Reeling Skullways is a paean to the previous step on techno's evolutionary ladder: the analogue acid sounds of Detroit, Chicago, and Manchester. [Jul 2012, p.69]

The melodies drift rather aimlessly but the wonderfully groggy textures will stay with you like the best kind of sonic Valium. [Aug 2012, p.75]

It's a little too polite to beak new ground, but it certainly draws attention to more than a dozen fine--and largely overlooked--melodies from Elton's golden era. [Sep 2012, p.91]

Pretty straight by the Puppets' wobbly standards, but still bewitchingly unhinged. [May 2013, p.74]

The pair's voices twin eerily and sound effortlessly young and restless on a stream of adorable alt.pop melodies. [Dec 2013, p.70]

The meanings might be obscure, but Chiaroscuro is still deluxe cinematic pop by hugely accomplished composer-producers. [Feb 2014, p.76]

It seamlessly blends his classical talents with an avant-garde flair and experimental rock dynamics. [Jun 2014, p.83]

Mark Nevers, on production, ensures Singer's grave is the lushest Oldham LP since Beware, and "So Far And Here We Are" is a stinging all-new effort. Motives, though, remain even less clear than usual. [Nov 2014, p.71]

A very fine record, for sure, but Earle has a nagging habit of stopping just short of the hands-down classic he's capable of. [Feb 2015, p.78]

Italian jobs come no finer. [Dec 2015, p.73]

A blurring of fictionalised murder ballads and heartfelt break-up songs, Feed The Fire clothes breathy, emotive vocals in weeping strings, tremolo guitar twangs and ethereal electronica. [Mar 2016, p.78]

Two fetching female voices bring a soft-focus glow to the linchpin songs on this incandescent album. [Apr 2016, p.79]

It's solemn stuff. [Oct 2016, p.39]

A feelgood record with a troubled soul. [Sep 2016, p.70]

All are delivered with a raw and earthy folk spirit that eschews prettiness, laced with electric guitar tropes of which Richard Thompson would be proud. [May 2017, p.28]

Theirs is a shambolic but tuneful take on glam and punk, one in which everyone sings and spunky attitude is more important than production polish. [Aug 2017, p.38]

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]

Wells favours minimal lyrics and skeletal, looping arrangements that an feel overly austere, but the improvised viola scraps and sampled splash of New Orleans jazz on "A Quiet Life" show an evolution towards Matthew Herbert territory. [May 2018, p.30]

Their fourth album is a quietly audacious work, careful but not cautious, an expansive blend of woozy country, skewed folk and cracked torch songs. [Aug 2018, p.30]

Strikes a deft balance between hooks'n'riffs and meditative drifts. [Jul 2020, p.33]

The music is similarly diverse [as his guests], combining orchestral strings and beats, flamenco guitars and rap, and an array of other global styles. [May 2021, p.32]

Driven by beats and rhythmic synth, the songs are meticulously constructed yet warm and intimate, if low on distinguishing characteristics. [Jan 2022, p.22]

The 24-track album is a considered work, avoiding the trappings and tropes of string-heavy bombast and cheap urgency, instead allowing woodwind, strings and ambient textures to coalesce and build slowly. [Feb 2022, p.25]

This is good-time instrumental party music that mixes Turkish Psych, South American cumbia, surf-rock and reggae, sometimes with the poise of Khruangbin but more often with the tequila swagger of a Tarantino caper. [Mar 2022, p.31]

An album of skippy, infectious, electronics-soaked disco rock. [Jul 2022, p.26]

This carefully recorded and intimate performance captures their cool command of Texas rock'n'roll better than most. [Sep 2022, p.32]

The brutal realism Greil Marcus heard in X’s debut Los Angeles remains in John Doe’s solo incarnation as hard-bitten Americana troubadour, here offering 1890s tales of spartan hardship, his songs’ killers and victims chased across the South by poverty and guilt. [Jun 2022, p.26]

It works at least as well [as 2018's The Colorist & Emiliana Torrini] on this collection of new originals. [Apr 2023, p.38]