Joseph Mount and co have tried to narrow their focus, with 'My Heart Rate Rapid' and 'A Thing For Me' the most obvious benificaries of a new streamlined approach. elsewhere, however, an off-putting manic surrealism remains, which somehow feels like an act of self-sabotage. [Oct 2008, p.p.101]

Though the 18-minute celestial sludge of "The Opulent Decline" conjures all the right imagery, you suspect Oneohtrix Point Never invariably got there first. [May 2013, p.67]

This is a fierce live performance by a band who didn’t always manage to hold things together onstage. It catches Nirvana at maximum intensity, aware of, but not disabled by, the contradictions that tormented Cobain and would eventually tear him asunder.

The band's second album features a few middling faux-Europop numbers, but the best are real growers. [Jul 2015, p.71]

The weed doesn't seem to have dented Stone's vocal prowess, however, and the pop-reggae vibe isn't necessarily unpleasant. [Aug 2015, p.80]

The biggest surprise is how rarely this scratch supergroup really swings to its full potential. [Feb 2007, p.68]

Fucked Up Friends isn't that great of a departure from this year's "Eating Us." [Aug 2009, p.105]

Long on rhetoric, short on melodic structure, it's hard going. [Dec 2002, p.150]

Perhaps creative stasis might have proved more rewarding. [Aug 2003, p.99]

For their third album, Githead - that's Wire's Colin Newman, Robin 'Scanner' Rimbaud, and Malka Spigel and Max Franken of Israeli post-punkers Minimal Compact - have partly abandoned the sly hooks of 2007's well-named Art Pop In favour of a leaner and more ambient approach. [Jan 2010, p. 112]

The wildcard element comes in the shape of thier guitarist, who makes much of this album sound as if Brian May had been airlifted into a Devendra Banhart recording session. Disconcerting, but really rather good. [Feb 2010, p.81]

While Live Laugh Love could benefit from more of the tension that builds in "Tethered" lest it all start seem too comfortably slack, Chastity Belt's blend of blissed-out effervescence and sly wit remains very appealing. [May 2024, p.32]

Some of it is a little too cosy and overly earnest, White tending to excel on the more spirited likes of the swampy "What's So" and "I've Been Over This Before." [Sep 2016, p.81]

The result is substantially more upbeat and cohesive--a West Coast take on Britpop. [Sep 2018, p.36]

These warm engaging gnarly songs are vigorously banged out by a mix of the original and current lineups. [Sep 2018, p.30]

The tracka are overlong and the ubiquitous fuzz pedal makes "Sedatives" and "King Of Kings" sound like a narcoleptic Screwdriver, but it's hard to knock Jesu's dedication to the sad, slow and contemplative. [Aug 2011, p.90]

She threads Lou Reed's vocal rhythm over the band's brisk skank on "Hangin' Round", while "Song To The Siren" and "The Man Who Sold The World" slip with similar ease into reggae mode. [Jul 2023, p.24]

In taming their eccentricity, Dios (Malos) have also lost some of their dreamy romanticism along the way. [Mar 2006, p.98]

It's frequently chaotic, but instruments occasionally coalesce into unusual, oddly beautiful forms. [Jun 2006, p.112]

While the LP is patchy, some of the miniature studies for circuitry, essayed by Flanagan and collaborator Dean Honer, are beguilingly eldritch, and the second half's run of pop songs are joyous and odd in equal measure. [Nov 2012, p.72]

Powerful and intriguing stuff, but the emotional spark never quite catches. [Feb 2017, p.21]

The efforts are inconsistent, though, and his affinity with the fun and doom of '50s R'n'R is mostly lost to the demands of commercial bombast. [Jun 2009, p.88]

Their first album doesn't quite match the hype, but is still an appealing piece of go-ahead indie-[pop, with a certain charismatic bagginess and wit that points to a bright future. [Apr 2009, p.91]

Elsewhere, Garner sounds like he's been spending time with Revolver, while songs like "The Ballad Of Little Jane" and the genial swirling "Lullaby" further the rich tradition of Dutch psychedelic pop. [May 2013, p.71]

It's the more spartan, folksier tracks, like "Greeny Blue," that hint at better things to come. [Apr 2012, p.81]

Sharing lead vocals with the immaculately Hardy-esque Darcy Conroy, Alary concocts wistful chansons and widescreen waltzes with an elegance and deadpan humour that evokes Sebastien Tellier, Stereolab and Matthew Herbert. [Feb 2011, p.84]

It suffers somewhat from inevitably diminishing returns, in that it simply isn't anywhere near as good as their canonical records; that said, not much is. [Oct 2019, p.33]

As is the case with most of his releases the past decade or so, Ringo addresses his own career with a heavy dose of nostalgia. [Dec 2019, p.32]