The playing is as eloquent as ever, dextrous but never overtly showy, while Richard Wats' voice delivers a pleasingly plaintive yearn. [Jun 2025, p.41]

They lurch with satisfying abandon through funereal Slint-like post-rock to unashamedly slovenly pixies-ish riffs to splenetic blasts of screaming hardcore and staccato math-rock scrapes, as Zak Bowker intermittently makes his strangled screams heard above the maelstrom. [Jun 2025, p.41]

Real-life challenges also inform fromtman John Pelant's plaintive delivery of lyrics such as "Hold On To Tonight", mourning late loved ones, and "Ring My Bell"'s plea for emotional connection. [Sep 2025, p.37]

Short and sweet, with an alluringly timeless analogue feel. [Oct 2025, p.32]

"Time" hits hardest, a righteous prayer riding on Stax brass and gospel harmonies toward safe harbour. [Oct 2025, p.28]

Hopefully, no one other than Eno and Wolfe will use the term "nong" (non-song) to describe this bridge between the Summer's ambient Lateral and song-based Luminal. Nonetheless, these 11 songs occupy that space successfully, whether Wolfe's voice is filling out Eno's eerie soundscapes as a textural but poetic component ("Little Boy") or mere embellishment (the slow-motion "Flower Women"), or conjuring Julee Cruise ("Part Of Us"). [Dec 2025, p.30]

The greatest pleasure of its four eloquent tracks comes from the way the duo hint at narrative, delicately suturing disparate sounds to build a complex electro-acoustic suite. [Oct 2025, p.29]

Chrissie Hynde's worldly ache elevates any lyric, here drawing worthy partners for a set of duets. Spare arrangements coloured by organ and pedal steel mid-tempo, statically framing the singers. [Dec 2025, p.31]

The Cribs' wild, unfinished edge is elsewhere polished by producer Patrick Wimberly (MGMT, Solange) in a lyrically rueful but musically soaring record. [Feb 2025, p.27]

The Dreamin' Kind is far more persuasive when it allows room for his more nuanced tendencies. [Jan 2026, p.30]

The scratchy lo-fi production doubles its mystery, resulting in an album of sensual pleasures and magical power. [Mar 2013, p.77]

A tough job hitting both funny and funky bone at once, but they mostly pull it off. [Apr 2005, p.102]

A confident reiteration of this singular group's virtues. [Mar 2021, p.38]

The pill is somewhat sweetened by Braids' glossy new sound, a feelgood revamp that pairs swooning electronics with upfront drum'n'bass and will do some damage at large outdoor events. [Jun 2015, p.72]

This is an album that twitchily turns away from a pat genre tag. [May 2014, p.81]

Moonshine Freeze is an impressive conduit for their upward trajectory. [Aug 2017, p.36]

Gravenhurst prove that kicking arse is neither beneath nor beyond them. [Oct 2007, p.93]

More than standing as a document of a particular time and place, it makes not having been there feel like a real loss. [Jan 2014, p.68]

Death Peak takes you on a journey of sorts. [Jun 2017, p.26]

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

At times it resembles a dream playlist from some forgotten '70s FM station. [Jul 2005, p.94]

Effectively embracing the entire history of the band's sound, the album sprawls over an hour, and has so many peaks and valleys it's practically topographical. [Apr 2005, p.98]

Matangi is her most exhilarating and mulch-faceted album. [Jan 2014, p.75]

Costello... sing[s] with the enthusiasm and fun of a true fan. [Jul 2006, p.110]

Arcade Fire producer Craig Silvey and a slick session band sculpt an impressively spacey sound, but LaVere's self-conscious, bored voice strangles everything at birth. [Aug 2011, p.93]

It's exasperating at first, but the rewards are there for the dedicate dreamer. [Apr 2015, p.77]

The Riptide glides by satisfyingly. [Sep 2011, p.83]

Kate NV's urge to pixelate manically - see recent album Wow - is reined in by ex-dirty Projector Deradoorian's cool krautrocking. [Sep 2023, p.24]