Cannell makes good on the promise in that music, interfacing with Bingen in convincing ways, her bass recorder and harp improvs. Warped by delay, both are paced and wild, chimeric and oneiric. [Dec 2024, p.33]

Overall the vibe is more celebration than confrontation, but there's still room for the odd reassuring freakout. [Nov 2023, p.29]

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]

Sparse instrumentation, with Ritter's deftly picked acoustic to the fore, keeps the focus on the lyrics, the post-mortem honesty of which amuse, astonish and occasionally unsettle. [Apr 2013, p.77]

If his guitar reminds of anyone, it's David Grubbs - similar threads of notes that then tangle together into thickets - and Grubbs appears on this album, too. [Jun 2025, p.41]

Though other songs don't escape the inevitable air of redundancy, Gibbard's facsimiles retain all the originals' love and warmth. [Oct 2017, p.28]

Everything here is much as you'd expect. [Jul 2012, p.85]

Ultimately Artificial Dance, stiff and self-aware, is easier to admire from afar. [Oct 2015, p.94]

Beguiling if familiar thanks to the many echoes of Jessie Ware and Goldfrapp at their most forlorn. [Jan 2021, p.23]

"Nights In The Lab" finds scientist Martin pining for a white-coated colleague, one of many tracks that would have fitted just as neatly into his famed '70s stand-up shows as it does a highfalutin hoedown at the Grand Ole Opry. [Nov 2017, p.32]

As much as the likes of "Injury Detail" and "Peach Fuzz" evoke Clock DVA and early Psychic TV at their most unnerving, the group nevertheless achieve a grimy grandeur that feels modern, too. [Jun 2023, p.32]

While the songs sometimes get swallowed up in the maelstrom, Ackermann’s unit proves more than capable of manifesting a sort of grotty malevolence rarely heard since Killing Joke’s imperial phase. [Nov 2024, p.41]

Nova's smoky, sullen vocals sometimes sound a little stilted, but she surpasses herself on "You Wanna See My Teeth," a cinematic mini-symphony inspired by the killing of Trayvon Martin, which moves through nervy electro and anguished rock to screaming rage. [Feb 2019, p.30]

They're lean and immediate in nature, with melodic ease that belies lyrics awash with loss, uncertainty, regret, overwhelm and defeat, feelings that sit on the surface, undisguised. [Mar 2025, p.40]

It's all uncomplicated and focused on instant gratification, capturing that ethic that made The Strokes so thrilling. [Apr 2018, p.27]

Occasional interludes--echoing number recitations; bumbling English voices on crackly wax cylinders---feel integral, while smart Julian House artwork completes the package. [Feb 2015, p.71]

Conceived to celebrate the band's 20th anniversary and features everybody who has ever recorded with the band, which basically means they called in a bunch of old drummers to thump out a backing rhythm for Jason Simon and Steve Kille's incessant groove, snarl and swing on choice tracks like "Here With The Hawk" and "Nobody Home." [May 2018, p.27]

Shadow Of The Sun includes strong takes on the familiar Johnson Schtick of Spacemen 3 throb and ambulatory guitar solos. [Apr 2015, p.80]

What raises Between Places above simple pastiche are the electronic flourishes and surges of pounding drums that pepper the album. [Apr 2013, p.79]

There’s a seam of pop here that his parent band largely lacked, which fills moments like “You Remind Me” with a warm flush of romance. [Oct 2022, p.29]

A much-devalued word--and probably one of the creator despises--still seems apposite for this lovely album: ethereal. [Jun 2016, p.75]

Johnston's own songs, though jauntily paced, come with familiar themes of isolation, despair and the cruelty of love. [May 2013, p.73]

A certain wistfulness pervades this record, as frontman David Best comes to terms with middle age, yet musically they're as sprightly as ever, having minted a shimmering take on krautrock that allows them to explore numerous directions. [Jan 2023, p.18]

His self-deprecating humour and goofball vocals leaven these dark songs about mortality, confusion and alienation, lending both levity and gravity to the staticky guitar riffs and soaring choruses. [Aug 2018, p.28]

They raise a lively ruckus, but never venture far from the sounds pioneered by groups like Steeleye Span and The Albion Band. [Aug 2017, p.35]

At its best, like the gorgeous, nine-minute “Round The World”, his bittersweet sound feels like the work of an art-music auteur. [May 2024, p.30]

There are poppy moments--the churning "What Have You Done For Me," and deceptively tranquil "Dead At The Wheel"--but otherwise the Jarman brothers have restrained their more melodic instincts to create sludgy monsters like "Year Of Hate" and storming closer "Broken Arrow." [Oct 2017, p.26]

Unfurls a desolate systems music that simultaneously feels a love letter to the timbres and patters of analogue synthesisers, and a paean to the post-industrial north. [Feb 2026, p.33]