Son Volt have discovered a new sense of ambition, even abandon, on The Search. [May 2007, p.104]

It's U2 reconnecting with first principles, all big choruses and defiant optimism, and is confidently glorious. [Jun 2026, p.35]

This carefully recorded and intimate performance captures their cool command of Texas rock'n'roll better than most. [Sep 2022, p.32]

An unusually poetic songwriter revelling in his proximity to nature. [Jan 2012, p.88]

This seven-track beauty marries the bucolic indie-pop of Woods with Dungen's Scandi Drone. [May 2018, p.37]

Some fans just seemed to hate it [1979's At Budokan] very, very much. .... But listening to this expanded edition - featuring the two full concerts from which the original was compiled - the reaction is, "What's the problem?" Dylan sings his heart out. [Review of the Year 2023, p.40]

Mix[es] up The Bends and OK Computer with a pinch of late Fugazi and Talk Talk. [May 2019, p.37]

For all the ideas and juxtapositions that illuminate these songs, none feel jarring or tokenistic. [Apr 2015, p.79]

Gorgeously warm, forlorn and wounded. [Mar 2004, p.95]

That it so compellingly rescues a cache of unforgettable songs and signals the unlikeliest of artistic revivals, must rank it among rock's most trascendent tales. [Jul 2010, p.109]

This is mature work. It's confident in what it is--and as seems likely, what it will turn into next. [Sep 2018, p.27]

As a standalone soundtrack Evil Does Not Exist is a fine addition to Ishibashi’s singular work – the mood is darker and eerier than her fêted Drive My Car, but it’s the stronger album nonetheless. [Jul 2024, p.33]

An album as heartfelt as it is musically and thematically ambitious. [Jul 2012, p.67]

Yes, it's true--this is a great record. [Sep 2013, p.94]

The sheer length and repetitions make end-to-end listening of these six sides something for the dedicated, but as a tribute to a still-missed talent, it testifies.

Seed Of A Seed is simultaneously more confident and more jittery than its predecessor, as though absolute candor was her ultimate musical ambition: the more uncertain she is about something, the more certain she is that she wants to sing about it. [Review of the Year 2024, p.28]

Baxter's brilliance is varied. [Dec 2014, p.75]

It is, by any measure, a quiet revolution.

Amped to an industrial sheen by producer Youth and packed with stripped-back stadium choruses, Born Into This rips from the speakers like an irate Velvet Revolver, Billy Duffy’s relentless axe-hero riffing matched by Astbury’s typically waspish lyrics.

The deliciously tense opener, “Make Worry For Me”, proves their close chemistry persists, but it’s the quieter, more solemn back half of this long album – in particular the delicate “You Can Regret What You Have Done” – that fi nds them leaning on each other like best unbeaten brothers. [May 2021, p.32]

We Have You Surrounded has more variety than 2003's excellent "Dangerous Magical Noise." [May 2008, p.94]

These three sprawling tracks were recorded in the pair's Bushwick apartment, but boast both breadth and startling virtuosity, sparkling guitar-drums jams blown wide with reverb. [May 2017, p.40]

This second collection consistently zips along, taking in one exceptional single and a clutch of songs that mostly resemble overdriven outtakes from Liberty Belle And The Black Diamond Express (high praise). [May 2017, p.37]

Courtney Barnett has managed to expand her lyrical preoccupations and musical interests outwards and upwards, while still retaining the magic of her past peak. [Apr 2015, p.68]

The band’s decampment to Berlin to record has resulted in a concise statement of renewed interest, resulting in a debate between life expectancy and boredom, and a brief mutation into Roxy Music.

The quintet's transformation from schlocky garage urchins to ambassadors of thrilling new-wave can largely be attributed to Portishead's Geoff Barrow, who, alongside Chris Cunningham, produced "Primary Colours," uncovering a formidable band beneath the haircuts. [Jun 2009, p.86]

It's a head-turning mix, a sort of pop-art take on Southern gothic, and highly infectious. [Jul 2016, p.73]

The music is pure old-time country though, their pressed-linen harmonies already hailed by Exec Producer T Bone Burnett--on whose label this mostly covers record is released--as among the purest he's ever heard. [Mar 2011, p.92]