Crockett's warm, buttery vocals melt through his latest collection, which delves into mid-century cowboy soundtracks for its cinematic plushness and moody grace. [Sep 2020, p.28]

The emotional imprint of The Fall moves beyond the pining, wistful tones that are her trademark in favour of Sex And The City scenarios bursting with heartbreak, regret and emotional devastation.

A heroic mutual soppiness is the key tot his dreamy two-tracker. [Jul 2016, p.74]

The playful tumbles of verbiage are as central to the group's sonic identity as the key components of its baroque power pop. [Nov 2019, p.28]

Sumptuous and sprawling, his major label debut comfortably backs up the hype. [Oct 2012, p.86]

FLOTUS ranks as one of Lambchop's most confounding to date, an album whose form and content are united in intimate, private purpose, but which may well turn out to be one of their best and most accessible. [Dec 2016, p.18]

It is without question a wintering record, but out of this muted musical landscape songs of great and complex beauty emerge. [Mar 2021, p.34]

Patterns Of Light grasps the surreal potential of the situation and responds with an OTT concept album. [Feb 2017, p.28]

Working with producer Jack Splash, they craft a dense, bracing, kaleidoscopic avant-soul backdrop for frontman Paul Janeway's musings on religion, politics and family. [Oct 2018, p.32]

An album that shines light, albeit dimly, into hidden corners of the soul. [May 2007, p.100]

12-song collection brings together four elders, three younger practitioners and original James Gang singer-guitarist Glenn Schwartz, along with The Black Keys in Deep-blues mode. [Sep 2023, p.37]

Always led by the miraculous voice of Ch'hom Nimol. So beautifully and effectively, in fact, that they end up giving fusion a good name. [Feb 2008, p.78]

Skeleton romps along at a joyful gait peppered with breathless harmonies and squalls of noise and subverts some familiar tools along the way. [Nov 2008, p.87]

If Offend Maggie doesn't have quite have that idiot's glee it's nevertheless quite a riot. [Nov 2008, p.94]

At moments conjures Steely Dan, Little Feat and Weather Report while stretching into new territory. Constant shifts in tone, tempo and scale keep this 14-track, 90-minute opus in constant motion. [May 2025, p.31]

Like Blue Velvet, Forget is a lurid fever dream--and a magnificent hymn to suburban teenage romance. [Jan 2011, p.98]

Atlas is dominated by a saturated prettiness that seems at once virtuoso and effortless. [Apr 2014, p.68]

Recording in an African village with a laptop and local musicians lends a more organic feel than previous releases. [May 2015, 84]

Holiday is resolutely sombre, but the arrangements make inviting drama out of Principe's impressionistic lyrical intimacies. [May 2013, p.75]

Her fourth album proves that she can apply those [AI techniques from her Circumstance Synthesis EP] to more structured, dynamic songs in a way that's instantly enthralling. [Aug 2020, p.27]

The third installment is almost shockingly concise at 30 minutes. ... Hearing one of the group's freewheeling jams coalesce into "Bel Air" 10 minutes into the proceedings still sparks a frisson of recognition that makes the series so exhilarating. [Nov 2022, p.46]

Think Screaming Trees' Dust, or Chris Cornell's Euphoria Morning, steeped in folk and psychedelia, the teenage angst of old weathered if not quite mellowed. [Aug 2020, p.30]

Atmospheric soundscapes. ... Awash with an adventurousness some might find surprising in a 71-year-old. [Oct 2021, p.25]

This, to paraphrase Burnett, just tore 2012 a new one. [Jun 2012, p.71]

This careful layering of old and new, east and west, has something of the forensic deliberation of post-rock experimentation about it, but songs like "For Everything That You Lost" and "They Keep Silence," which evokes Killing Joke, are thrilling in their intensity. [Aug 2016, p.77]

Some of the best moments involve lesser-known artists, such as The Mad Lads tearing through "Don't Have To Shop Around" and Wendy Rene Delivering a superlatively funky "Bar-B-Q". [Sep 2025, p.50]

Spoon's secret is that this tension is never quite released, the martial beat never breaks down, full rock music never quite kicks in. [Oct 2002, p.120]

It's compact, often menacing strangeness has its own beauty. [Aug 2013, p.71]

Authoritatively cements the status of Granduciel's Philadelphia-based sextet as the best American rock band to emerge in the 2010s. [Jan 2021, p.33]

For now, we should simply savour the sound of an artist setting herself new targets and hitting each one with real panache. [Oct 2011, p.78]

