The set is more interesting the more it delves into the songwriter's prodigious output, generally beefing up what it finds. [Jun 2015, p.81]

Although this LA-based Chinese-Icelander gas woven a loose temporal theme through the loungey chamber pop of her third album, it's the waspish lyrical sting in the tail of these songs that sets her apart. [Oct 2025, p.29]

Doldrums' frequently multi-tracked falsetto is the icing on an appealingly irregular cake. [Apr 2013, p.71]

He doesn't have that doomed, hellhound-on-my-trail intensity that makes Johnson's recordings so spooky. But, at 58, he sounds like a man who has faced down more than a few canine devils of his own. [Apr 2004, p.102]

The Leeds-based electro-rock five-piece set their sights shamelessly high on this grandiose second LP, a novelistic collection of characters journeying through a lavish panorama of cinematic sounds. [Mar 2011, p.101]

It's Apple's refinement as a writer that makes this harrowing psychodrama so gripping. [Aug 2012, p.69]

Illumination is already being described by the Weller massive as the best solo album of his career. You'll hear few arguments with that from this corner. [Oct 2002, p.118]

The songs benefit from a sharper focus than the quartet ever achieved before. [Oct 2016, p.37]

Another masterclass in deft guitar picking, smudged with piano, harmonica and a voice like honey drizzled onto a dry creekbed. [Jun 2003, p.93]

Business as unusual for Twig. [Oct 2015, p.83]

Sea Of Noise feels not just formally but emotionally authentic. [Nov 2016, p.39]

The Cairo Gang's superb, weighty, meticulous album still manages to pack a mighty punch. [Sep 2013, p.85]

Without sacrificing urgency, outrage or compassion, Alynda Lee Segarra gives these story-songs a light touch musically, favouring airy, even breezy arrangements driven by insistent drumbeats. [Mar 2022, p.31]

It's a wonderful pop album and there's a genuinely delightful innocence here. [Nov 2013, p.69]

It all sounds closer to 1990s David Bowie studio funk than the man who once went commando with the likes of Sabotage/Live and Music For A New Society. [Nov 2012, p.71]

This pleasing mix of exploratory guitar tones and ever-shifting rhythms that switch between the kinetic and flowing makes for an arresting debut. [Jun 2022, p.25]

The album is tethered by Roberts' spoken-word poetry. [Oct 2023, p.33]

White-knuckle anthemicism is order of the day, and vocalist Elias Bender Ronnenfelt seem to gave grown into his skin. [Mar 2013, p.73]

Price's excellent debut wastes absolutely no energy trying to address her place in the country-music ecosystem, and gets right to telling us who she is, rather than who she ain't.... Her voice is the record's real star: controlled, infectious, and rich with enviable natural twang. [Apr 2016, p.63]

Tennessee Pusher is comfortably up to standard, the demented Dylan pastiche, 'Alabama High-Test' a particular highlight. [Oct 2008, p.101]

Hearing these instantaneous, improvised rituals makes the world feel a little less huge. [Jun 2020, p.29]

Platinum Tips + Ice-Cream sees the duo attack old songs with results both gloriously haphazard and straight-up glorious. [Jul 2017, p.39]

The second album by this East London singer sees her moving away from the orthodox jazz trio and expanding her sonic palette. [Feb 2014, p.77]

"Jelly's" languid R&B and the Latin shuffle of "Moonwalk" will seduce newcomers, while the rest--like Juana Molina's recent Halo--is subtle and endlessly engrossing. [Aug 2017, p.30]

Local Valley is positive, engaged, almost rousing. [Oct 2021, p.32]

Cowley's songs sound lie pulsating Bond themes, funeral laments and the greatest stadium-filling anthems that Coldplay never wrote. [Feb 2012, p.83]

Draws intelligently on its sources, revealing itself as more than mere pastiche. [Nov 2004, p.108]

While Pang!, totalling just under half an hour, doesn't have the conceptual strengths of Babelsberg or American Interior, it's nevertheless a delight to hear Rhys once again embracing the possibilities of technology and harnessing modern, global sounds to enhance his unique vision. [Oct 2019, p.37]