The best bits mash up the retro influences, like the krautrock-meets-Motown collision of the title track, the glam grunge of "The Best Is Yet To come" or the Weller-ish ballad "Scared Of Love". [Sep 2023, p.31]

The eight songs of Midnight Rose range from serviceable to cringeworthy. [Oct 2023, p.33]

The band’s decampment to Berlin to record has resulted in a concise statement of renewed interest, resulting in a debate between life expectancy and boredom, and a brief mutation into Roxy Music.

The seven unnamed tracks here are often surprisingly straightforward in form given the two musicians' penchant for demolishing conventions. [Jan 2018, p.22]

A deceptively sweet concoction. [Aug 2010, p.79]

Another terrific collection, tacking a stylish course between Jam and Lewis, Zapp and raving crunk. [May 2007, p.88]

Rather than producing themselves, they could benefit from a wise head adding a touch of reverb, a sting of echo.

All that is good in hip hop is here. [Jul 2003, p.111]

There's more here for Oldham fans than Tortoise fanciers. [Feb 2006, p.76]

A winning hybrid of indie neuroses and Brill Building craft, precision and intimacy. [Apr 2007, p.120]

If a few tracks see them flirt with Eno-esque avant garde, thes wayward tendencies are balanced out by pretty folk ballads. [June 2008, p.88]

Lights feels like the product of a distinctive personality, following a peculiar vision rather than ticking genre boxes. [Apr 2010, p.90]

The powerful tunes make this an odd thing: a subtle album, fit for stadiums. [Mar 2007, p.83]

Potato Hole proves as extraordinary, delirious and laugh-out-loud weird as anyone might dare hope.

Certainly, there's a familiarity here, the thin guitar lines and washes of synth, topped off with Banks' despondent croon, though in lyrical terms, there is a more confessional tone. [Dec 2012, p.67]

The trio plough an increasingly creepy furrow over the course of this debut album. [Jul 2016, p.76]

If the Valentines' inspired drone-rock of "Hammond" suggests a more stoned Spiritualized, their commercial future will depend on refining relentless glam-stomps "This Mess" and "Steal Their Gold." [May 2007, p.115]

When ever Gordon Anderson admits to being "lost inside the chasms of my mind," therre seems little hope for the rest of us. [Nov 2008, p.87]

Eskmo's sweet, pop-toned vocals add an unexpected element to his expression of the sublime, although he lets his club-floor impulse rip on "The Sun IS A Drum." [Mar 2015, p.76]

I Love You, Go easy represents a minor stumble. [Jul 2011, p.96]

Get Lost marks him out as descendant of Manuel Gottsching and Vini Reilly, stringing pretty guitar motifs and quiet, whispered vocals into ringing loops. [Nov 2011, p.93]

It's not all straight A's, but that hardly seems the point. This feels like a necessary act of burning and rebuilding. [May 2018, p.33]

For the most part, Anderson's cockernee affectations have gone, as have his references to drugs, gasoline and tube-bound alienation. Instead, we have the sci-fi romance of "Astro Girls" and the rabble-rousing rock of "Street Life." [Nov 2002, p.126]

The Vaselines were more of an idea than a reality, but this revival, with Kelly joined by founding member Frances McKee, Belle And Sebastian's Stevie Jackson and Bob Kildea, plus 1990s drummer Michael McGaughrin, shows they have finally perfected the art of being Just Dumb Enough. [Sep 2010, p.108]

The songwriting is impressive throughout. [Dec 2012, p.79]

Here, as always, he turns out to be a natural. [Sep 2011, p.81]

She's at her best on the lachrymose likes of "Close To The Edge" and "Just A Dream," less successful when angling for Grand Ole Opery classicism or-- as on "Un-Break"--flirting with funk-metal pop. [Nov 2012, p.81]

Mellow but heartfelt. [Aug 2014, p.70]