The trio play straighter than fellow pre-Revolver fetishist Ezra Furman, but have the tunes to finesse it. [Aug 2016, p.75]

Ultima II Massage is ostentatiously big and frequently clever. [Jul 2014, p.83]

Royal Headache's second album oscillates between slightly unconvincing punk throwback and much more effective complex numbers. [Oct 2015, p.81]

His folky, cello-soaked songs will appeal to David Gray devotees. [Oct 2003, p.116]

Animal Companionship is a more sombre affair than it initially sounds as Ashworth uses animal love as a lens through which to dissect heartbreak and loss, broken lives and creeping morality. [Nov 2018, p.23]

Alone is filled with tremendous vocal performances. [Dec 2016, p.24]

Recall[s] the tin-pot vigour and gutsy emotional bite of... Guided By Voices. [Mar 2006, p.94]

Road-toned chops and anticipation of desert homecoming combine to evince a mighty set. [Jan 2016, p.81]

This delightfully unlikely collaboration is as much fun to listen to as you suspect it was to make. [Apr 2020, p.26]

The Vacant Lots might be cool but they still like to boogie. [Aug 2020, p.39]

The recording quality isn't the great, but the Family sound like the funkiest, most exhilarating house band you ever heard. [Sep 2025, p.47]

The Sniffers sometimes sound limited by their studiously low-brow, lo-fi aesthetic. Even so, Comfort To Me offers a mostly exhilarating mix of headbanging riffs, profane wit and gutter-punk attitude. [Oct 2021, p.24]

Stamey is at his most persuasive when he keeps its simple. [Jul 2015, p.83]

Kinder Versions offers up a stormy swell of sound that's intermittently compelling even if Mammut's wilder instincts can seem tethered down by plodding rhythms. [Sep 2017, p.32]

His fourth album as Lawrence Arabia cuts the potential sugariness of strings-embellished, '60s-influenced pop with reflective, often bracingly direct lyrics and wry humour, but sensibly, no sardonic edge. [Sep 2016, p.69]

The slow-burn of "Blue" is a soaring mid-set ballad with anthemic qualities showcasing a strong sense of dynamics. That captures the defiant mood, something best heard in opener "My Blood Runs Through This Land" and the churning rage of "understanding". [Mar 2023, p.25]

Most of these frothy confections would sit just as well on any of the band's previous 11 long players. [Aug 2013, p.67]

The irony is that Mature Themes, full of nonsense and wonderful ideas, further cements his reputation as one of the more vital voices of his generation.

When their formula works, like on the Brian-Wilson-joins-Radiohead splendour of "Thousand Thoughts" or the soul-weary, sci-fi lullaby "Blue Faces," they can sound untouchable. The lush, mechanised, bluesy trip-hop of "Driving Nails" and the sub-Underworld shouty gallop of "Stay Tribal" are diverting enough, too. But Archive's blind spot is a fondness for graceless pomp-rock. [Dec 2016, p.23]

With synths foregrounded for their texture and percussion a feature, they’ve shifted orientation without losing their identity. [Nov 2024, p.34]

His fourth solo album is structurally ambitious, obtuse and occasionally brilliant. [Nov 2012, p.83]

Right On! casts its own seductively austere shadow. [Jan 2016, p.77]

Karen's spectral, childlike voice sounds like it's been beamed in from a haunted 19th-century log cabin. [Feb 2020, p.29]

Modern Dancing suggests they're just as smitten with Pavement's affably skronky early works as they are with any '80s touchtones. [Jan 2016, p.81]

They channel their power into free form excursions of an often surprising delicacy. [Jan 2015, p.75]

Unreconstructed but entertaining when they get the balance right. [Feb 2016, p.76]

It's typical of Lamr's artistry that even a comp of offcuts comes formatted and conceptualised. [Jun 2016, p.75]

Slipstream relies on Bonnie;'s voice and slide playing--and, above all, her felicitous ability to pick the right song. [May 2012, p.80]