Divorced from the visuals, Music From First Cow is just as mesmerising, its 26 minutes of repeated themes, mostly on acoustic guitar and banjo, mixed with muttered dialogue and sound design from the film. [Jun 2020, p.38]

It shuns the cliches of oceanic atmospherics. [Aug 2015, p.73]

The songs about his children risk tipping over into twee, but it's hard to disparage such a warm, consoling record. [Mar 2023, p.25]

An album of grungy, earnest rock that pivots from deluges of Hole-inspired chaos to more restrained, melodic fare. [Nov 2017, p.24]

Much of this album resembles the kind of murky '80s proto-techno recently unearthed by Trevor Jackson for his Metal Dance comps, with Nik Colk Void's monotone vocals ceding centre stage to the restive machine rhythms that constantly threaten to rise up and over throw their human masters. [Oct 2013, p.67]

Contains the usual assortment of slurred tirades and workmanlike riffs, but it also features a smattering of minor Smith classics. [Nov 2005, p.96]

This doesn't disappoint. [Jun 2006, p.114]

Enriched instrumentation and subtle electronic flourishes make this Ackroyd's most rewarding collection. [Mar 2018, p.21]

A listener might be impressed by the scale of the experience, but ultimately there is something missing--intimacy?--missing. [Jun 2017, p.30]

The highlight is the lengthy Elvin Jones tribute that opens the album---an expansive Afro-tinged big band upgrade of a piece originally recorded with Jim Keltner. [Jun 2017, p.38]

Think Randy Newman crooned in a voice like Peggy Lee and delivered with the panache of Rufus Wainwright. [Sep 2004, p.96]

An instantly likable, energetic pop set stacked with guitars; his easy voice shot through with enquiry and regret. [Sep 2015, p.75]

How To Replace It doesn't quite scale those heights [Worst Case Scenario and The Ideal Crash], but it finds the returning to the fray with particularly eloquent poise. [Apr 2023, p.26]

Vol 1 is reflective and rootsy, all folkish acoustic guitars, from the elegiac melancholy of "End Of The World" to the hushed vulnerability of "Rejection." [Oct 2017, p.26]

For all Metheny’s experiments with electronics, or the orchestral sweep of albums such as 2020’s Dream Box, these solo pieces on baritone string guitar contain his essence of mellow melodicism and romance. [Aug 2024, p.38]

This is pulverising cacophonic stuff but it's also considered and atmospheric. [Feb 2021, p.25]

Loaded with guests, from Slash to Tom Morello, it’s no-frills hard rock which, while occasionally a little dated and clichéd, still has plenty of fizz to it. [Nov 2024, p.40]

Tomberlin's second long-player seems to semi-consciously urge you to move along – nothing to hear here. Yet it creates its own slow-burning allure on repeated listens. [Jun 2022, p.34]

It's a world away from their introspective acoustic work... but [Producer Mitchell] Froom's airbrushed studiocraft... suits their well-crafted songs. [Apr 2007, p.105]

The best tracks gently slip their moorings, as with the sour fuzzed guitar and damaged lyrics of "Got The Fear", and hazy warp and alchemical concerns of the insinuatingly additcive "Green". [Jul 2023, p.33]

Their debut has a raucous charm that makes it easy to overlook their songs' emotional punch. [Feb 2016, p.77]

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]

Old weaknesses remain, with Sullivan's declamatory lyrics often mistaking grandiosity for gravitas, but Between Dog And Wolf is mostly an impressive beast. [Jan 2014, p.76]

Selvutsletter is a shapeless sprawl in places but covers an impressive range. [Nov 2023, p.31]

Not a while world away from the primitive throb of his Stiff pomp. [May 2018, p.37]

Inexorable forward movement is shadowed by existential dread. [Jul 2018, p.30]

The album's highlight comes when "I See You" wiggles free of its '90s indie-disco mooring and shoots at the moon; Luminous could have done with a few more of those moments. [Jun 2014, p.78]

[A] LP of sophisticated soul songs built around her exquisite vocals. [Sep 2015, p.76]