A serrated synthesis of goth, industrial and synth-pop conducted at a histrionic intensity, 13” Frank Beltrame Italian Stiletto… sometimes feels deliberately difficult. But it is also inspired enough to be worth the effort. [Dec 2024, p.39]

Intriguing, endearing and, given time, surprisingly addictive. [Jun 2005, p.104]

Irresistible examples of Bejar's blend of soft rock, dream-pop and more idiosyncratic elements. [Mar 2020, p.27]

They're back on form, with tow long, lovely drone-outs, buzzing and huffing around an eternal monochord, and "Atropos," a gorgeous, deep, cosmic country comedown. [Nov 2018, p.30]

"Fight The Good fight" and "A Humming Void An Emptied Place" feel like sorrowful hymns, Manuck's plaintive voice swaddled in electronics, but the album's highlight is "Do The Police Embrace?." poetic polemic that recalls Springsteen in its blend of melancholy and uplift. [Jul 2019, p.33]

Laessig and Wolfe show their range on the soaring country soul of "Orange Blossoms" and demonstrate the difference between overwrought emoting and dynamic melodrama on "Final Days". [May 2025, p.33]

Wagner has achieved a fusion of the outgoing, string-driven country-soul heard on 2000's Nixon... and the reluctant intimacy of 2002's low-key Is A Woman. [combined review of both discs; Feb 2004, p. 68]

This one needed longer in the incubator. [Jun 2015, p.81]

Real Life... is a triumphant return to the dancefloor. [Feb 2010, p.90]

Consistently entertaining beautifully recorded, enough lyrical Malkmusing to occupy a generation of decoders, plus it rocks. [Sep 2011, p.92]

Of their own material, "Glory" best captures the ensemble in full flight--fluid rhythms, breakneck percussion and melodic patterns--while the sweeping "Remain" foregrounds McCaslin's expressive sax skills. [Dec 2016, p.32]

Out Of Times sounds slight, so pop-driven that it feels weightless; in '91, it sounded like a triumph, but really it was a herald of triumphs to come. There is, however, something extremely reassuring about the volatility of this album, its out-of-time-ness, which suggests that the music isn't simply confined to the past but thrives in the present. [Dec 2016, p.46]

Unfussy poeticism abounds. [Oct 2020, p.27]

A beautiful record. [Mar 2003, p.100]

Each track comes shrouded in glitchy systems noise and Eno-esque ambient drones. The best moments maintain Howard's way with a melody. [Aug 2018, p.28]

The melodies and brittle guitars burrow into your cerebrum. [Jul 2005, p.106]

It's the sound of a man confronting his own inevitable end with humour and dignity. Let's hope he doesn't move on any time soon. As band OF Joy proves, this particular wellspring is far from dry. [Oct 2010, p.82]

Hard not to admire his audacity as much as his ear for a great drivetime radio riff.

This is music that looks death square in the face and screams back at it, announcing its life. [May 2014, p.69]

Very much a Van Morrison album, and a pretty decent Van Morrison album at that, tapping into that apparently inextinguishable reservoir of muscular yet crotchety blues. [Dec 2019, p.30]

Electric guitars crackle at the edge of the mix like Caribbean lightning, Jay Gonzalez's "Oliver's Army" piano glittering in the gathering storm. "Tough To Go" is from the Memphis sessions. Doom-laden drumbeats, gloomy organ and blasts of wracked guitars punctuate a song about disenchantment, lost opportunities, stacked odds. [Dec 2020, p.32]

Daniel's sumptuous offering provides some brightness in days of darkness. [Feb 2026, p.39]

Distracted may be his most coherent album to date. Less prone to abrupt zigzags than its predecessors, it's his smoothest, too. [May 2026, p.35]

One True Vine is a seamless sequel. [Aug 2013, p.70]

The whole of American Head finds Wayne Coyne and Steven Drozd examining the nature of family, love, death and nostalgia with a sincerity and tenderness that's been missed. [Sep 2020, p.29]

They're not quite as cerebral as Vampire Weekend, but Camera Talk and Cards & Quarters are studded with synapse-snapping shifts in tempo and tone, making this record the place to be as the year ends. [Dec 2009, p.119]

The author's humanistic, heart-first approach, coupled with his songs' compellingly opaque expression and egoless playing makes reliability more rewarding. [Feb 2019, p.22]

She produces a cumulative effect that's both shattering and exhilarating. [Jan 2017, p.31]