American indie cult heroes get a little noisier, a little more obscure [June 2010, p. 104]

Yanya's music calls to mind gritty jazz/rock griot King Krule, Sampha's contemplative street soul and her key teenage influences: Pixies, Winehouse and The Libertines. Her spiky guitar playing is confidently pushed to the front of the mix here. [Apr 2019, p.86]

Rich and radio-friendly pop. [Apr 2012, p.101]

It's this continued need to feed her multi-platinum beast that stops the album from being the post-modern wheeze it could have been. [Mar 2014, p.94]

A glorious melange of love, loss, regret, homesickness and romance. [Sep 2005, p.86]

These songs have an impressive vehemency, whether showcasing uncanny AI balladry on Soul With Me, industrial wall-of-sound on Speak To Me and People Are Good, electro-pop dissociation on My Favourite Stranger, or hydraulically pumped Brel-drama on Don't Say You Love Me. [May 2023, p.85]

An oddly seamless follow-up to its distant predecessor. [Nov 2005, p.110]

These songs have a sharp, glittery edge, like a neat tequila slammer. [Apr 2019, p.92]

Though the production is by no means slick, the music emerges vividly from its hithero murky world. [Jul 2010, p.93]

A profoundly sad and affecting collage of memory and longing, ghostly torch songs half-buried in the claustrophobic electronic clatter of the modern world. [May 2019, p.95]

Lets playfulness weave through her cinematic forms, as orchestral tapestries, chamber folk and electronics commune. [Dec 2020, p.89]

All told: here's blues, raw'n'alive. [Sep 2023, p.83]

Bauhaus Staircase shows OMD thriving as much as surviving. [Dec 2023, p.91]

After 1991's low impact Kill Uncle, the often truculent Your Arsenal was where Morrissey discovered a newly villainous persona and a way forward. [Mar 2014, p.105]

A ghosts' convention set to music. [Nov 2003, p.130]

Last Broadcast is visceral, pulsing, uplifting, widescreen but has none of the bluster that would tip its forbears into self-parody. [May 2002, p.108]

This record is full of surprises, roping in all manner of esoteria for a sweaty, beer-splattered and tune-drenched rock'n'roll party that rivals even Nevermind for balancing the pop sugar with the twisted underbelly and subtle smarts. [May 2003, p.90]

Cursive employ musical inventiveness and a healthy dose of self-awareness to set themselves apart. [Apr 2003, p.102]

Ocean Roar exists deep in extreme nature, a journey's end of madness, memory and Euphoria. [Nov 2012, p.95]

With these elegantly devastating songs, she carves put a space, and a class, all of her own. [Mar 2019, p.91]

Beautifully poised. [Dec 2021, p.92]

Dan Bejar's surprising mix of slinky '80s soft rock and sophisticated disco. [July 2011, p. 106]

With its major keys, funky breakbeats, scorching guitar solos and soothing flutes, here's one Gizzard Magnum opus not to miss in the deluge. [Dec 2022, p.92]

From rowdy juke-joint jams to sunblushed cornfield ballads, these songs born of tough times. The latter provides the album's stand-out moments. [Jul 2009, p.100]

She's taken a great leap forward at the very moment one was required. [Jul 2022, p.89]

A compelling consistency of mood makes Metal Illness easy to get lost in. [May 2017, p.94]

These songs of faith and endurance work because the singer/guitarist and his band play according to their album's title--with hearts of oak, which refers not to flesh turned stiff, but to spirits that are stout, strong, tall. [Apr 2003, p.112]

Portrait gives us what the composer feels are the definitive versions of these tracks. It's also an excellent introduction to this most singular of musicians. [Jan 2020, p.88]

Arranged with exquisite care, not a swooning backing vocal, Gram Parsons echo or Brian Eeno-influenced synthesizer out of place. [Apr 2020, p.89]

The musicianship's great, Lloyd Maines' production's gorgeous and there's a slew of highlights. [Aug 2021, p.87]

Yellow scatterguns through P-Funk, Alice Coltrane, gospel, Sun-Ra, electric-era Miles Davis and '70s jazz-fusion with glee. [Aug 2021, p.85]

O'Neill has locked into humanity's flawed relationship with nature. But there's celebration too. [Mar 2023, p.92]

Delirious, danceable songs with emotional heft. [Dec 2022, p.89]

Tirzah matches the spacious, hazy intimacy of Levi's often distorted creations with unself-conscious melodies, as if singing in her sleep, finding beauty in imperfection and transience. [Nov 2023, p.90]

It's darker and more complex than their debut, but also bigger-sounding. [Sep 2020, p.80]

Their initial torrid confluence of My Bloody Valentine and Joy Division here shapeshifts more towards "synth-assisted stadium nu-gaze," with odd Kraut-y hints of early Simple Minds, and frequent echoes of their new found patron: fune-real The Arbor is pure Disintegration, while shimmering Keep It All To Yourself has Kiss Me! Kiss Me! Kiss Me!'s hi-tech dazzle. [Feb 2019, p.88]

It can be vague on the details, but Baker's songwriting is smart and serious enough to keep Little Oblivions from burning out entirely. [Apr 2021, p.86]

A charming glide of warm fuzz-pop that suffers only through their influences being worn perhaps too clearly upon their sleeves. [Oct 2004, p.101]

Fantasy Empire buzzes, drills and throbs with a brutal power that is relentlessly, terrifyingly exciting. [Apr 2015, p.89]

Raw and skiffly as you'd expect. [Apr 2015, p.95]

