While his lyrics crackle, the music seems like an afterthought. [Dec 2011, p.84]

A strikingly confident record. [Feb 2016, p.74]

However eccentric and laidback his expression, it's as masterfully distinctive as that of any auteur. [Nov 2018, p.35]

Laugh Track features a band free of some of their usual burden. [Dec 2023, p.34]

American Saturday Night has its fair share of hokum but proves that Paisley has a tough baritone voice and is a mean, bluesy guitarist. [Aug 2010, p.92]

A scene of glorious, twilit devastation. [Oct 2012, p.75]

Their slickest album yet. [Oct 2015, p.76]

[The Silver Gymnasium is] the sincerest, most heartfelt album they've yet assembled, and it's all the more powerful for it. [Oct 2013, p.60]

While he's got enough pure country in him to for convincing Merle Haggard-style balladry, he's best on rabble-rousers like the rightly pissed populism of "Stomp And Holler" and the de facto title song, a doomed soldier's outrageous, funny surreal travelogue grafted onto a grungy mutation of Dylan's "Subterranean Homesick Blues." [Mar 2011, p.85]

This, then, is a rich and strange new sound for Marshall. [Oct 2012, p.85]

This is one old timer who's still in his prime. [Aug 2014, p.72]

Escape From Evil is a record about grief, and at times hits hard. [May 2015, p.76]

Ultimately the notion lingers that Wax Stag's gentle fantasy is more Bedford than Balaeric. [Apr 2015, p.84]

Hackney Diamonds strains at the leash to show just how vital and dynamic the tones still are, with Jagger very much in pole position. .... Reborn again, the Stones kick back and celebrate. [Dec 2023, p.20]

If nothing else, [his] accountant will be pleased with Maths & English's broad appeal. [Jul 2007, p.99]

Now reissued and remastered, those principals are still sound: classic riffs and also more toothsome and unswinging structures, what ch are nice, especially when they stop. [Apr 2011, p.94]

While the singles "Until The Fire" and "The Animals" are satisfyingly sleek and sinister, Lady tron seem most energised when they head deep into the darkness in the starkly Numan-ist "Paper Highways" and "Deadzone." [Mar 2019, p.29]

[Seb Rochford] delivers Bear's most varied set to date. [Apr 2014, p.80]

If the acoustic backdrop sometime slacks texture, there are no such qualms with the songwriting that demonstrates a novelist's eye for detail. [Jun 2014, p.83]

These are great, clever, slovenly rock songs. [May 2005, p.95]

Joe Henry coaxes out his pithy, hard-bitten wisdom with unfussy production. [Oct 2008, p.98]

If Better Oblivion Community Center has a recurring flaw, it's a reluctance to hit these higher gears more often, the best of BOCC, however, both earns its place in Oberst's already formidable canon, and further confirms Bridgers as an artist likely to assemble one. [Apr 2019, p.37]

Roots Manua's particularly thrilling on the poignant urgent "A Caged Bird," but while "Lessons" suggest the warm post-jazz realms of Tortoise could have explored post TNT, no-one else combines dignified grandeur and soulful romance so effectively. [Apr 2019, p.26]

This English-language version is a beautiful thing. [Dec 2013, p.63]

Every moment shimmers with atmosphere, as the rippling melodies and contoured choruses enclose Payseur's knotty ruminations in sun-dappled serenity. [Jul 2023, p.23]

Sisterworld is an impressive record which lurches menacingly between euphoria and tranquility. [Mar 2010, p.89]

It's a rich, invigorating and mischievous affair and, for older fans, possibly their best since 2004's The Dirty South. [Mar 2011, p.87]

It's the change of pace and mood on the reflective "How Far" that marks Run Around The Sun as a real advance. [Jul 2019, p.34]