This rock'n'roll album falls far short of Little Ricard's atomic excitement in a genre here showing its age, but 78-year-old Van sounds youthly eager, even sensual in between the hushed female harmonies and honky-tonk piano of "You Are My Sunshine". [Dec 2023, p.34]

The music adds majesty to the industrial primitivism which purports to be the output of the fictional band, Memorial Device, with Pastel ensuring period veracity by revisiting cassettes of his teenage jams. [Jul 2024, p.38]

Little Honey is a heartening and humble album, sufficiently smart and aware to be an expression of thanks for the journey as well as the destination.

The pair's [singer James Mercer and producer Greg Kurstin] pop instincts ultimately prevail over more esoteric ambitions. [Apr 2012, p.86]

Pleasantly discreet, resolutely unengaging. [Oct 2005, p.107]

These veteran North Carolinians invariably put out albums of spirit, vim and polished Americana, with songs that boast powerful melodies and gorgeous harmonies. [Oct 2010, p.89]

After years of striving, makes Augustines a band that now sound energised by palpable relief. [Apr 2014, p.69]

Vermont is a project now--but the outcome is similarly minimal and beatific, with each of its 12 tracks shaded with only the most essential detail. [Mar 2017, p.40]

Unabashedly emphatic songs that nod to Robyn (notably on skyscraping opener "Good Intentions"), Cyndi Lauper ("Every Ounce Of Me") and Kate Bush ("Appetite"), though the settings are largely those of a US mainstream, '90s grunge-pop band. They flatten the resonance of Hollingworth's lyrics. [Feb 2026, p.35]

Overall the record has the pleasantly hobbyish but inessential air of a gap year vanity project. [Jul 2007, p.103]

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

The frenzied, immersive and hard-charged psych the band has explored previously gives way to an album that is woozy, melodic and reflective. [Jul 2018, p.37]

Their most accessible and melodic yet. [Dec 2018, p.25]

He couches this misery in beautiful arrangements, writing on the piano, orchestrating with strings, and pitching his ambition somewhere between Serge Gainsbourg and Todd Rundgren. [Feb 2010, p.90]

The closest Wilco parallel to this sunshine pop is probably the Summerteeth album. [Apr 2003, p.108]

It's hard to see how much satisfaction this laconic talent must gain from fiddling with a formula he perfected in 1987. [Nov 2002, p.114]

For better or worse, this is love songs for grown-ups. [Aug 2004, p.94]

His twittering creations... use hip hop as their base but defy all attempts at categorisation and recall artists as diverse as Keith Jarrett, DoseOne and Smog. [Jun 2003, p.104]

Luddites still unconvinced that digital technology is capable of emotional expression should make this their first stop on the road to enlightenment. [May 2004, p.103]

This is a bold howl for attention from the backwoods of folktronica. [Apr 2009, p.89]

Back to the future, but intoxicatingly so. [Sep 2015, p.78]

A lovely understated album. [Feb 2016, p.75]

You leave Load Blown feeling that Black Dice, unlike many of their kin, are actually genuine experimentalists--even if it's with the caveat that sometimes it all rather blows up in their face. [Nov 2007, p.96]

In practice, it's suggestive of the luvved-up terrace thug moment of the late '80s, but with the ultraviolence retained. [Dec 2012, p.67]

Of course, Black Sabbath can't fully turn the clock back to the beginning--but they can still do a pretty good job of sounding like the beginning of the end. [Jul 2013, p.70]

[Trust] hit upon a nifty formula that veers between mid-80s Depeche Mode and fruity Eurodisco. [Jul 2012, p.84]

For all the fine furies collected on Handwritten, the most memorable moments are those on which The Gaslight Anthem shift to lower gears. [Aug 2012, p.66]

Slim Twig's louche theatricality will probably repel as many listeners as it attracts, but life is a cabaret, old chum. [Jan 2015, p.92]