A joyful noise. [Sep 2018, p.39]

Seldom is the personal married to the political in such an enchanting fashion. [Aug 2015, p.75]

A thematically rich record, heavy on mood and elegantly written in a way that positions Del Rey between Eve Babitz and Carole King. There are beguiling and evolving melodies underneath the spare piano and acoustic arrangements. [Nov 2019, p.24]

This controlled bedlam is just the thing for fans of the similarly explosive, experimental and exploratory sounds of Comets On Fire, Oneida and Black Mountain. [Aug 2005, p.97]

West is far from rap's deftest lyricist but his neurotic grandstanding is compelling and often pretty funny to boot. [Feb 2011, p.84]

There's respect but nothing approaching the sort of suffocating reverence that kills so many covers. [Dec 2018, p.22]

The implausible but winning transformation is complete: Arab Strap have made a genuinely uplifting record. [Dec 2005, p.109]

Bushnell provides that perfect kind of bass you barely notice. Keltner's percussion is a different story. Captured mostly in first or second takes, he doesn't so much keep the beat as respond to what Young is doing, an improvised interplay of odd, shaggy patterns. The record often becomes a duet between Young and Keltner. [Jan 2017, p.20]

It absolutely stands on its own merits, however, as an album replete with the sinister strangeness and bleary whimsy which has characterised Laibach’s best work. [Jun 2022, p.29]

It's a stunning showcase of his emotional, slippery, psychologically fraught production style. [Dec 2014, p.71]

First Demo captures the band's first flush of creativity. [Dec 2014, p.91]

Like much of Kent's work, the mood is melancholy and the focus is on her intricate production. There's plenty to admire in Kent's elegant phrasing, her cello longing and mournful. [Feb 2019, p.27]

Raitt isn't breaking new ground--she's emphatically marking out the turf she's owned for 45 years. [Mar 2016, p.78]

This is all very impressive stuff. [Feb 2015, p.80]

Richly textured music. [Apr 2020, p.35]

Multi-instrumentalist Joe Pisapia, produced much of Easy Wonderful, which is distinguished by impeccably crafted contours, sharp lyrics, buoyant grooves and swelling choruses. [Nov 2010, p.90]

Newman is at his most affecting when he plays it mercilessly straight: his flickers of sincerity all the more beguiling for only appearing rarely.

McCauley's time might just have arrived.

As ever, Simon's work is a strange mix of easy and uneasy listening--it's balm, but it leaves an itch. [May 2011, p.74]

At its most ascetic, Fog sees Broder kicking down the same fence post of convention as Tortoise, the Beta Band and latter-day Radiohead. [Mar 2002, p.111]

Their fourth album is a quietly audacious work, careful but not cautious, an expansive blend of woozy country, skewed folk and cracked torch songs. [Aug 2018, p.30]

None of the best tracks here would have sounded out of place on Old 97s' mid-'90s classics "wreck Your Life" and "Too Far To Care." This consistency feels, by now, like confirmation of the purity of Old 97s' original vision. [Oct 2020, p.34]

It's a compelling psychological study set to lovely tunes. [Jul 2003, p.114]

These songs achieve something like topicality, sounding all the more invigorated and just plain fun for having one foot in the past and the other in an uncertain present. [Aug 2016, p.68]

Here you'll find the French cool of Ruth's "Polaroid/Roman/Photo," the glacial "Romantic" by Sweden's Cosmic Overdose as well as the gorgeous minimalism of "NY NY" by Dutch musician Truus De Groot. [Sep 2017, p.52]

[Happy People] is a cunning, crackling, can't-keep-still classic. [Nov 2004, p.120]

No one can actually improve on the perfection of "Wichita Lineman," but the version of "Rhinestone Cowboy" included here, stripped down to grunge guitar and a Willie Nelson-esque vocal, is bold and definitive. [Aug 2013, p.68]

The added zip only serves to spotlight her stark, moody delivery. [Mar 2007, p.98]