A potential Urban Outfitters house band, yes, but very far from just brainless cool. [Sep 2013, p.87]

A bit of a triumph. [Dec 2017, p.27]

Thankfully, more often than not Eitzel is on great form. [Nov 2012, p.82]

Within its narrow punk framework, the music is reasonably effective. [Feb 2017, p.24]

Its songs were built from jams, which lends them a becoming looseness; they’re also rather more Western rock than global pop, and melancholia has made its mark on pastoral-folk opener “Brave Child Of A New World” and the Zombies-ish “Those Who Came Before”. [Dec 2024, p.31]

Recording at home, [lends] Moh Llean its rougher edge. [Apr 2017, p.40]

Theirs is a likably punked-up take on the noise blizzard thing. [Feb 2013, p.74]

What might have been a dry academic exercise is in fact a seductive display of its polyphonic subtleties, which Bourne bends into mood-shifting soundscapes. [Apr 2016, p.70]

Defiantly lo-fi production rather hampers the attempts at big-budget symphonic soul, but the clubby bangers such as "It's In The Love" and "She Ran Away" work magnificently. [Jul 2017, p.26]

If the acoustic backdrop sometime slacks texture, there are no such qualms with the songwriting that demonstrates a novelist's eye for detail. [Jun 2014, p.83]

The Nihilist feels like a collision of Gotham's manic energy and the otherworldliness that has permeated Kiwi music from Uncle Tim's Splitz Enz to Lorde. [Jul 2014, p.73]

Not all of it works--the ballads sag, and the reggaeton-influenced "Paradise" is ill-advised--but much of Miles's playing is on fire. [Oct 2019, p.45]

A cast of colourful characters liven up Butler's familiar mix of Chicago muscle and diva house. [Oct 2017, p.30]

They've proved here that they're more than capable of escaping from, or expanding on, that familiar sound. [Dec 2018, p.24]

Their angsty post-rock elements have been largely superseded by quivering/rousing chamber pop reminiscent of early Arcade fire and Florence + The Machine, yet a weird emotional intensity remains - along with a talent for self-mythology that inspires audible devotion in an excitable crowd. [Jul 2023, p.23]

Is what might be expected of a song entitled "My Kinda Saturday Night", all growling guitars, pounding pianos and soaring choruses extolling the merits of beer, pickup trucks and jukeboxes. But it is no less irresistibly rousing for that, and the same can be said of the broadly similar "Back In The Saddle" nd "Alcohol Of Fame". [Apr 2026, p.29]

There's nothing quite as genuinely exciting as [the title track's] Aphex-meets-Bee-Gees disco, but its unorthodox elements are sprinkled across the album. [May 2017, p.32]

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

The intricacies and frustrations of relationships dominate, while the arrangements are kept crisp and simple. [Apr 2015, p.76]

There are times when, while applauding Springsteen's attempts to stay faithful to the originals, you wish he'd taken more chance. ... But that was not his intention, and it becomes hard to carp when he brings off something as triumphantly as his note-perfect version of Frank Wilson's "Do I Love You (Indeed I Do)". [Jan 2023, p.10]

The arrangements are reserved and understated throughout, gently cradling Merchant's strident but intimate voice. [May 2014, p.77]

The further Merritt strays from her default setting, the more affecting she is. [Nov 2012, p.79]

There are few traces of the more liminal varieties of beauty that distinguish recent Halo efforts like 2023's Atlas, though a sense of eerie gracefulness often imbues the music here as various sonic elements cut through the inky drones like shards of light. [Apr 2026, p.33]

The band aren't afraid to diversity. [Feb 2017, p.30]

Remember The Humans makes sumptuous use of its star talents Feist and Hannah Georgas. .... But a handful of hazier, more ruminative mantras are harder to grab hold of. [Jun 2026, p.36]

It's clear Masin has not catered to his new hipster audience but rather remained true to his elemental vision. [Mar 2020, p.33]

If this is a window to his world, we can barely see a thing. [Mar 2016, p.76]

While much of this is somewhat sentimental, notable moments include Michael Kiwanuka and Kevin Morby's respective takes on the standards "Sometimes I Feel Like A Motherless Child" and "I Only Have Eyes For You." [Jun 2017, p.26]