The confidence and unforced vigour of Face The Truth suggest Malkmus is happier on the margins of alt.rock than in its spotlight. [Jun 2005, p.112]

With Chavez Ravine he has performed another ethnomusicological miracle, opening a can of worms while drawing us deep into the musical heart of a lost community. [Jul 2005, p.90]

There are thrills aplenty, particularly the raging “Broken Boys” and surprisingly Gary Numan-esque “Moth To The Flame”, but despite the mournful “I Belong To”’s validation and redemptive closer “Sunrise”, the mood’s still frequently dark. [Nov 2024, p.43]

The 20-year-old punctuates beautifully languid, trip-hoppy vignettes with a voice redolent of Martina Topley-Bird and a neat line in spoken word poetic musings. [Feb 2021, p.32]

Much here, like the outstanding "Silhouettes (I, II & III)," sits elegantly in a progressive tradition that draws on Teo Macero's collage work on In A Silent Way, David Axelrod's string arrangements, and Four Tet's own "Thirtysixtwentyfive." [Dec 2015, p.71]

Throughout, Coxon's masterly musicianship and shameless enthusiasm for such modish fare pulses like an electric current. [Apr 2006, p.110]

Most of the time, however, Epoch sounds like the album Ulrich Schnauss has been promising for a decade. [Feb 2017, p.38]

Effortlessly ambitious. [Oct 2006, p.119]

Vivid, diverse and faintly trippy. [Nov 2006, p.99]

Royal Trux remain unique, one of a kind: still going wrong like a hydrogen bomb.[Mar 2019, p.36]

The album's finest moments come on "Crazy In Blood," when Pigs... manage simultaneously to crunch and swing with rousing effect. [May 2020, p.32]

Whatever the situation, Ayers's amenability shines through regardless, a wave of warmth that can lighten the heaviest soul.

A bold re-statement of artistic identity. [Sep 2022, p.25]

The old-timey accompaniment and Dalton's bluesy vocals perfectly suit Hardin's exquisitely sad songs. [Feb 2012, p.83]

Lucy Gooch's early life as a chorister feeds into Desert Window's beauteous soundscapes, looping her gentle soprano voice over gauzy layers of synths in a seamless shift of classical ambient, jazz and dream-folk textures. [Jul 2025, p.28]

The finished result occupies land between Young Marble Giants' "Colossal Youth" and Tricky's "Maxinquaye": not the equal of either of those landmark albums, maybe, but certainly cut from the same cloth. [Sep 2009, p.89]

House and Land is first and foremost a vocal album, full of rough-hewn and exquisitely discordant mountain harmonies---like The Carter Family for the 21st century. [Jul 2017, p.32]

The quick-take, live-in-the-room approach serves these songs well. [Feb 2024, p.30]

Signals a striking reawakening for a too often overlooked talent. [May 2003, p.96]

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]

One of the finest Americana albums of 2004. [Jan 2005, p.128]

Ten Songs keeps his audacious past and redemptive present in balance. [Aug 2015, p.89]

The Shabazz sound is sprawling and promiscuous, but also deep, which might make for uneasy listening. [Aug 2014, p.79]

The pair's dialogue on SpiderBeetleBee move fluidly between unison harmonics and point-counterpoint. [Nov 2017, p.32]

The further [Darnielle] drifts from his lo-fi allegiances and into lush studio environments, the more autobiography intersects with the dramatic storytelling which has always been the Californian's forte. [Jun 2005, p.98]

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

It's a lovely listen, unassuming as ever. [Apr 2022, p.32]

Her fourth full-length album effectively showcases the breadth of her sound. [Oct 2014, p.76]

It's a heavyweight set. ... In this music Badu sees a path to self-betterment, a chance to grow. [Feb 2018, p.48]

You can sense the deceptively complex Art Angels will only continue to yield further depths with time. [Jan 2016, p.76]

The thoughtful intimacies of Wendy Eisenberg make for some of their potent artistic statements yet. [Jun 2026, p.29]

Omar has found a formula that really works. [Feb 2017, p.33]

Grief, memory and friendship billow up throughout the nine tracks. [Mar 2021, p.31]

It's the clever orchestration that elevates this above postmodern gag, all fluttering pipes and chiming guitar. [Nov 2007, p.98]

As so often, Chris Abrahams' piano provides an anchor. [May 2020, p.31]

The album, recorded live in a village hall on the shores of Loch Ness, is tremendous fun. [May 2016, p.76]

The result is a rich, easy-rolling album that finds King's fingers still nimble and his megaphone voice barely creaking. [Dec 2008, p.100]

If that person favours the smoking, ragged garage rock that comprises the bulk of Fork In The Road, then you’d have to conclude, job done.

