It can be quite hard to pin down what they’re trying to do. This makes Orchestra Hits curious, even if their mining of goth and the ’80s, with its attendant melodrama and gestural angst, isn’t always successful. [Oct 2024, p.41]

A set of soft-focused pip imbued with simple but stickable hooks and emotional honesty reminiscent of Brendan Benson or Elliott Smith. [Feb 2025, p.34]

If their songs occasionally resemble the power ballads that grunge supposedly outmoded, that's the price of being a truly potent classic rock band. [Jun 2006, p.109]

Life Of Pause demonstrates a more playful and propulsive approach. [Apr 2016, p.82]

These immersive, synth-driven compositions may never match the brooding atmosphere of the filmmaker's early scores like Halloween and Assault On Precinct 13, but still have much to commend. [Mar 2015, p.73]

Miller can't help occasional returns to his powerpop protocol. [Jul 2012, p.77]

Now and then she's too laconic for her own good but the self-deprecating humour of "It's So Weird" and "Staying In" hits the mark. [Feb 2019, p.27]

This fifth album immediately feels well adjusted and familiar. [Feb 2020, p.25]

Their sound is now driven by a dark undertow, with heavy psych-rock and muscly R&B inflections. [May 2006, p.119]

The Latin syllables are well suited to Patton's croon and snarl, and he attacks Fred Buscaglione's cavalier "Che Notte!" with relish. [Jul 2010, p.117]

TNP have slimmed down, morphing into a thoughtful electronic pop group with shades of Depeche Mode or late Talk Talk. [May 2019, p.37]

It’s a wonderful surprise that Further Complications turns out to be such a reinvigorated piece of work. Much of this freshness must be down to the working methods of producer Steve Albini.

Everything now seems as worn out and used up as Lytle's subjects, along with the imagery that brings them to life. [Jun 2006, p.108]

A well-rounded triumph. [Mar 2013, p.76]

Banks is an earnest singer with an ear for complex anthems--she's at her best when letting big emotions rip. [Oct 2014, p.67]

It moseys a little too languidly. [Nov 2004, p.114]

A quietly glorious affair. [Apr 2006, p.110]

The Sadies are one of the finest backing bands around, and team up adroitly with John Doe to produce a cracking set of country classics. [May 2012, p.71]

The result is both an ambitious concept album and a glorious booty-shaker. [Oct 2013, p.68]

Commits to the craft, shooting through stadium-sized choruses with mischievous humour. [Mar 2025, p.37]

Their approach is eclectic, esoteric, and not easy on the ear, though it does have a restless energy which suggests it might work better live. [June 2008, p.97]

An album of tough-edged, passion-fuelled songs full of real emotion. [Jun 2002, p.109]

After a couple of plays, you're struck by Up's sonic cleverness. Three or four listens and the lyrical complexity begins to bite. Finally, and insidiously, after perhaps six or seven plays, the melodies bury themselves in your head. [Oct 2002, p.112]

An utterly gloomungous affair with barely a crack of light piercing the lowering clouds of misery. [Jan 2004, p.116]

Everything they do is infused with an undeniable, albeit sometimes unfathomable, psychedelic spirit. [Mar 2004, p.92]

Deerhoof's skittish collages always, miraculously, have a pop logic to them, and their desire to show that experimental music can be playful rather than forbidding is often heroic. [Jul 2004, p.102]

Sure, it flags here and there, but Skull Ring is Iggy's most sustained assault since the Instinct/Brick By Brick double whammy. [Nov 2003, p.118]

A divine marriage of disco with discord that, while blatantly indebted to the mutant guitar funk of PiL, ACR, The Pop Group, Gang of Four, et al, enjoys the best of both disciplines. [Nov 2002, p.116]