Like 1999's The West, The Civil War negotiates a fragile entente between Americana and electronica, but does so on a bigger, constantly astonishing scale. [Oct 2003, p.122]

In just over 35 minutes, the Bonnie Prince's mastery of form, blend of gentle awe and trembling sweetness are distilled to their essence. [Album of the Month, Feb 2003, p.74]

Their scratchily rhythmic guitar music with dour, sardonic vocals has proved immensely influential. [Dec 2006, p.114]

Confirms Doves as the country's most innovative rock group. [Mar 2005, p.94]

Indispensable, but that’s no surprise.

For Emma, Forever Ago is such a hermetically sealed, complete and satisfying album, the prospect of a follow-up--of a life for Vernon beyond the wilderness, even - seems merely extraneous.

In every respect, the performance captured here is as raw and un-redacted as the original record. ... What times. [Jun 2018, p.42]

Though recorded during the same extended sessions, this archival LP is the polar opposite of its fraternal twin: big, bold, vibrantly coloured and laced with sweeping chorus hooks and towering middle eights. In a word, spectacular.

Time is squeezed and stretched in new ways, exotic timbres are distilled on the spot, and this freeform funk still scorches the air. [Aug 2015, p.91]

More of the same, only more so. [Apr 2002, p.94]

This album really is just too good to be true. [Apr 2005, p.114]

This is still music with a lot of virtuosity, and a great many notes, but it and its players are living its adaptability, as the evidence reveals all we have previously believed this composition to be, a confluence of free improvisation and what later became “spiritual jazz”. [Dec 2021, p.43]

A truly exhilarating 50 minutes of music. [Dec 2003, p.122]

Ty's most unrestrained albums stands among his best. ... Like sitting by a loaded jukebox that turns out gems all night. [Mar 2018, p.16]

The Window Is The Dream is sonically richer than Horn's often sparse 2022 debut, Optimism, but each choice - the temporary Band-esque folk-rock swagger of "The Dream", the way "Old Friend" hovers at the edge of an extended jam that never quite breaks - is in service of, rather than overpowering, the song. [May 2023, p.30]

It leaps between the glitch-hop of “Bezerk” to the android hymn “Don’t Go”; from the thumpy funk of “In My Head” to the pulsating UK garage of “Something”. It also employs some audacious samples, like the drumless samba that backs “Walk In The Park”, or the Cuban rumba groove under the vaporous soul of “Mood To Make Love”. But it’s unified by Lowe’s soft, supple voice and a quiet air of hope, warmth and radiance. [Nov 2024, p.40]

Ibibio Sound Machine barely need drums to weave their polyrhythmic magic. [Apr 2017, p.32]

Cousin is deliciously weird and intoxicatingly angular, but it still sounds like a Wilco album. [Oct 2023, p.24]

Collins' first album since 2013 sees the singer in pleasingly superb form. [Apr 2019, p.26]

Her songs feel so neatly woven that they deny all attempts to tease them apart. Listening to Night Reign, you mostly find yourself focusing on Aftab’s voice – a rich and smoky thing, gentle and open-hearted on “Whiskey”, reaching back through the centuries on “Na Gul”. But it also shows she has a keen eye for a collaborator. [Jul 2024, p.29]

The sound of a major talent gone major league. [Apr 2003, p.105]

Transfigures smoothly from one hallucinatory half-style to another. ... The playing is both adventurous and textural, and the surprising, soothing result would have made a fine release on Eno's '70s Obscure label. [May 2021, p.31]

Takes his lush, orchestrated pop to staggering new heights. [Nov 2003, p.124]

The breadth, scope and sheer suppleness of black SUMMERS'night makes one wish Maxwell worked a whole lot faster. [Sep 2016, p.76]

Tribe carry their burdens as lightly as they did on rap landmarks such as People's Instinctive Travels and The Low-End Theory. [Feb 2017, p.38]

Soul Mining is arguably Johnson's defining work: ambitious, strange, exciting. And, 30-odd years on, remarkably fresh. [Aug 2014, p.86]

Ants From Up There is often beautiful, but its not an album you can listen to casually. Its relentless emotional pummelling is quite an experience, a rollercoaster ride for the soul that is likely to leave you feeling distinctly and permanently rearranged. [Mar 2022, p.18]

An album that is leaps and bounds above anything else Shah has done before – a record that’s layered and detailed, coated with beautifully rich production, yet also spacious and considered. [Feb 2024, p.23]