Not all of it works--the ballads sag, and the reggaeton-influenced "Paradise" is ill-advised--but much of Miles's playing is on fire. [Oct 2019, p.45]

Things degenerate into a dreary stream of self-pitying/self-mythologising ballads. [Sep 2003, p.106]

There are missteps--the tinny horns of "fanfare," or the mantra of "Vitriol," which is silly in the same way Kula Shaker were silly. Straighter Moments hit, though, largely thanks to drummer Greg Fox's athletic disposition and some mighty crescendos. [May 2015, p.76]

Beneath The Skin is further proof that the Icelandic music movement is a near-unstoppable force. [Aug-Sep 2015, p.79]

Unfortunately, every note is so restrained as to verge on the apologetic, resulting in songs capable of being forgotten even while they're playing. [Oct 2009, p.101]

Despite the laudable ambitions of the arrangements, Fray's mundane eye-witness vignettes become wearying. [Mar 2010, p.82]

All round, it's more than the sum of its parts, if not quite the event that is clearly hope for. [Feb 2017, p.40]

The subject matter sits somewhere between Wagner's Götterdämmerung and Led Zep. ... Yet the sounds owes little to either as flute and mandolin lend a folk-rock ambience and John O'Hara's keyboards and Jow Parrish-James' guitar essay '70s prog tropes like they never went away. [Jun 2023, p.31]

In truth, only an uncharitable curmudgeon could fail to appreciate Tim Rice-Oxley's vastly improved pop songwriting. [Jul 2006, p.102]

Very pretty but as predictable as Haven's guaranteed elevation to the Indie Premiership before the summer's through. [Feb 2002, p.118]

A tangy taster for their album proper in 2004. [Dec 2003, p.126]

It's an energetic and clattering punk listen, topped by Ada's louche vocals, but suffers from over-exhuberance in its production. [Jul 2009, p.101]

"We return to find a pile of broken kitten bits" they trill on 'GOOJFC,' which may be as succinct an image of their fractured whimsydelia as you'll get. [Sep 2008, p.85]

Fistful Of Mercy itself is certainly Fleet of Fox, but it's also strong of cheese. [Jan 2011, p.98]

This finds Richard Melville Hall seemingly going through the motions. [Mar 2008, p.96]

Runddans is 39 minutes of continuous music, most closely related tot he percolating grooves of Lindstrom's Where You Go I Go Too. [Jun 205, p.81]

Only the sub-Marilyn Manson riff-slammer "Mars Needs Women" stand out in an otherwise generic batch of spoofy "Rocky Horror" lyrics and painful superfluous drum solos. [Mar 2010, p.107]

It's the no-frills productions like 'Not As We' which stand out, although these are marred by the lyrics--a mess of self-help-manual platitudes and environmentally minded bollocks. [July 2008, p.104]

If last year's engrossing, infuriating Blueberry Boat revealed the Friedbergers as a uniquely strange and perversely ambitious proposition, Rehearsing My Choir, remarkably, trumps it, striking a chord of real feeling alongside the pell-mell fabulation. [Dec 2005, p.110]

Mancunian hipsters will shudder in disbelief. [July 2002, p.101]

A fierce, defiant record. [Apr 2003, p.108]

A decent album of roots-tinged songs that showcases his terse guitar style and detached vocals to solid if unspectacular effect. [Nov 2002, p.122]

Clanging rockers, elegant ballads, and yearning epics are testement to their diversity, while James Walsh has almost managed to lose the bleat in his voice that used to drive Starsailor's critics to distraction. [Apr 2009, p.99]

Work is less dramatically monochrome than HTRK's debut, the Coil-like angst replaced with a more subtle existential uncertainty. [Oct 2011, p.89]

Doyle shines as a singer and lyricist. [Dec 2014, p.78]

Generally these doomy, comatose soundscapes all sound drearily similar. [May 2015, p.78]

While much of this is somewhat sentimental, notable moments include Michael Kiwanuka and Kevin Morby's respective takes on the standards "Sometimes I Feel Like A Motherless Child" and "I Only Have Eyes For You." [Jun 2017, p.26]

Excessive emoting is unfortunately typical of the record's exhausting inclination toward overwrought histrionics. [Sep 2014, p.74]