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]

Mostly, this is spry, melodic, and totally charming. [Aug 2012, p.79]

Long In The Tooth, his first full set of secular studio originals since 2005's The Real Deal, has it share [of gems]. [Sep 2014, p.70]

Beneath their limpid surfaces, Mark "E" Everett's songs are volatile dollops of emotional explosive. [Mar 2006, p.98]

Bugg's references are strictly retro, but his debut boasts a pleasing absence of stodge. [Nov 2012, p.71]

Aged 91, Nelson brings gravitas to any lyric, the more world-weary or wistful the better, and these covers fit him like a glove. [Dec 2024, p.36]

Her strident approach to country means she excels at rockabilly-flavoured tunes. [Dec 2013, p.71]

They're bummed to learn that adulthood breeds more angst than adolescence, which inspires a sharp-edged '70s hard rock, with songs celebrating kink and demanding equal pay and full-body autonomy on "Big Trouble". [Sep 2023, p.23]

Damned Devotion is her fifth album, and feels like a kind of reckoning, a taking stock, and a work of renewed focus. If 2014's The Classic was a high-concept exercise in soul pastiche, here she returns to her core territory, forensically charting the human heart, tracking the course of midlife love, lust and loss. [Mar 2018, p.20]

Palme finds Arnalds staking a strong claim to territory as uniquely precious as Dory Previn's. [Oct 2014, p.67]

The result: Meiburg's finest album to date. [Feb 2016, p.80]

The Black Keys are on the cusp of greatness--Attack and Release, produced by Danger Mouse, takes them one step closer, but not quite over the edge.

While Pearlies often invites comparisons with music by Lush’s many dream-pop descendants – “The Presence” and “Tonight Is Mine” being just two songs here that Beach House will wish they’d crafted – Anderson continually finds intriguing ways of deviating from those templates. In so doing, she’s able to nudge the guitar pedals aside and demonstrate that her music still has other places to go.

Increasingly straight, maybe, but Wooden Wand still possess a magic touch. [Mar 2013, p.79]

It’s earthy and it’s eloquent--no doubt Willie will approve.

The result is an album that bursts with life and invention. [Apr 2011, p.89]

Cacophonous, chaitic, and a lot of fun. [Apr 2010, p.83]

Flitting from sublime to the ridiculous, from the personal to the universal, and from a time before people to a time long after them, it's a mess, but a glorious one all the same. [Nov 2020, p.30]

As a whole, the record is a persuasive parcel of slick Americana with just enough redneck grit in the oyster. [Mar 2023, p.26]

Fans of Steve Reich - an admirer of Perich's 2009 1-Bit Symphony, whose release required listeners to plug headphones into a CD case - will revel in his latest, as will those who've tired of "New Classical's" limited palette. [Jan 2021, p.31]

The band sounds re-energised by an idea of the city, the marketplace, pop ambition. [May 2005, p.102]

The band's creativity, imagination and power remain undimmed. [Jun 2023, p.29]

They're both incredibly deft players, executing taut riffs with obvious charisma. [May 2023, p.35]

Even without the backstory or an understanding of how difficult this record was to make, …Frankenstein is a skilful portrait of what it means to feel disconnected from the joy and urgency of life.

Shelley deliver[s] his best songs in years. [Apr 2006, p.96]

While the lyrics largely deal in anguish and dissolution, Bachmann's settings switch between exhilarating noise ("Cold Waves" featuring Superchunk's Mac McCaughan), grand synth-pop ("Hospital") and quasi-orchestral soul ballad (the sweeping "(I'm Your) Bodhisattva"). [Mar 2026, p.29]

Righteous and blissful. [Apr 2026, p.33]

It's as powerful as it is invigorating. [Nov 2013, p.67]