausting, but tracks like "New Age Millennial Magic", the groovy "Feel The Change!" and "Demolition Song" come so loaded with good vibes it's hard not to smile. [Mar 2022, p.25]

The pair sparked and quickly knocked out an album that sounds years in the maturing. [Jul 2022, p.25]

He’s less distinctive-sounding on the Oasis-style anthemics of “Got To Let You Go” and “Never Said Goodbye”, however. The boyish high register of Bugg’s voice lends itself most effectively to a certain ’60s beat group sound, which helps “All Kinds Of People” and the La’s-style rumble of “Breakout” get pulses racing more effectively. [Dec 2024, p.32]

The covers from less celebrated acts support the premise most intriguingly. [Jul 2025, p.49]

There's little on the pair's ninth album that will surprise longtime admirers; rather, Plaid play to their strengths. [Aug 2016, p.80]

The good news is that Something Shines also enriches her puritanical sonic palette with lush instrumentation, mid-song tempo shifts and free-jazz digressions. [Oct 2014, p.77]

The raw poetic facade occasionally cracks, but there is something special here. [Mar 2006, p.88]

old Friends... flows as a set piece but there are standouts. [Feb 2022, p.25]

A likeable, modest debut. [Oct 2007, p.101]

Singer-guitarist Ian Felice brings real pathos to lucid tales of characters in various states of dissolution. [Jul 2016, p.74]

The tight knit trio waste nothing creating their dream dancefloor from sultry rhythms, mischievous drum beats and a glorious disco sheen. [Oct 2020, p.25]

Love and hope stay preciously rare yet infinitely possible, and this album’s guttering, guiding light. [Jul 2022, p.33]

Perhaps they should have been more democratic in the past, because this is a terrific record that plays to The Strokes; Strengths and also adds fresh colour to their palette. [Apr 2011, p.79]

It is uneasy listening. [Oct 2009, p.107]

[It] sees [MacKaye] playing to his weaknesses. [Dec 2006, p.106]

The intricacies and frustrations of relationships dominate, while the arrangements are kept crisp and simple. [Apr 2015, p.76]

For now, Lady, Give Me Your Key shows us some of the steps Buckley took, during a feverishly creative year, to pursue the totality of music.

A moody and restrained affair. [Oct 2005, p.108]

There's no denying the wind-rush thrill of the title track, nor the malevolent pull of "Fall Out Of Love," but you'd expect such a capable band to disguise their affection for MBV, Ride and Kitchens of Distinction rather better on their second album. [Jan 2014, p.78]

The songs are more direct and arrive with a harder edge [than 2012's Blood Speaks]. [May 2014, p.80]

The first four tracks are moody, post-rock instrumentals, but elsewhere filthy, squalling guitars and a meaty swing dominate. [Oct 2016, p.40]

The results are as charming as they are accessible. [Feb 2003, p.86]

The album's eight supple, textured tunes suggest Cornelius stripped of his art-jazz awkwardness, or even the molten sugar rush of My Bloody Valentine slowed to a beatific calm. [Nov 2002, p.128]

If she's going to make us read her diary entries, she's going to need something more compelling than this litany of cliche and hackneyed need-a-man Bridget Jones-wailing. [Feb 2004, p.72]

Homosapien sees an intriguing reinvention via more conventional song structure. [Apr 2013, p.77]

It's refreshing to hear Paul Humphreys and Andy McCluskey challenging themselves as OMD enjoy their Indian Summer--"La Mitrailleuse" blends gunfire and military drums--even if the results mostly end up as blue-eyed Kraftwerkian pop. [Oct 2017, p.36]

An astonishingly primal album. [Aug 2006, p.93]

Melody Gardot actually makes a better album than Shakin' Stevens and Peyroux with My One And Only Thrill. [Apr 2009, p.82]

The Charlatans make commendable attempts to expand their creative horizons. [Oct 2010, p.88]

The band's amiable punk-folk chunter lacks a little of its usual charm. [Oct 2013, p.74]

He combines a fondness for Lou Reed-style New York street theater with anti-folk and '80s out-of-tune jangle to scintillating effect. [Aug 2013, p.76]

