This fine collection is actually more enjoyable than the Shjips' second album proper. [Apr 2010, p.109]

Still Woman Enough may be sustained by her memories, but it's not overshadowed by them. [Apr 2021, p.22]

Manners is impressively slick and sparky but probably just a little too toothpaste fresh. [Jun 2009, p.93]

The album’s a gas, a riot, a hoot.

The Besnard Lakes' fourth album doesn't really add anything new to the heady concoction of symphonic shoegaze, doo-wop and spy stories they perfected on 2007's Are The Dark Horse, but it's always a pleasure to hear them work up a storm. [May 2013, p.67]

This power trio makes no attempt whatsoever to hide their stylistic sonic cathedral. [Jan 2014, p.76]

Cohesion, The Men have clearly decided, is not their bag. [Apr 2013, p.73]

Meiburg's troubled tenor is abetted by sinewy arrangements full of the disquiet of that decade. [Mar 2012, p.95]

The musical settings are crisp, spare, folksy, recalling '96's The Doctor Came At Dawn and allowing Callahan to play one of his best roles: a campfire-friendly Leonard Cohen. [Jun 2005, p.97]

The lissom guitars of brothers Dallas and Travis Good still allow for thrilling detours. [Nov 2007, p.121]

By the time the 11-minute whalesong finale "Cease To Know" creeps to its overdue conclusion, the prevailing mood of impeccably tasteful introspection is choking. [May 2010, p.88]

Stomping Eurodisco almost-anthems rub shoulders with crying-on-the-dancefloor confessionals, although the 31-year-old diva's plastic-punkette teen-rebel pose grates at times. [Aug 2010, p.93]

Double Exposure can sometimes come off sounding precious, a bunch of genre studies without that mysterious extra something--this grit ain't turning into a pearl. But when they stretch out, as on "Mandorla At Dawn," The Helix move with loose-limbed grace. [Mar 2014, p.83]

Ganglion Reef configures plenty of their benefactor's favourite modes of garage rock into moderately fresh, often terrific new shapes. [Oct 2014, p.80]

Peace Or Love is their most cohesive album yet. While it’s not a world away from their previous work, the mood is noticeably more stripped-down and melancholic. ... Kings Of Convenience seem to have discovered the purest essence of the music they create. [Aug 2021, p.26]

It all combines to paint a picture of a band entering a distinct new phase. [Jun 2022, p.33]

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.

Mercury Rev's power is undiminished. While never resorting to crude hooks, they build melodies to peaks of graceful intensity. [Album of the Month, Jan 2005, p.114]

Alabama Shakes are scarcely the first ornery yet soulful rock sound to have emerged from northern Alabama, but they're abundantly worthy bearers of the standard. [May 2012, p.73]

The biggest surprise is how rarely this scratch supergroup really swings to its full potential. [Feb 2007, p.68]

Features more of the uncomplicated Californian country-rock fare that was hinted at by the cover of Fleetwood Mac's "Save Me A Place" on last year's Between EP. [Jul 2006, p.116]

Alongside the sexually explicit likes of "Pull My Hair" and "Wait" sit conscious soul and creamy R&B. [Nov 2005, p.94]

The music here should captivate anyone who ever imagined what a Burial remix of Arthur Russell's World Of Echo might resemble. [Feb 2017, p.33]

Girls In Peacetime Want To Dance feels like a creative rebirth for a band who were beginning to feel like nothing more than the day job. [Feb 2015, p.70]

The real leap here, though, is one of songwriting. [Dec 2014, p.77]

The nine-piece evoke America's open spaces in a beautiful bluster of feedback and reverb. [Nov 2017, p.28]

The Connecticut pair's third album taps into the best qualities of alternative music, circa 1988. [Oct 2007, p.99]

Songs Cycled is opaque and entirely accessible. [Jun 2013, p.80]