This is the polite, less freaky end of modern American indie folk: earnest, well-intentioned, Obama-fundraising, National Public Radio-supporting... and cumulatively a little dull.

Ferree's insistence of shoving everything right up front in the mix, all the time, becomes wearing, but you can't fault his enthusiasm. [Jan 2010, p. 110]

Amid all this weirdness, the sleek disco banger "The last Dance" stands out like a beacon in a cave, lighting the way towards a more sustainable reinvention. [Feb 2022, p.34]

The album is at its most interesting when it breaks from this mould [dreamy psych rock], embracing more atmospheric sensibilities. [May 2023, p.36]

Though not quite the full Finn, nonetheless Pajama Club is fresh and fun. [Oct 2011, p.95]

The fuzz-rock of "Just A Fool" is transformed into a clawhammer-guitar folk ballad; the punky glam of "You Get To Rome" and the space rock of "Yes To Everything" both become ragtime ditties; the heads-down rocker "All In Your Head" and the stadium-sized "No Secrets" become pretty ballads, with some lovely Joni Mitchell-ish chord changes. [Dec 2018, p.27]

The addition of Ethiopian singer Cabra Casay evens up things on "Ane Nahatka," otherwise this prove a collaboration too far. [Nov 2012, p.85]

The Less you know is a rather ponderous return to form. [Dec 2011, p.81]

A confident melodic sensibility ensures such self-conscious quirkiness stays just the right side of irritating. [July 2008, p.90]

Erratic but still occasionally sublime. [Jun 2020, p.37]

It's perhaps inevitable Ladytron sound as if they're going through the motion on this solid fourth album. [July 2008, p.102]

He successfully channels Sam Cooke, especially on "We Don't Sleep" but the album's length and lo-fi production makes Bye Bye 17 appear disconcertingly slight. [Jun 2013, p.74]

There's little on Heaven And Earth to truly trouble his best work, but throughout there's plentiful evidence of the many qualities which made Martyn so indefinable and influential. [Jun 2011, p.84]

There's a little bit of everything on this largely instrumental solo album by Wobble. [Oct 2018, p.37]

Meshell's search for love and meaning rarely asserts itself over the sense of muso friends at play. [Aug 2014, p.76]

They are less successful when they step beyond these templates--the trippy "Surface" doesn't quite come off-- but this is a strong set. [Oct 2011, p.95]

[The first half is] all dismayingly unconvincing and lacklustre in execution... Then something changes.

Only the most devoted Apple Scruff could truly love Extra Texture, or its two immediate predecessors, now. Wonderwall Music, however, documents an innocent optimism that will always be worth a listen.

If you like Galaxie 500, Mazzy Star, Low, you'll adore them. If you don't, you won't. [Mar 2008, p.83]

Twenty-one-year-old Charlie Fnk's cracked baritone is brown sugar-sweet, '5 Years Time' is a hit, and the album's Jonathan Richman-esque gawkiness makes it double endearing. [Oct 2008, p.94]

Their choice of guest vocalists this time around indicates good tatse, although in practice there's not much call for subtlety in these chewy, club-oriented productions. [Sep 2009, p.95]

They clearly asked Dave Fridmann to produce for his MGMT work rather than his exploratory Mercury Rev backstory. It's well, OK. [Mar 2010, p.90]

The Orwells ape highlights of the last 25 years of indie rock on their second album. [Aug 2014, p.78]

Rare Bird Alert, recorded with the Steep Canyon Rangers, is a more rounded than 2009's mostly instrumental The Crow. [Jul 2011, p.92]

Plenty of liturgic rumbling, but it really works when she aims for something greater. [Dec 2020, p.39]

It's not much of a move forward, and arguably a step back. [Sep 2013, p.85]

Compelling in its way, but a bit Isobel Campbell when it should be Joni Mitchell. [Nov 2011, p.81

This is a vital reimagining, not a retro homage. [Dec 2011, p.81]

At 15 tracks, it outstays its welcome, but in small does this is deliciously addictive. [June 2008, p.86]

Nicholas clearly isn't finished with us yet, judging by Silent Cry's pint-in-the-air riffing, chiming playlist-pop and brooding social commentary. [Aug 2008, p.93]

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]

The album can become a little too sweet--this, however, is a moment that never cloys. [Dec 2010, p.94]

Though his jazz instincts can still send him into incantatory live orbit, all he wants here are the boyhood comforts of his early record collection. His voice remains admirably supple, though. [Jun 2018, p.33]

Hardly revelatory, but compelling in its sustained vision. [Apr 2012, p.73]

The best moments [from The King Is Dead] are woefully unlucky not to have made the cut.

