Be Strong is warm and easy comfort food for recessionary midlife ravers. [Feb 2012, p.90]

The album is drenched in Hawaiian guitar and wah-wah, making the title perfectly apt. [May 2012, p.67]

It has its Mr. Fox-y moments but this feels like a minor clanger. [May 2012, p.83]

Utterly self-contained, 10cc's collision of Brill Building Craft, Beatles hooks and proggish daring still sounds, for the most part at least, curiously modern. [Jan 2013, p.89]

The partners deftly sustain a mood of languor through a dozen tracks of varying tone and texture. [Apr 2013, p.67]

At times the pace crawls, but James' supple, intimate vocals are engaging, and the sonic palette shimmers inventively. [Mar 2013, p.73]

[An] intense and atmospheric instrumental debut. [Sep 2013, p.92]

Evans' descendent Gruff Rhys has immortalised his journey with a saga in documentary, book, app and CD form. Rhys has a talent for presenting such material with the right mix of pathos and play. [Jun 2014, p.82]

A triumph. [Oct 2014, p.77]

Gelb's semi-surreal observations lace things together. [Jun 2015, p.77]

This invigorating swansong by the Anglo-Italian duo finds Sam Willis and Alessio Natalizia bowing out at the peak of their powers. [May 2015, p.84]

Young In All The Wrong Ways may be Watkins' third solo album, but it feels and sounds like her first, reintroducing her as a writer/artist of uncommon eloquence and consequence. [Aug 2016, p.70]

It's a dense, courageous storm of an album, revved-up and snarling. [Jul 2016, p.73]

Peyroux's smoky, Holiday-esque voice has seldom sounded finer as the trio's jazzy ambience is lent a wonderful natural reverb by the vaulting acoustics. [Nov 2016, p.35]

[The] now East Memphis-based artist comes off as an eloquent country/folk songsmith. [Feb 2017, p.26]

Despite its heady beauty, a gloomy fatefulness also shapes this set. [Mar 2017, p.30]

Its four sides teem with microbial incident, particularly in the dense thicket of percussion from Tony Buck that undergrids the album. [Mar 2017, p.35]

Not so much a fusion as a cross-cultural collision. [May 2017, p.40]

It comprise four lengthy tracks, from the wood-wind-assisted Led Zep-sized rocker "This One's For The Human" to the one chord motorik Krautrock of "The Visitations." Best of all is "The Moon IS Not Your Friend," in which a McCartney-styled guilty pleasure is bookended by terrifying space-age FX. [Jan 2018, p.17]

This second album tips a stetson to the neglected Western heritage of his native country, from the stark beauty of "Saskatchewan In 1881" to the deliciously luminous cover of Wilf Carter's "Calgary Round-Up." [Nov 2018, p.37]

[The union] is clearly well-judged. [Feb 2019, p.37]

Sympathetic rock collaborators have written fine new Mavis albums in her spirit, and her gigs are exhilarating revival meetings for her friend Martin Luther King's mission. Focusing on those new songs, these 79th-birthday recordings don't quite capture that fervour. [Mar 2019, p. 34]

[Susan] Tedeschi breaks free from those Bonnie Raitt comparisons that have long dogged her. [Apr 2019, p.39]

Finn remains an astute and supremely compassionate songwriter, but musically, New War is often mellow to the point of lethargic. It's best when it showcases his deep eccentricities. [May 2019, p.27]

A lusty, witty, charismatic racket. [Jul 2019, p.30]

If Psychedelic Pill was among his longest, strangest trips, Colorado has more rustic charms--Harvest Moon or Prairie Wind, but hopped up on guitars. [Nov 2019, p.16]

He has risen to the occasion with an album full of the necessary girth and scope, which doesn't succumb to the forces of inertia. [Mar 2020, p.18]

The heart-tugging moments play to that devastatingly effective Appalachian-style yodel in Bulat's voice. [May 2020, p.25]