No huge amounts of new ground broken... but even a mediocre Kraftwerk album is still a work of near-genius. [Sep 2003, p.101]

Her balance of mesmerising, confessional intensity with sculpted pop instincts remains an unfailing pleasure throughout. [Mar 2022, p.85]

SpiderBeetleBee is part history lesson, park New World exploration; the familiar made strange by glistening harmonics. [Nov 2017, p.102]

Undoubtedly one of his strongest. [Feb 2017, p.97]

Haunted and intimate, Balfe's deep brogue ultimately salvages hope from the wreckage. [May 2021, p.83]

[the Lost Brothers] are most at home in melancholy autumnal folk-lands. [Feb 2018, p.99]

Over and over again, Pratt hovers on the brink of revelation, yet Quiet Signs puts down a code, that, brilliantly, it's not quite possible to break. [Mar 2019, p.89]

Might well be their strongest, most brain-mulching statement to date. [Aug. 2011, p. 106]

After 33 years of intuitive playing together they are able to show you their close-up sculpted technique, as if revealing their workings, and then do something so transcendent, so miraculous, that it causes you to believe in magic once again. [May 2020, p.90]

These 10 acoustic pieces hold a certain stillness within the variety of tempos, instruments and inspirations. [Apr 2016, p.89]

The Watsons' approach is softer, and more affecting, than wry, tack-sharp Lewis. [Aug 2008, p.114]

Wyatt has a knack of making happy song sound melancholic, but conversely brings some wry levity to the lovelorn ennui of jazz standard. [Nov 2001, p.103]

Koenig is a formidable lyricist, and behind the music's occasional larkiness lies a record of high seriousness. [Jun 2019, p.88]

Haunting, unsettling hybrid. [Jul 2020, p.83]

Delivering a deliciously unsettling and artful listening experience. [Sep 2021, p.83]

It is an easy album to like. [Apr 2012, p.85]

With a gift for creating memorable melodies allied with a strong storytelling narrative, he comes across like a sophisticated jazz version of Bill Withers. [Apr 2012, p.94]

Polar Bear remain gratifyingly dislocated from the mainstream. [Apr 2014, p.91]

Their albums from this period were a little low on magic, but this is the real deal, an organic sound full of strange, shadowy moods and adventurous and melodic playing. [Nov 2022, p.104]

He's boosted by a heart-and-soul R&B ensemble, but every hard-earned wrinkle on that still fierce visage remains in working order. [May 2013, p.90]

Kane, like his Puppets partner, is fast becoming one of Britain;s landmark composers. [Jun 2011, p.102]

There's no mistaking this advent of a genuine original, the woozy, whacked-out linguistic precision of A Sufi And A Killer resisiting all efforts at summary. [Apr 2010, p.105]

The aural palette is as wide as ever... but in the service of songs that might be sung on the morning train, under stars on a moonless night or even in the bath. [Apr 2002, p.116]

The Bravest Man impresses on a steadily rising graph as Womack's soul-soaked voice humanises the machinery in ways rarely heard these days. [Jul 2012, p.84]

Real heart pulses behind the earwiggy riffs, the lyrics tracing ideas of love from first stage to last, more nuances being revealed on each play. [Oct 2019, p.85]

Pure class. [Jun 2012, p.92]

With the excellent Roots backing her, she recasts many of the dominant black music sounds of 30 or so years ago on a set of songs which address concerns that are clearly in the here-and-now. [Aug 2012, p.92]

This is miffed and exemplary metal. [Jul 2003, p.108]