Bovell's take doesn't suggest new approaches, so much as reinforce and highlight what was already there. [Dec 2021, p.45]

Tracks such as "Dragon Bones" and "Joan Of Arc" have bigger, stickier hooks than anything he's written since "Sheila." [Oct 2016, p.39]

This is his conscious attempt to inject a sense of urgency probably not heard on a Bad Seeds album since 1994's Let Love In. [Mar 2003, p.96]

It's an assured and heartfelt work built carefully around McMorrow's falsetto vocals. [Oct 2016, p.35]

The best of Faith In The Future is among the best of Finn. [Oct 2015, p.75]

Bell's racked howl brings a hardcore intensity to it all, but there's bags of melodic nous just below the scorched surface. [Sep 2014, p.81]

The shuffling piano and accented horns coalesce in the simple wishes of "Dreamin'," while "Ancient Past" finds Parker, toying with time and memory, savouring every moment. [Nov 2018, p.34]

Here he bends the two impulses on a dark, pulsating album that sits alongside other neo-industrial work from Raime and the Haxan Cloak. [Dec 2013, p.74]

Producer Adrian Sherwood now completes the picture with this sound-system-style refashioning, breaking tracks open, resetting them in eerie dubscapes. [Oct 2022, p.25]

The washed out pastel shades and electronic frills on the likes of "Doctor M" and "Cross Off" help ensure that any latent familiarity with Johnson's influences is outweighed by reverberant production reminiscent of Broadcast's spooky psychedelia. [May 2015, p.73]

Simultaneously stupid and very smart. [Jul 2018, p.30]

If it's a little too impressionistic to last the 17-track distance, then Freetown Sound still seduces. [Aug 2016, p.73]

"Time Moves Slow" is gorgeous Muscle Shoals soul with a killer turn from Future Islands' Samuel T Herring, while "In Your Eyes" with Charlotte Day Wilson is lush orch jazz with shades of David Axelrod. [Aug 2016, p.71]

Producer Aaron Dessner’s quick working pace and embrace of imperfection have helped deliver a rawer set of songs written when Atwell was weaning herself off antidepressants and feared feeling’s return. [Jun 2024, p.29]

Despite the occasional lapse into polished AOR, this is another classy, sassy step forward from a restlessly inventive pair. [Oct 2016, p.39]

Knowingly nostalgic and highly polished, this rich debut contains retro-cool references but also chunky pop hooks. [Oct 2013, p.63]

While their pristine sound lacks grit, in lyrical terms the troubled "Lies" and "The Mother We Share" show the Chvrches are blessed with hidden depths. [Oct 2013, p.64]

Fuzz and reverb are everywhere, but The Soft Pack are also refreshingly unafraid of the sax solo. [Nov 2012, p.81]

The crystalline sweetness of Jones' voice belies the dark melancholy that underpins songs such as "Sad Kid" and "Nobody Dies." [Jan 2015, p.78]

A stripped-down production adds intimacy, though Hersh's voice isn't quite as strong as it once was. [Dec 2013, p.74]

This impressively diverse and full-bodied debut by 22-year-old Parisian producer Jeremy Guindo is a heartening advert for electronic dance music's blissful spirit of perpetual self-renewal. [Jan 2013, p.71]

What A Terrible World continues to sharpen the band's sound. [Feb 2015, p.81]

There us ab agreeably lo-fi C86 sloppiness to much f this debut, even if it sounds more cheap than raw in places. [Feb 2014, p.81]

All 10 tracks on his solo debut album are effectively reiterations of the same song, but it's a terrific one. [May 2016, p.79]

Deborah Harry's voice has rarely sounded better, perhaps energised by material worthy to stand alongside the group's brightest back pages. [Jun 2017, p.24]

Talkin To The Trees finds Young largely preoccupied with matters closer to home. “Family Life” begins as an open-hearted acoustic address to his children – until a jarring reference to his grandchildren, “who I can’t see”. He follows this with “Dark Mirage”, a glowering ball of knotted noise. .... The mood shifts with “First Fire Of Winter”, a hymn to domestic happiness in Colorado with Daryl Hannah and the first of three gorgeous country tracks on the album. [Jul 2025, p.28]

Field recordings, ASMR, personal effects and various metals combine to conjure some magical moments. [Jul 2025, p.31]

Well-annotated five-disc boxset. ... The collection does include a fair bit of drearily competent pub blues, but even here there are some glorious moments. [Jul 2019, p.48]