Unpredictability is its greatest asset. [Dec 2021, p.31]

Although the The Courteeners are newly mature, they're oddly not yet their own men. [Oct 2014, p.69]

Ultimately, too much easy-listening stoner-tronica makes Prism yet another pleasant but inessential late-career Orb album. [Jun 2023, p.35]

After Ready For The Flood, Mockingbird time feels dense, and somewhat cluttered. [Oct 2011, p.85]

For better, and for worse, this is a band who still haven't figured out who they are. [Jul 2006, p.95]

The mechanised backbeat rarely strays too far from the dancefloor, but the ever-shifting textures keep it interesting. [Nov 2011, p.91]

Things get increasingly glum and disenchanted as the album grinds towards the cop-out of "The Troubles." [Dec 2014, p.81]

Some delectable details pop up early on, like the swirling organ that shape-shifts "Thirsty Man," but the nearly unrelieved combination of Early's tang and the Cripple Creek cadences grows wearisome by the LP's second half. [Jan 2014, p.71]

Just Us Kids in part repeats the forumla, targeting SUV drivers, filthy corporations, and Dick Cheney, in an affecting but familiar preach to the converted. [June 2008, p.97]

Sketchy beginnings, but lots of promise. [Nov 2010, p.100]

The shock is that Goddess In The Doorway is really rather good. [Dec 2001, p.114]

Enjoyable stuff. But you have to wonder how this really aids our understanding of what Hendrix was up to, other than by reminding us that whenever he rehearsed, he recorded the session. [Apr 2010, p.108]

As inventive and well-meaning as these bastard pop blasts are, they're still not a patch on the originals. [Dec 2004, p.153]

Chops-wise, all is unimpeachable--but one ends up craving novelty. [Sep 2011, p.98]

At first it's too Linda Perry; soft-rock with feminist principles. [Mar 2006, p.96]

Migration, road-tested in SJ sets, finds Green cruising into that emotional landscapes occupied by the likes of Jon Hopkins and Mark Pritchard. [Feb 2017, p.23]

Literate, idiosyncratic power pop, ploughed from a furrow between Fountains of Wayne and The Posies. [Mar 2020, p.33]

Glass Swords places him squarely out there on his own, programming the kind of computer-game fluoro-rave crunk that's easy to admire but hard to love. [Nov 2011, p.97]

Weird--but in a generally good way. [Feb 2016, p.75]

He may be treading water a little until he really gets into his groove as the 21st century Sondheim, but Distortion at its best is beguiling and quietly devastating.

There's sparse evidence of their supposedly influential stay in Mali with desert bluesmen Tinariwen here, and ultimately their sonic porridge ends up a tad unsalted. [Mar 2010, p.98]

This traverses dancehall, lovers rock and jungle, and adds in more UK-centric bass styles, with some success. [Sep 2011, p.96]

The bland, fist-punching positivity of "Hole In My Soul" and "Parachute" are pitched somewhere between Cold Play and The Killers, but occasionally the reinvention works. [Nov 2016, p.31]

Cropper stays fairly faithful to the originals. [Oct 2011, p.83]

"Comic" interludes like "Tie My Pecker To A Tree" lose them a point, but electronic-strafed epic "I Told You I Was Crazy" shows these proto-grundge "three dumbasses" have interests beyond neolithic riffing. [Dec 2013, p.70]

Vandervelde's second album only really hits its stride in the six-minute centerpiece 'Someone Like You.' [Oct 2008, p.114]

There is an occasional excess of histrionics, particularly on "Boat Yard," but her teenage talent has found a convincing adult path. [Sep 2011, p.96]

On Heritage, [they're] jettisoning practically all trace of heavy whatsoever. [Oct 2011, p.86