Pitched as the first part of a trilogy, this is a batch of effortlessly lovely tunes, warmly intimate and muzzy with reverb. [Nov 2010, p.81]

While too soft for the dancefloor, songs like :weak For me" don't scrimp on the songcraft. [Nov 2009, p.96]

There is the odd suggestion here of a campfire Mercury Rev, but nothing to spook former fans. [Jun 2009, p.92]

Great, if a little pointless. [Apr 2012, p.77]

Nonsensical, inventive and captivating. [Sep 2009, p.89]

These 11 new songs will do little to dispel the view that the band are fatally addicted to self-indulgent navel-gazing, but it's still beautifully recorded, and played with exquisite tact and precision. [May 2007, p.88]

It's still excruciatingly fey in places, but then you know what to expect by now. [Nov 2010, p.81]

This collaboration with Athens lo-fi specialists Elf Power isn't his most immediatly appealing set, but it's worth it just for 'Bilocating Dog,' a lovely shambles of a song with an absurd chorus. [Jan 2008, p.88]

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

While they are unlikely to blow any heads off, track like 'Graffiti Eyes' show that they haven't lost the knack of writing diverting pop songs. [Sep 2009, p.96]

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]

At best this sees them hold their own. [Jul 2006, p.101]

The downside of Stevens' inward journey is that it seems to have eroded his confidence, leading to a maddening tendency to sabotage his best tunes. [Nov 2010, p.82]

The eclectism is exhilarating. [Nov 2008, p.96]

The backing are stately, most elegant on the trumpet and Wurlitzer of 'Mississippi River Running Backwards.' [Oct 2009, p.108]

Living With Yourself showcases McGuire's playing with minimal adornment. [Nov 2010, p.94]

There are still enough awkwardly anthemic choruses to unsettle their detractors. [Sep 2001, p.92]

It's all rather tasteful and familiar, though, and a few jagged edges might snare passers-by. [Oct 2011, p.98]

It's more of a halfway house, with both acts' distinctive styles diluted as they server up '90s breakbeats ("Kokiri", "Fleece") and light industrial spoken-word pieces ("Nowhere"). Only the jangly promise of "passerine" sung by Emma Acs, hunts at a newish direction. [Mar 2025, p.35]

Often stunning, but arguably also a little too knowing and shallow. [Aug 2008, p.108]

The album could sometimes benefit from a shift in pace from its often locked-in, mid-tempo state. [Jun 2018, p.35]

If he sometimes misfires... K-OS at least has inventiveness in his sights. [May 2007, p.96]

The bangles here right the ship. [Dec 2011, p.79]

'The Tipping Point' is typical of the album as a whole, a rush of hoe-down guitars and echo-laden drums topped off with a half-yelp of a vocal that recalls a slightly more unhinged Jack White. [July 2008, p109]

Off The Record marks a return to form. [Jun 2013, p.69]

Allo Darlin' aren't the latest in post-Kate Nash mockney complaint pop, but instead makers of music that's unapologetically twee. [July 2010, p.101]

Admirably democratic, but a few dictatorial vetoes might not have gone amiss. [Jul 2013, p.71]

They've burrowed a slick, haughty electro-pop slot between Propaganda and [Gary] Numan. [Sep 2004, p.108]

With just two original compositions, it looks as if they may be running out of steam. [Sep 2005, p.108]

Had Lofgren trusted his considerable gifts to carry these earnest songs, Mountains would've been a more satisfying album. [Aug 2023, p.34]

If the odd clunker remains ('Hostage Of Love' could be a Meatloaf out-take) Slipway Fires largely sees a return to the introspection of debut album "Up All Night."

