There's something deeply satisfying about the way the songs fit together as an album, their sequence strengthened both by the homogenous tone of the music with its air of wistful melancholy, and by the way each song seems to push the next one forward. [Mar 2013, p.61]

A superb new Fall album.

The band must from time to time stray from their stomping ground of doomed sailors and pining maidens, but one hopes the band will not steer too close to plain old indie rock. [May 2011, p.96]

The album's centerpiece is the autobiographical 10-minute "Colfax/Step In Time," a richly detailed remembrance of a run-in between his high school marching band and the KKK. [Mar 2012, p.84]

His is a personal, emotive take, and it proves very effective. [Dec 2012, p.72]

The Shabazz sound is sprawling and promiscuous, but also deep, which might make for uneasy listening. [Aug 2014, p.79]

Sea Island feels comfortable, perhaps a little overly so, though there are plenty of lovely moments. [Jan 2015, p.74]

The Last Days Of Oakland is a polished--but not too polished--set of soulful blues. [Aug 2016, p.75]

Feels like the work of a man who's finally found his calling. [Apr 2017, p.28]

The trio deliver devotional, soulful, throat-reddening gospel on Move Upstairs, where the odd rough note only adds to the one-take authenticity. [Jul 2017, p.26]

As you would expect from a Daptone act--musicianship is uniformly excellent. [Oct 2017, p.24]

There are enough familiar motifs to keep long-time fans happy. Lyrically, it's an endlessly pleasing melting pot. [Nov 2017, p.36]

[She] breathes new life into past glories. [Mar 2018, p.32]

Sensual beauty abounds. [Apr 2018, p.24]

On paper this should be a mess; on record it's a thrillingly chaotic sonic voyage. [Jun 2018, p.27]

The sound remains satisfyingly Stax/Volt-centric yet also full of left-field touches. [May 2019, p.35]

At its best it feels emblematic of California: merging a sunny disposition with the hard, ragged terrain of the desert. [Aug 2019, p.29]

A collaborative project that's all over the map--delightfully so. [Sep 2019, p.29]

Doesn't reveal itself in haste but rather unfolds over time and through multitudinous layers. [Nov 2019, p.23]

It has the desperate, desolate sound of one that needed to be written. [Aug 2020, p.27]

She tears into bilious rockers "Big Baby" and "Two Shots" like the wildcat of yesteryear. ... But Jackson really comes into her own on a heart-rendering cover of Johnny Tillotson's "It Keeps Right On A Hurtin'" and co-written country ballad "That's What Love Is." [Oct 2021, p.28]

It's an effortless charmer. [Feb 2023, p.29]

While about as niche as it gets, this is a strangely endearing and subtly beguiling album that does much more than just send you to sleep. [Sep 2024, p.29]

It’s a tough balance to pull off, but it works seamlessly, and is clearly the result of a band who intuitively understand the dynamics and pull of the dancefloor as much as they do the art of crafting pop, art-rock and the odd indie banger. [Nov 2024, p.43]

Now in her seventies, her voice is deeper than it once was, but it remains an instrument of impressive power. [Review of the Year 2024, p.27]

This is the kind of record that Albini's notoriously no-frills production style served best: a brooding and intense post-punk, equal parts visceral and cerebral. [Mar 2025, p.32]

Disquiet is a marathon - it's more than three hours long - but every minute matters. [Nov 2025, p.35]

Cheap bubblegum keyboards sound even more archaic in a present the embattled singer knows all too well. .... Beach Boys harmonies brighten "Electric Rock And Roll", and the '70s dream-time of Mike Post themes and lost childhood comfort is caught in "Glorious Chorus." [Dec 2025, p.36]