A heavy trip indeed. [Apr 2015, p.71]

This is by some way their most fully developed and experimental set to date. [Jul 2020, p.30]

Her fourth album's dramatically sparser, its unconventional structures recalling Julia Holter. ... She's most compelling on "This Time," whose haunted spaces are gradually filled with flickering keyboards and ebow guitar. [Oct 2021, p.31]

"Ready To RUn" and "Nobody Knows" are particular highlights, and "Wild Horses II" joins their own immortal "Emmylou" in the top tier of country songs about country music. [Dec 2022, p.26]

Another Szunny delight. [Oct 2018, p.34]

A Bridge To Far finds Midlake refining what they do best. [Dec 2025, p.30]

It's a warm, beguiling set that tips its hat to roots music interpreters as disparate as Hoyt Axton, Fairport Convention, Dolly Parton, The Byrds and Bobbie Gentry, wile also tapping Cajun fiddle music and the work of Ralph Mooney. [Nov 2019, p.23]

Leaving New York for Sweden during the pandemic gave fresh perspective to these songs of past American odysseys and accumulated loss. [May 2023, p.36]

The Repulsion Box ushers in a strikingly individual talent. [Jul 2005, p.89]

{A] far superior effort [than Rebirth]. [Feb 2011, p.84]

A pleasant surprise: engaging, exciting, and a much better album than most bands can muster after 25 years together. [Nov 2005, p.106]

[Drummer Dave Lombardo's] return hasn't complicated Slayer's brutal, single-minded aesthetic, but it has stoked the hellfire that merely sputtered on God Hates Us All. [Sep 2006, p.97]

This Liverpool duo’s debut full-length occupies a brooding space somewhere between Mazzy Star and overlooked early-’90s slowcore heavyweights Idaho. [May 2022, p.29]

In a field of her own. [Feb 2016, p.79]

The album is a powerful exploration of faith, with Young circling his own mortality.

This deluxe set showcases the vital rush and wildness that Stinson brought to the band for the last time. [Nov 2023, p.36]

A tantalising exploration of modern-day kosmische. Seemingly liberated by technology, these two fiftysomething blokes conjure the kind of utopian panoplies dreamt up by Harald Grosskopf and Neu! on the 24-minute “A Yellow Robe”, a swirling, burbling journey that also nods to recent experiments by Roman Flügel and Peder Mannerfelt. [Sep 2022, p.27]

Patty Griffin reached something of an artistic peak with 2015's Servant Of Love, a record that distilled her love of American folk, blues and country into an intimate song cycle with a powerful emotional pull. Its follow-up is no less personal, perhaps even more so. [Apr 2019, p.28]

A gorgeous confection. [Mar 2015, p.77]

This is best thought of as ‘country soul’. Isbell’s words, in style and content, are old-school tears-in-the-beer laments, deftly lightened by exquisite deadpan payoffs.

It’s a wonderful surprise that Further Complications turns out to be such a reinvigorated piece of work. Much of this freshness must be down to the working methods of producer Steve Albini.

Blackshaw creates multiple orchestral effects with his instrument alone, each strum resounding like multiple windchimes. [Aug 2009, p.87]

Birch's approach is intimate and dreamy. [Aug 2025, p.28]

A terrific package. [Jul 2012, p.71]

Arab Strap songs mostly have a strong, vinegary flavour, and this is abracingly sour album over the long haul. The relentless misanthropic grind can drag in places. But as ever, Moffat’s withering scorn is sweetened by beautiful poetry, tender emotion and self-aware, bruise-black humour. [May 2024, p.36]

At times it's almost unbearably candid, an unflinching examination of his devotion both to homestead and to God. [Jul 2004, p.112]

Exhaustive in the best way possible, emphasising the logistical nightmares of hosting such a big event but also putting listeners right there in the stadium. [Apr 2023, p.41]

Nothing like previous portentous epics. This reissue comes with a bunch of interesting outtakes. [Dec 2020, p.47]