The attitudinal posturing wears thin on "Killer" but stuttering funk, the Depeche Mode in the moshpit vibe of "Little Mamma" and a timely nod to Prince on closer "Something" all hit the spot. [Jul 2016, p.69]

Here, Beans returns to his roots. [Nov 2004, p.106]

The subject matter sits somewhere between Wagner's Götterdämmerung and Led Zep. ... Yet the sounds owes little to either as flute and mandolin lend a folk-rock ambience and John O'Hara's keyboards and Jow Parrish-James' guitar essay '70s prog tropes like they never went away. [Jun 2023, p.31]

Lyrically, it's business as usual. [Oct 2011, p.105]

A warm, subtle set of midtempo cruisers. [May 2006, p.114]

The band excel at giving fans perfectly plotted two-minute bursts of disgust and attrition, epitomised by the splendidly immature, "F*** You." [Feb 2013, p.69]

Hotel Sessions is infinitely more charming than the finished item. [Feb 2012, p.91]

Unusually for him, his 10th album sounds like a collection of Chili Peppers demos. [Feb 2009, p.82]

Too often, though, we find shaw sloshing around in cyber-soup, drunk on technology and singing existential love songs in a manner akin to Alexander Armstrong scatting with Squarepusher. [Apr 2009, p.84]

There's still a stertility to their sound on this third album, but laced with sax, treated guitars and memorable choruses, it ranks as their best. [Jun 2009, p.109]

Ready To Die was never going to match Raw Power. When you’re 65, rekindling youth’s righteous fury can sound like grouchiness or--worse--play-acting. But there are worthwhile moments, mostly when Williamson leaves space for Pop to express his vulnerability.

It all kinda works. [Jun 2013, p.73]

At their best, Orton's songs do achieve what Daybreaker sets out to achieve--a sense of watching the dawn rise, all hyper and half awake from having been up all night arguing, making love or simply conversing intensely. [Sep 2002, p.108]

It's hard, though, to be sure of such depth aid the often imprecise lyrics, gently sweet vocals resembling a semi-skimmed Jonathan Donahue, and muffled, ambient brass and sax swells. [Oct 2018, p.30]

Part inspired, part impenetrable. [Mar 2006, p.104]

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

Much of this album sounds like its been stitched together from 4AD's finest moments. [Dec 2008, p.88]

Everything flows and nothing jars, but Craft's soft voice and often orthodox songcraft makes Blood Moon merely pretty rather than stunning. [Jul 2016, p.73]

The fact this collection of originals is inferior to 2001's Ultraglide In Black (a covers album) reveals [Mick Collins'] songwriting has never matched his energy. [Nov 2003, p.118]

For much of Majenta he seems content to lie back and think of Prince. [Jul 2012, p.71]

Pale fire, but fire nonetheless. [Dec 2002, p.130]

"I Like It In The Dark" [is] a hurricane of piano boogie, metal guitar, echoes, poetry and reverb that the rest of the LP can never quite match. [Sep 2013, p.86]

"Escape From New York" and "Halloween" can't top the cold desolation of the originals. ... Pretty much every one of the album's 13 tracks confirm Carpenter's skill for an eerie earworm. [Dec 2017, p.25]

An almost comically seductive blend of luxe funk, disco strings (arranged by Owen Pallett) and analogue synths, which he pastiches with affection and elan. [Feb 2026, p.39]

A somewhat humourless affair. [Jun 2006, p.115]

For much of the record the Djangos are the same sweet-toothed bunch. [Feb 2018, p.24]

One For The Ghost is at its best when he works up a head of steam and leaves James Hoare's guitar space to sparkle. [Mar 2018, p.22]

Main;y, though, we leave Clinic where we always find them: nervously pacing the room, waiting for something to happen. [May 2007, p.92]

Derek Miller's flashy axemanship and Alexis Krauss' swoon are compromised by sanitized production. [Mar 2012, p.98]

Now regrouped by leader Jerry Cantrell, the bands' sound is still full of menace, melody and doom, chock full of Cantrell's trademark heavy riffs. [Dec 2009, p. 85]

Amid the cornball sentiments and bizarre arrangements elsewhere, here against the odds, a touching moment presents itself. [Mar 2010, p.96]

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]