High art, low humour and deluxe filth: a hugely seductive combination. [Jun 2009, p.95]

It's not always successful...But older songs fare better. [May 2012, p.72]

The result is both pensive and romantic, a work filled with vividly poetic snapshots. [Jan 2013, p.79]

There are some beautiful moments here.... Also some difficult ones. [Nov 2013, p.67]

Along with kitchen-sink detail, there's real poignancy in the Canadians' second set. [Mar 2016, p.77]

These are tender anthems, even if some won't be readily singing lines like "eating your ass like an oyster" in a festival field. [Nov 2019, p.22]

His honeyed, Elliott Smith-esque vocal adds to the lush warmth of spare but forceful arrangements, softening the blows soaked up by his songs’ baffled and blitzed Angelenos. [May 2022, p.29]

The material here moves in the jazzier vein of Zappa's early '70s LPs. [Aug 2023, p.51]

The technology has evolved, but the Plaid Aesthetic remains constant. [Jul 2014, p.78]

For the most part, Ben Kweller simply suggests Jackson Browne reared on Weezer. [Oct 2006, p.114]

The result is a promising record that's much closer in tone and sentiment to an act like Hurts than they'd presumably be comfortable with. [Dec 2010, p.88]

Partygoing contains a handful of vintage Merritt moments. [Aug 2013, p.71]

It's All Right... functions almost like a best of. [Nov 2017, p.32]

Despite a newfound sound-design sophistication, they haven't lost their love of twisted, Stylophone-assisted pop or tape-recording collage methods, and their arthouse-cinema leaning is still evident. [Oct 2018, p.32]

[The] results [are] worryingly like a jam session between Ben Folds and John Bonham. [Apr 2006, p.110]

The bulk of these puttering analogue scowls can be filed as John Carpenter castoffs alongside half the Not Not Fun label roster. Luckily, splashes of color appear in the widescreen drama of "Dome Horizon" and "Inhale." [Jun 2012, p.67]

Wit's end is so sparse and downbeat that it occasionally verges on the drab. [May 2011, p.91]

Self-indulgent in all the best ways, their third album isn't afraid to explore an idea for nine minutes, locating that revelatory moment when structure caves into soul. [May 2009, p.105]

These make an effective pairing. [May 2012, p.72]

Jello is still in good voice, so this could basically pass for a mid-80s Dead Kennedys album, were it not for the contemporary references. [Jun 2013, p.69]

It helps that The Child Of Lov, while not big-studio slick, is so imaginatively realised. [Jun 2013, p.70]

Soulfire is a portrait of the E Street Band guitarist as a rock'n'roll renaissance man. [Jul 2017, p.32]

Wilson, now 60, reveals a flair for conjuring up moods on songs that suggest the languorous drift from winding down to sleeping in. [Jan 2018, p.29]

A festive 10 tracks. [Feb 2019, p.29]

A bit long it may be, but his 10th studio album packs a punch while light on its feet. [Jun 2020, p.29]

The album is rarely as memorable musically as it is lyrically. [Sep 2020, p.31]

The likes of "Downtown" and "1000 Miles" are modest but sumptuous ballads which suggest something of lo-fi Blue Nile, while "London Bridge," from the title downwards, is basically a Blur song, to which he is surely entitled. [Feb 2023, p.35]

There's nevertheless an easygoing air to the duo's otherwise experimental-minded pieces, which began as spare guitar instrumentals by Portner that were then warped, distorted and reshaped into beguiling psych-folk forms. [Jun 2026, p.29]