His first solo outing has enabled Ben Gibbard to try on new stylistic contexts as if they were outfits. [Dec 2012, p.71]

Deconstructing socio-cultural norms rarely sounds like so much fun. [Feb 2017, p.24]

Be Strong is warm and easy comfort food for recessionary midlife ravers. [Feb 2012, p.90]

She reinvents the standards songbook in her image, using her deep, husky, Malboro-burnished voice to breathe life intro hackneyed old showtunes. [July 2008, p.115]

The second full-length album is richly textured and exceedingly complex in its arrangements. [Apr 2012, p.75]

It's the hushed, soul-searching moments--especially the lovelorn "Alone In Arizona" and the gorgeous, universal ballad "A Little Help"--that resonate most. [Jun 2016, p.71]

The partners [Peyroux and producer Larry Klein] and arranger Vince Mendoza breathe new life into iconic songs. [May 2013, p.75]

Its heady and timeless distillation of dub gospel, disco excursions, molten psych rock and soulful swagger sounds more like back to the future. [Jul 2025, p.37]

This second is a well-crafted collection that finds McClure pondering his place in a rotten world. [Aug 2009, p.102]

The Bride is her most accomplished realisation of her wandering mind yet. [Aug 2016, p.65]

There are still big choruses here. But they now layer things deftly. [Jun 2010, p.86]

Lyrically, The Murder Capital are less direct than Idles and Fontaines, but musically they're more expansive, bringing a brooding brain-twisting gothic feel. [Sep 2019, p.30]

A lush song suite reflective of the grandeur of their native New Zealand's landscapes. [Sep 2018, p.29]

If there is pure genius in this last set of remasters, it is in how Jimmy Page has contrived to turn Coda from a desultory selection of offcuts into an essential purchase. [Sep 2015, p.93]

No song here exceeds the five-minute mark, and each one feels finely honed, melodically generous, and designed to penetrate your consciousness. [Sep 2014, p.66]

The sparer treatments on How Beauty Holds the Hand of Sorrow make for something more enthralling, partially because of how much the largely piano-and-vocal arrangements evoke the crystalline beauty of Brun's early albums. [Jan 2021, p.23]

There are star turns from figures like the veteran tenor saxophonist Ari Brown. But this is a collective, community affair - never more so than on "Stigmergy", which sees multiple instruments feeding into a single, glowing master melody. [Jul 2023, p.30]

The result is a high;y accomplished and warmly uplifting country-soul album that easily holds its own amid both musicians' back catalogues. [Oct 2012, p.73]

It's a genius pop album by a genius pop singer-songwriter. [Nov 2013, p.70]

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

With everything slathered liberally in reverb, Ester is wrong in all the right ways. [Feb 2012, p.90]

The results is an album that's braver, weirder and richer than most of his more sensible and brand-conscious peers could ever manage. [Jun 2019, p.18]

On Holy Spring he expands the minimalist palette of his debut Distant Early Warning. [Jun 2019, p.34]

It's rich, beguiling stuff. [Mar 2009, p.78]

Reinterpreting these sample-and-synth-laden originals for guitar is quite an achievement, and the results are certainly fascinating. [Feb 2011, p.82]

This is space-age folk music from an elaborate sound sculptor. [Jul 2013, p.75]

A beautiful, rather brave album, and by far her best. [Jul 2013, p.83]

Regular frontwoman Ninja remains a ferocious force of nature on several tracks. ... Consistently great, routinely underrated. [Mar 2023, p.26]