Accomplished but oddly characterless, and despite the high hook count, forgettable. [May 2018, p.30]

The defining breeziness of Buddy & Jim could never be mistaken for an ill wind, as such, but there are moments at which it's hard not to wish they'd invested a fourth or even a fifth day in the work. [Feb 2013, p.70]

The homogenous production gets bland real quick, meaning, that, ultimately, it' shard to care either way about it. [May 2014, p.83]

Embrace plies its trade with a neat mix of musical proficiency and stylistic flexibility. [Jun 2009, p.93]

A set of pristine ballads that veer somewhere between the atmospheric folk of Suzanne Vega and Sade's austere pop-soul. [Apr 2012, p.83]

It’s a ravishing production, and with a companion disc promised next year, feels like a fresh start for a brilliant career.

As inventive and well-meaning as these bastard pop blasts are, they're still not a patch on the originals. [Dec 2004, p.153]

Budget keyboard presets and filtered, treble-heavy production give the likes of "Lissoms" and :low Shoulder" an endearingly woozy, lo-fi feel. [Mar 2010, p.98]

The result is strangely enervating. [Aug 2008, p.103]

The emphasis tends to be on hooks, not heart. [May 2005, p.100]

This is a finely paced album, mirroring the rhythm of the calendar and getting choppier as it moves toward the midway point. [Feb 2011, p.99]

Eleventh Dream Day may be getting on, but there are no signs of them growing stale. [Apr 2011, p.80]

Their eight album of earnest, limpid lullabies is notable once again for the spangled guitar of long-term collaborator, Ghost's Michio Kurihana. [Jun 2011, p.80]

It works beautifully. [Jun 2013, p.75]

An unmissable craftman. [Jun 2013, p.69]

It's the gently chiming guitars, summery synth lines and Vallesteros' Beach Boy melodies that dominate. [Sep 2014, p.71]

The band's self-titled debut may inevitably lack the electricity of the live shows, but with the abundance of trashy thrills, "I Love LA" and "Let Her Be" still demonstrate the potency of Sytarcrawler's au courant mash-up of Raw Power-era stooges, Sunset Strip glam-metal and Nirvana at their hookiest. [Feb 2018, p.35]

An intoxicating, instrumental tribute to the wheezing Farfisa organ; propped up only by the clarinet and double bass. [Aug 2020, p.27]

Kane has now made what he has called a "grand, souly album". And at times his bold move pays off. [Feb 2022, p.31]

Loaded with guests, from Slash to Tom Morello, it’s no-frills hard rock which, while occasionally a little dated and clichéd, still has plenty of fizz to it. [Nov 2024, p.40]

Here he bans repetition of verses and choruses, compacting a double album's detail into 40 minutes. [Feb 2025, p.35]

Black Lips have found their way to middle age through a careful balance of punk attitude and rock'n'roll classicism. Satan's Graffiti Or God's Art? keeps that dissolute edge intact. [Jun 2017, p.24]

Producers Todd Terje and Bjorn Yttling help effect a subtle but distinct shift, without sacrificing FF's Identity. [Sep 2013, p.89]

The results move their sound on significantly. The radical honesty of the lyrics is key. [Jun 2020, p.29]

It is pure nostalgia, and some of these songs are familiar to the point of tedium, but even a Beatles sceptic would find it hard to suppress a shudder of recognition on hearing these tunes sung by the man who wrote them.

It is the weirder, wilder, experimental material that makes this a significant new career benchmark for the German duo, their boldest and possibly best album so far. [May 2018, p.32]

Champ sees TPC breathing deeper and taking a wider view. [Aug 2010, p.102]

There’s plenty for prog loyalists to appreciate in the knotty polyrhythms, hopscotching bass and divebombing guitar excursions of tracks such as “Harridan” and “Chimera’s Wreck”, but genre agnostics may find more inviting access points in the sumptuous stripes of rueful melody, nuggety riffs and widescreen pomp-rock dynamics that Wilson and friends create. [Jul 2022, p.31]

Sure, at times, they sound like Gene, but on tracks like "Do You Really Wanna Know" they are nigh-on perfect: Jangly and breathless, with traces of The Smiths but a softer edge. [Apr 2011, p.89]

