Seething electronic undercurrents dredge depths of barely concealed rage. .... And amid the storm, moments of tenderness. [Jun 2025, p.33]

It's often raw, venerable, painful stuff, as on the impassioned charge of "Breathe", but it's also peppered with moments of joy. [Aug 2025, p.39]

This is a record that genuinely sounds like nothing you have heard before. If you can rise to its portentous challenge... The Drift will prove to be a frightening, bewitching and rewarding experience. [Jun 2006, p.96]

The fifth album to feature Kentucky's Joan Shelley has an immensely welcoming ease that was absent in 2014 anxious solo breakthrough, Electric Ursa.... A major talent. [Oct 2015, p.83]

A hugely enjoyable, idiosyncratic ride. [Sep 2023, p.37]

it's a densely layered, frictional set that matches emotional heft and musical invention in equal and impressive measure. [May 2025, p.39]

No single track grandstands, but the Black Midi-ish epic roll of "Senegal" is a laser-tooled highlight. [Mar 2026, p.36]

Refines their grandiose panoramics via electronic gurgles and glitches. [Jul 2003, p.111]

Compared to so many noisemongers, TOD understand that restraint enables unleashed firepower to be exhilarating and awesome. [Apr 2002, p.111]

Streetcore negotiates a resolution between the ethnocentric beats that hallmarked the two previous Mescaleros albums and the classic Clash sound that remained pivotal to Joe's live performances. [Nov 2003, p.110]

With martial trumpets, cheap-sounding Farfisa organs and raspy baritone saxes, there are certainly nods toward Ethiopiques legends like Mulatu Astatke or the Wallas Band, tracks like "Rite Of The Ancients" and "Golden Dunes" add a rugged garage rock, and riff-based funk of "Black Venom" has a breakbeat that's just begging to be sampled by a bright hip hop producer. [Nov 2010, p.83]

Even as Atrocity Exhibition plumbs depths, Brown remains a savvy operator. [Dec 2016, p.25]

An impressive deepening of Marling's explorations, and a timely testament to change as a positive force. [Apr 2017, p.24]

Pinning this endlessly complex songwriter’s work down to a single tagline or meaning is unwise. His songs are not always easy, they’re not always straightforward, but 10 albums in, they’re mounting up to create one of the most impressive bodies of work of the century so far. [Sep 2022, p.16]

It is, at 78 tracks, quite a meal. But fine work lies within. [May 2011, p.96]

[A] hugely satisfying album. [Jul 2016, p.66]

Each song is so confident and perfectly formed, unravelling with cascading flurries. Orcutt is so confident and comfortable in his own skin that he has become a maser oif phrasing and economy. [Jun 2023, p.35]

This is Clark, now in his 72nd year, as the rumpled poet of American folk-blues, imparting these semi-brisk, string-driven tales with his own unique brand of sad, funny, dry wisdom.

Both sonically and lyrically, it's an album that is explicitly, thrillingly transgressive and is already an early contender for one of the albums of the year. [Mar 2018, p.33]

It is not only Wild Beats' finest album to date, but one of the best you're likely to hear all year. [Jun 2011, p.90]

To devotees, however, it sounds very much like a second masterpiece: a different kind of epic to "Ys," and one with enough hooks and charms to ensnare at least a few Newsom agnostics. [Apr 2010, p.82]

Ba Power feels like another dramatic leap forward and a further landmark in the integration of African tribal rhythms and western rock'n'roll. [May 2015, p.85]

As ever, you wish they'd stretch out and jam a bit more in the studio, but this might just be the most satisfying CRB set since 2012's Big Moon Ritual. [Sep 2017, p.37]

Childers is blessed with a timeless voice and an ear for the plurality of mountain music, these songs roaming between bluegrass, folk, straight-up country and R&B. [Sep 2019, p.26]

It's by some ways the finest of the three iterations. [Oct 2020, p.36]

Here are nine songs that confidently mix Station To Station piano, Beach Boys harmonies, Kosmische guitar and even free jazz. [Jun 2021, p.31]

Infectious, silly and even a little dangerous again. Through it all — even on the two quieter tracks, which stick outa little awkwardly among the Killing Joke fuzz — Brett Anderson is the consummate guide, vocally at his peak. [Oct 2022, p.34]

This is as much a celebration of collaboration, camaraderie and community as it is a noted personal evolution. [Jan 2023, p.17]