The heavy-lidded atmosphere grows stifling on Warpaint, a codeine fog muddled by synthy tricks from the arsenal of producers Flood & Alan Moulder. [Feb 2014, p.83]

Straddling past and present, this is Red River Dialect's most sunny and easygoing record to date. [Nov 2019, p.30]

The band's blend of psychedelia and angular guitar menace is invigorating. [Jan 2006, p.112]

There's plenty to fall for here, but the anguished, bongo-driven 'Love All Of' is especially irresitable. [Feb 2009, p.93]

Their take on electric jazz can seem airless: the sax leads are worthy but venture nowhere near the outer limits chartered by Ayler and Coltrane. [Mar 2011, p.93]

Even if you can't understand the radical message, you can at least revel in the kind of freewheeling summer backpacking soundtrack at which Chao excels. [Jul 2011, p.94]

He still produces beautiful albums of impeccable tone and fine songs. [Dec 2011, p.96]

These 13 examples can get annoying when they stray into willful atonality, but really hit the spot when he lingers on simple themes. [Mar 2012, p.81]

It works well enough that when "Falling Away" pastes on some broiling guitar feedback, it sounds almost superfluous. [Apr 2012, p.77]

Bjork and Joanna Newsom are unavoidable reference pints for her hiccuping poetic whimsy. [Aug 2012, p.79]

Konkoma's sound is rooted in 1970s Afrobeat, complete with blasting horn section and gloriously fuzzy organ, but shot through with touches of highlife, funk and rock. [Aug 2012, p.75]

A delicate, moving album. [Mar 2013, p.80]

Howe doubles as the "link" drummer for Amorphous Androgynous and his authentic beats bring the requisite darkness to Shadow. [Jun 2014, p.79]

No Sad Songs is close to their masterpiece, each song lovingly rendered, drenched in harmonic rainfall, corralled with sympathetic, gentle arrangements, each song poetic. [May 2015, p.76]

As enchanting as it is, Moon Saloon can inevitably feel overstuffed, such that Adams may best succeed in the album's least ornate moments. [Sep 2016, p.69]

There is a minimalist anti-folk vibe to Dermody's songs. [Nov 2016, p.37]

The playing is empathetic throughout. [Oct 2016, p.39]

Sounding as hale and hearty as they did on last year's The Machine Stops, the rejuvenated band attain the same state of cosmic ragged glory several more times on Into The Woods. [Jun 2017, p.30]

It's moodily compelling, rather than electrifying. [Jul 2017, p.39]

Adams has come up with a captivating set of "sound Paintings" that eschew rock dynamics in favour of slowly shifting abstract patterns in which his guitar is filtered through a polychromatic prism of Tinariwen grooves, Steve Reich pulses, gnawa trance rhythms and droning raga loops. [Aug 2017, p.23]

With Pop Makossa, the music's backbone is exposed--the complexity of the genre, bringing together multiple national musics alongside Congolese rumba, highlife, and later, funk and disco, leads to singularly compelling long-form grooves. [Aug 2017, p.51]

As is the case with his band's startling fusions of space rock, doomy metal and motorik grooves on its four albums, there are many surprising developments here too. [Jan 2018, p.23]

Ackamoor's vision of fusing free-jazz blowing, African tribal grooves and spiritual black-consciousness musings remains unwavering. [Jun 2018, p.23]

Leonard has whipped another rabbit out of his hat. The surprise is that it's his most conventional release yet. [Dec 2018, p.27]

Simultaneously her most formally experimental and melodically palatable yet. [Jan 2019, p.25]

Who Can See Forever stands up fine as a live album in its own right. [Review of the Year 2023, p.29]

His guitar and bass playing are rather more agricultural than his rhythm-keeping but this all adds to the character of his freestyle philosophising. [Jul 2024, p.39]

Ballads Of Harry Houdini brandishes a sharper focus than many of its predecessors, with “Barfighter” and “Devil Tongue” bristling with tension and those signature guitar lines that move like wreaths of smoke. [Review of the Year 2024, p.34]