His 2021 solo debut Times topped the UK dance chart and, the follow-up offers more of the same adrenaline rush. [Feb 2023, p.32]

This debut album sounds as charmingly casual as its inception. [May 2012, p.80]

Opener "Satellite 15" might hint at something dark and abrasive, but they're soon back on track, rattling through robust, enjoyable nonsense like the multi-part epic "When The Wild Wind Blows." [Nov 2010, p.93]

The nicest moments come when his simple structures are allowed to do their thing. [Jul 2013, p.75]

Time contains KG structurally, but not creatively. "The Land Before Timeland" is a lyrical workout of delicate intricacy. ... "Hypertension" is every bit as light on its feet and the conversational playing between the Gizzards is equally impressive, but it takes more of a pastoral-prog path. [Dec 2022, p.18]

On the last Foos album, "In Your Honour" rock and acoustic music were exiled to different discs. Here, a satisfactory compromise is brokered between the two: the excellent 'Summer's End' is easy on the ear, easier still on the brain, and sets him up in the radio-friendly 'Wonderwall' district one imagines is his spiritual home.

The contrast between Adele Bethel's sassy snap and Scott Paterson's rousing holler is expertly deployed, resulting in a stirring record, packed full of ideas, from a band who seem to have rediscovered their spirit of adventure. [Jul 2011, p.94]

His best work transcends politics. Mr Love & Justice contains both he best and worst of Bragg.

Will Ozanne comes across as a milder version of James Blake. [Mar 2012, p.84]

Rockferry is almost a very good album, but, for all the classic hallmarks, there's little insight into the soul of Duffy herself. [Apr 2008, p.84]

Ambitious, orchestral and accompanied by a 45-minute film, it candidly documents singer Charlie Fink’s recovery from a badly broken heart.

On Heritage, [they're] jettisoning practically all trace of heavy whatsoever. [Oct 2011, p.86

End Times is not merely Eels' best album yet, but in the highest rank of breakup albums, something with the anguished fury of Ryan Adam's "Heartbreaker," sighing with the stoic resignation of Bruce Springsteen's "Tunnel Of Love." [Feb 2010, p.83]

Splendid. ... All the crafty hooks, Haim-worthy vocal harmonies, sumptuous layers of synths and unabashedly prefab beats belie the poignant nature of Girl Ray's odes to post-millennial love and longing. [Dec 2019, p.26]

Some nice wordplay and a sultry cameo from Asia Argento ensure that Praxis Makes Perfect is fun, if musically flimsy. [May 2013, p.75]

This blend of Sabbath-inspired riffing, windswept chug and songs called things like 'Fire Lances of the Ancient Hyperzephyrians' has a neat shtick, no particularly awkward edges, and a vague sense of nostalgia for an adolescence maybe you never lived the first time out. [May 2008, p.107]

Their third album sees them toughening up some, with much of their whimsical dreaminess tramped underfoot in their seeming desire to become a more conventional, NME-friendly, rock band. [Feb 2006, p.81]

Forth certainly makes it seem like they’ve never been away, the stench of those woeful Ashcroft solo albums extinguished.

An album that, on first listen, glides by doing nothing wrong. Second time around, you realise that, more accurately, it's doing everything right, and you're spellbound. [Jun 2003, p.92]

Spookily smooth. [Dec 2003, p.122]

Tracks such as "Where Ya Going?" and "Chicken Out"... make them sound like Southport's answer to ZZ Top. But there's plenty more going on that doesn't involve such dumbing-down. [Jul 2004, p.107]

A strong and lusty country-punk album placing him in Tom Waits or Neil Young territory. [Nov 2004, p.104]

The beauty of those opening moments suggests that Condon's future really does lie in soundtracks, where you can imagine him collaborating with and finding inspiration in the baroque visual inventions of an Anderson or a Gondry, and where his restless musical wandererings might yet chance upon the truly undiscovered countries of the imagination.

The songs themselves are exquisite. [Jul 2012, p.77]

A glossy but incoherent neo-rave pastiche. [Sep 2012, p.87]