Pop, but still an album for reflection. [Nov 2013, p.89]

On a basic, gut-punching level they deliver with inarguable aplomb. [Feb 2016, p.92]

An album of mischievous melody, fairground keyboards, cut'n'paste aural collage and an undeniable love of pop all but buried in junk shop Dadaist clatter. [Oct 2007, p.106]

Arbouretum have reined in the Crazy Horse-gallop-on-for-hours excesses of earlier outings, for sharper impact. [Jan 2013, p.91]

This set stays faithful to Lennon's melodies - like meeting old friends in unexpected but comfy clothes. [Dec. 2011 p. 99]

We Are Scientists now sound less like a band you might have seen on a bill with Bloc Party. [Apr 2008, p.112]

The quartet's grandeur evokes Maiden and Priest with a hint of Thin Lizzy, yet they avoid European power metal's widdly overkill. [May 2008, p.109]

Stirring stuff, but a little goes a long way. [Jun 2019, p.96]

Secret Sisters ably court both the family market and those who haunt Past Times stores in search something new. [Mar 2011, p.108]

White's devastation lends poignancy to tracks ... that skip with country celebration even as he chokes on the words. [Apr 2012, p.95]

Five albums in, his music finally sounds as threadbare as his chosen eulogy, dropping any evidence of the richer--if still ragged--arrangements that launched his deeply affecting six-track debut. [Jul 2009, p.107

The incomplete tape of his concert. ... Some of the best moments on the 11 surviving songs from this University of Tuscaloosa show with Jack Nitzsche, Ben Keith, Tim Drummond and Kenny Buttrey are the mellow, almost hymn-like After The Goldrush and the edgy Alabama. [Jul 2019, p.107]

Amid the thoughts of ultimate demise, the creative juices never cease to flow.[May 2012, p.88]

The songs remain sweet and sad, delicately picked folk foregrounding a serene voice. [Aug 2017, p.97]

There is much to love here, just as much to hate, and nothing to be indifferent about. [Mar 2010, p.99]

Beauty & Ruin--a lean, 12 songs in 37 minutes--finds Mould still monkeying with the formula. [Jul 2014, p.90]

The album features psychedelic guitar, heavy percussion, priests, deep gumbo and the main man's peerless drumming. [Nov 2016, p.93]

Gist Is feels like an urgent conversation,a record driven by compulsion; fortunately, tuning in to its internal dialogue is a pleasure. [Sep 2014, p.93]

It's frustrating to hear them bringing so much to material that doesn't quite coalesce, it's something like listening to holograms of actual songs. [Jan 2020, p.85]

Cloying, ultimately fascinating. [Feb 2018, p.99]

A tightly zipped, anxious, often menacing trawl through personal challenges, offset by Caribbean vocals and rhythms and collaborations. [Mar 2020, p.96]

Guitar thrashes, mystic excursions, slabs of heavy blues and silvers of electronica. [Sep 2013, p.90]

A giddy, unpredictable pop record that put new spins on every cliche it touches, while Benson;s innately McCartneyesque melodic gift successfully sells every occasionally saccharine lyric. [Jun 2020, p.88]

Irma and producer Scott Billington have devised the perfect setting. [Sep 2008, p.1000]

Upbeat episodes are outweighed by melancholic drama. [Jun 2018, p.88]

Throughout, Ranaldo and Nels Cline build up layers of eloquent, electrifying guitar.... Satisfying. [Apr 2012, p.95]

Pierce's lyrics remain largely opaque, and the atypically lumpen Warm Hand In Narnia sounds unsettlingly like Snow Patrol, but to cavil feels churlish when elsewhere such vivacious invention pervades. [May 2013, p.86]

Like much of UNKLE's work, the album feels a little bloated and too serious by half, but there are gems among the rubble. [June 2010, p. 97]