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 Weather finds them anchoring their sillier musical excesses with solid pop tunes and heartfelt existential concerns. [Jun 2017, p.37]

The songs are all traditional but are given a cool Scandinavian edge. [Mar 2013, p.75]

From Scotland With Love successfully and movingly unites past and present, old and new, sight and sound. Another diamond. [Aug 2014, p.77]

The showpiece is "Blue Remembered Hills," a 20-minute closing epic about 1970s Britian that is part musical theatre, part bittersweet lament.[Jan 2017, p.32]

These smooth edges still cut deep. [Aug 2017, p.38]

Waffles, Triangles & Jesus marks the welcome return of White the singer-songwriter, unpacking reassuringly odd, skewed narratives that offer a surrealist's view of southern life. [Dec 2018, p.26]

The second [disc], using poems and letters from World War I, is almost unbearably poignant at times. [Apr 2019, p.39]

Buoyed by intimate guitar and keyboard riffs that also recall prime Kinks, ballads of hope arise. [May 2020, p.32]

Her latest is more remarkable for its beguiling softness as well as a sometimes woozy feel that befits the contents' absinthe-soaked origins. [Oct 2020, p.36]

A gorgeous melding of taut psychedelics, hazy Americana and a drop of the dreamier fringes of Britpop. [Dec 2020, p.36]

The Bats still trade in sparse, self-effacing indie rock, and retain a talent for wringing the most sumptuous melodies from the most utilitarian of ingredients. [Dec 2020, p.27]

For intimacy and authenticity, less musical architecture often proves better. [Apr 2021, p.35]

Familiar, but still freaky. [Jul 2021, p.34]

Their second studio album of 2021 has its own idiosyncratic mood board: mariachi horns on “The Bell Gets Out Of The Way”, a string section on “High In The Rain”, unsettling séance speak on “Razor Bug”. Triumphant closer “My (Limited) Engagement”, meanwhile, sounds like (yet another) outsider art tour de force for the primary school-turned-lo-fi visionary. Never indifferent, never quite the same. [Dec 2021, p.27]

It's an interesting academic exercise that has resulted in a gently beautiful and coherent recording. [Dec 2021, p.25]

Springtime isn’t some hopeful calling card made inside the industry machine. More infernal than vernal, it’s a document – of the coming together of three old hands and kindred spirits at a time when everything around them (and us) was coming apart. [Jan 2022, p.18]

The effect is kaleidoscopic, as the music constantly moves and morphs to reveal new shapes, colours and meanings. [Jul 2022, p.31]

There’s a seam of pop here that his parent band largely lacked, which fills moments like “You Remind Me” with a warm flush of romance. [Oct 2022, p.29]

The result is quietly dizzying. [Oct 2022, p.25]

The songs about his children risk tipping over into twee, but it's hard to disparage such a warm, consoling record. [Mar 2023, p.25]

Deep and heartbreaking. [May 2023, p.35]

Deeply hermetic then, but catchy as hell, too. [Jul 2023, p.34]

His songs' unruffled, hushed intimacy is an effective tonic. [Aug 2023, p.26]

Large, slow-drifting and majestic masses splinter into smaller sonic units, analogous to the glacial movements that signify environmental change. [Review Of The Year 2023, p.24]

Co-producer Alex Goose injects some hip-hop chink and spaghetti-western vistas into the arrangements, goosing the languid rhythms, and the hooky “Time Will Tell” momentarily quells the heartache. But the hopeful notes recede on the closing barroom ballad “The Fool”, as Frazer runs out of words, leaving melancholy piano notes to signal the encroaching dusk. [Jul 2024, p.32]

With synths foregrounded for their texture and percussion a feature, they’ve shifted orientation without losing their identity. [Nov 2024, p.34]

Agreeably gruff-voiced, world-weary, Yello-ish electro-ballads dominate, but too many lyrics strain for portentous poetic melodrama, accidentally invoking Father Ted’s “My Lovely Horse” instead. [Nov 2024, p.34]