Emmy's startling pure voice is a vehicle for some smart, candid and subversive lyrics. [Mar 2009, p.87]

He's clearly referring to something much broader and deeper than artistic definition but Andrew's mercurial mindset is again the key to Liars' singularity. If The Apple Drop is more, in light of their history, a considered experiential teaser than a synapse frazzler, it's his choice. Once more, expectation can go to hell. [Sep 2021, p.32]

It's not revolutionary, but there's not a duff track to be found. [Aug 2018, p.24]

Like Ill Communication, it's a superbly paced album, its felicitous stylistic juxtapositions the product of judicious cut-and-paste. [Jun 2011, p.89]

Seven Dials seamlessly weaves many of the best elements of Frame's past into a work of consummate craftsmanship which also references the likes of Steely Dan, The Cure, The Beatles, Bowie, Fleetwood Mac, Van Morrison and Bob Dylan. [Jun 2014, p.68]

Features passionate songs that defy categorisation. [Feb 2023, p.33]

Most divine is Knxwledge's production on "Make Ya Say Yie," with its twisted brass sample. [Nov 2020, p.27]

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

The album doesn't just bludgeon. There is an attention to detail, an appreciation of dynamics at work. [May 2003, p.108]

[Aug 2024, p.40]

Against all odds, St. Anger constitutes the cutting edge of commercial yet aggressive heavy rock in 2003. [Aug 2003, p.106]

This bold, moving and purposeful record proves De La remain eternal. [Jan 2026, p.29]

As ever, there's great appeal in his stage patter, where he tests the tension between catharsis and awkwardness.... But he never skimps on emotion. [Sep 2014, p.74]

She achieves something close to eerie synthesis of avant-classical art song and Throbbing Gristle-worthy brutalism that three-quarters of TG themselves created on their 2012 tribute to Nico's Desertshore. [Nov 2018, p.29]

Cements his reputation for fast, witty, lyrically dense politico-personal rhymes. [Mar 2005, p.99]

As the LP continues, you are progressively engrossed. [Oct 2015, p.84]

The songs, reworked with producer Patrick Hyland over a three-year period, shapeshift in time to the lyrics. [Mar 2022, p.32]

They only really have one kin do f song and tempo, rollicking yet melancholy, but they write them very, very well. [Oct 2011, p.84]

The remainder of In Limbo colonises the liminal space between harmony pop and spacecraft noise with giddy style. [Oct 2012, p.86]

Strands is one of Hauschildt's finest efforts, unfolding through a dense fog of ambience and gently bubbling electronics, always staying weird and disobedient enough to offset its new-age tinge. [Dec 2016, p.30]

Wildly ambitious debut. [Jan 2018, p.26]

The set is essential for three glorious and long-unavailable performances of classic Guthrie compositions by Dylan & The Band recorded at Carnegie Hall in January 1968. [Oct 2017, p.53] [Album: 9/10 Extras: 7/10]

10 songs that glint like shards of glass yet brim with love, grief, courage, existential doubt and all the stuff that makes us human, to a soundtrack of grungy alt.rock cut with torch-song melodrama and Lenker-ish folk. [Sep 2023, p.27]

Pratt doesn't recreate the lo-fi sound of her previous records so much as she elaborates on it. [Mar 2019, p.32]

The record is awash with sparkling, instantly memorable melodies. [Apr 2020, p.28]

They’ve smuggled in sobering thoughts of isolation, loneliness and optimism’s perpetual challenge. But hope wins through with the sprightly funk and handclaps of closer “You Get Better”. [May 2021, p.25]

Hot Thoughts finds Spoon at the peak of their considerable powers, their ninth album effortlessly unfolding and revealing its mysteries as they cement their place in the firmament of undeniably great rock bands. [Apr 2017, p.34]

Though Mitchell and Hamer avoid the kind of astringent vocal blends favoured by most British singers of these ballads, there's still an intriguing piquancy to their harmonies, with Mitchell's girlish timbre resting against Hamer's milder, warmer tones.

While the familiar swagger is present and correct both in the Bowie-influenced "Spiderhead" and the crackling "It's Just Forever," these moments are leavened by quieter, more reflective tracks such as "Hypocrite." [Mar 2014, p.72]

Overall, then, mbv is more of a time capsule than a box of surprises, but the contents have survived in immaculate condition. [Apr 2013, p.64]