It's business as usual, but a welcome return nonetheless. [Nov 2018, p.32]

"Don't Pretend You Didn't Know" is a one-off messing with their recipe, still as compelling a mix of hardcore, jangle-pop, country and speed-metal as it was 25 years ago. [Oct 2012, p.77]

It's an album, like most teenagers, that is sometimes awkward and exhausting, but also joyous, un-jaded, and bursting at the seams with promise. [Apr 2006, p.114]

The results have a clinical, cerebral appeal, but--perhaps predictably--sometimes fail to deliver instinctive musical kicks. [Mar 2007, p.100]

The scuzzy arrangements ate trickier and less cute, while the lyrics fester with hard experience. [Feb 2010, p.104]

The album could sometimes benefit from a shift in pace from its often locked-in, mid-tempo state. [Jun 2018, p.35]

It's those who deviate furthest from Fela's template who reap the greatest rewards. [Dec 2013, p.71]

Lost On The River is an album of good, sometimes excellent songs with a unique creation story which, in the end, adds little substance to the narrative of perhaps the most mythologised recordings in musical history. As footnotes go, however, it's an entertaining, energised and often fascinating one. [Dec 2014, p.64]

While the sugary highs could give Van Dyke Parks an ice cream headache, it's hard to resist a work so clearly besotted with the power of music. [Oct 2015, p.78]

Beginners is sweet and sorrowful with a writerly eye. [Sep 2020, p.31]

Their mission sounds increasingly convincing. [May 2007, p.87]

Hushed and humble, it's dominated by her Stina Nordenstam vocal style. [Jul 2019, p.30]

Youth Novels attampts to repeat the trick [the single 'Little Bit'] 13 more times, with varying degrees of sucess. [July 2008, p.103]

The suspicion remains, though that heavy cosmic rock is probably the best vehicle for his apocalyptic romances. [Jun 2009, p.99]

Brakes sound like The Jesus & Mary Chain with Tourette's. [Aug 2005, p.102]

In places it's impressively monolithic. [Feb 2011, p.82]

A newly acquired taste for Gilbert O'Sullivan-style upright piano puts the accent on cheeky fun on his ninth solo album. [Dec 2013, p.66]

As with their prime influence PJ Harvey, they explore much beyond. [Feb 2014, p.80]

Everything flows and nothing jars, but Craft's soft voice and often orthodox songcraft makes Blood Moon merely pretty rather than stunning. [Jul 2016, p.73]

With only three of the eight songs clocking in at under five minutes, things can get a little ponderous, but clearly, our expectations are of little concern. [Aug 2019, p.29]

If you want epic, check out the eight-minute sprawl of 'Mary Is Mary.' For a bit more raw noise terror, try the speed-rush of 'Tattoo.' [Nov 2009, p.117]

The first µ-Ziq album in six years feels largely insulated from modern tends, with occasional contemporary touches leaking in. [Aug 2013, p.73]

The reassuringly lo-fi results might not be drastically different to UMO's previous three records, but the execution is certainly impressive. [May 2018, p.37]

Once again ably embracing a broad range, from the knelling, Marty Robbins-ish "Death Of Bill Bailey" to the string-drenched Billy Sherrill-style ballad "This Crazy Life" to "Jamestown Ferry". [Apr 2025, p.28]

She is in her Hot Gossip element on the camp, gasping electro of "Sauna", while the Morricone-referencing "Ride" channels Sheila B Devotion by way of early-'90s Madonna and the title track is sheer seduction in silk pyjamas. [Jun 2026, p.35]

There's a kind of redemptive comfort even in the album's bleakest moments. [Sep 2006, p.91]

Forever Turned Around hovers in a midrange that's objectively nice, but lacks the vigour required of something memorable. [Oct 2019, p.39]

Fusing dub, psychedelic funk, prog, art rock and roots reggae with their native mbaqanga and township blues, they've fashioned a fresh (Afro) funky debut, politicized not sollely by colour, but also by their genre-bending vision. [Dec 2009, p. 87]