Beneath Tweedy's twinkling lights, Crowell wears each look like a favourite old coat - familiar, easy, and pocked by stains and rips that remind him of all he's seen. [Jun 2023, p.91]

Rarely less than poignant, with the composer's gift for aching earworm melody much in evidence. [Oct 2020, p.93]

Milk For Flowers sound wide awake; gloriously alive. [Apr 2023, p.89]

It's Stigmergy, named after a concept of collective action, that best encapsulates the ecstatic NIS groupthink: one hypnotic soloist after another - Ben Lamar Gay, brilliant on coronet - drifting elegantly in and out of systems repetition. [Jun 2023, p.92]

Another inspirational triumph over adversity. [Oct 2018, p.90]

The hair-raising honesty of their younger incarnation might have softened, but their new confidence and control ensure theses songs let a lot of life in. [Apr 2021, p.78]

Polwart conveys contrasting themes of tragedy, redemption, hope and homecoming with immensely affecting guile. [Jan 2018, p.93]

Providence Canyon is one of those brilliantly timeless albums that could have been lost in someone's dusty attic for decades. [Aug 2018, p.93]

It's a journey beyond self-consciousness and towards mature vulnerability, to an evolved idea of what is musically pure. [Jan 2019, p.82]

Worth the 10-year wait. [Nov 2019, p.91]

Singer Barbora Patkova's soulful charge that brings a tighter focus to a set of roiling, otherworldly jams whcih sound like Can and Funkadelic getting high on Sun Ra's unfettered jazz supply. [May 2020, p.93]

The Old Fabled River deals only in wistful enchantment, with four, typically bardic, otherworldly Roberts originals augmented by traditional ballads and a brace of Norwegian hymnals, achingly emoted by saxophonist Marthe Lea. [Aug 2021, p.88]

Throughout, the Brothers' riotous dustbowl carnival sounds and Ian's pointed deadpan make for a consistently entertaining cocktail. [Oct 2021, p.92]

Citizen Kane Jr. Blues has the challenged audio of a cassette machine hidden inside a coat or under a napkin. it also has the precious, authentic thrill of one-night-only magic. [Jun 2022, p.96]

A potent artistic tour de force, White Jesus Black Problems' message is ultimately a simple but life-affirming one: love can conquer all. [Jul 2022, p.94]

Its four long, richly-textured instrumentals thrum with existential reverence. [Aug 2022, p.89]

Yet another acknowledgement of these two commanding talents. [Nov 2014, p.95]

Morby has delivered largely run-of-the-mill roots rock, but Singing Saw is more measured. [Jun 2016, p.91]

Each song is perfectly realised.[Mar 2021, p.90]

Electric Dirt, as implied, is a continuation of "Dirt Farmer's" themes, packing a sharper jolt. [Jul 2009, p.94]

It flits between rigorous, tricksy composition and kinetic improv. [May 2021, p.78]

Surely the sweetly sour bubblegum album of 2015. [Sep 2015, p.86]

Before The Dawn is glorious and confounding--in other words, pure Kate. [Jan 2017, p.96]

A beautiful, comforting lament. [Nov 2019, p.95]

The self-analysis is elevated by Chatten's scowling poetry and producer Dan Carey's bright detailing. [Aug 2023, p.80]

For the most part A World Lit Only By Fire finds Godflesh sounding just as brilliantly brutal as ever. [Oct 2014, p.92]

Well after its final note fades, Islands lingers long in the memory. [Oct 2014, p.93]

An album whose wider appeal reaches for powerpop nirvana. [May 2015, p.98]

A densely orchestrated album that, even by his standards, is full of reflective melancholy. [Dec 2017, p.90]

A fourth album of brisk Saharan grooves, heavy jamming and trance percussion. [May 2018, p.98]

To most ears, this late-night, whipcrack-sharp chooglathon, finally unveiled, sounds astounding. What were they like on a good night? [Sep 2019, p.107]

It's not gloom and vitriol, it's gorgeous. [Nov 2020, p.83]

Throughout, a recurring Satie-like piano motif floats in and out, soothing the raw emotions. [Apr 2021, p.83]

While it lacks the hostility of its role model or its strident central voice, there's intrigue aplenty. [May 2023, p.84]

A triumph of healing and connection, experimentalism balanced out by emotional heft. [Nov 2023, p.89]

One tiny complaint: the original tapes were intended as complete listening experiences, immersive acts of prayer with transportive qualities of a religious or psychedelic experience. For the time being, this is just a taste of the full bewitching trip. [Jun 2017, p.102]

Love's Crushing Diamond is restful, woven, baroque. [Feb 2014, p.89]

The rehearsal-room feel of Mwng succeeds in capturing the organic, woody, mystical atmosphere that was sometimes missing from its highly-polished, heavily-digitised predecessors.

This time [COF] have tempered their voluminous superfuzz with scenic bliss. [Oct 2004, p.101]

Not only the bravest record she's ever made, it's also one of the strangest and most uncompromising by a major artist to get a commercial release. [Sep 2004, p.93]

Delicate yet powerful, and utterly compelling. [Feb 2023, p.92]

Has a spare, homespun feel with its simple folk guitar. [Sep 2023, p.82]

For all these disturbances, this grappling with difficult stuff of life and death, there is lovely, graceful ease to The Ballad Of Darren. This isn't the sound of a band trying to react against their past, or challenge their Britpop audience with US noise, or justify their existence - it's Blur simply showing what they do best. [Sep 2023, p.80]

A companion piece, maybe, but these songs can stand alone. [Apr 2022, p.84]

A one-man rap vigilante. [Jul 2012, p.92]

Remarkably, the performances by current artists from Ralph Stanley down the generations to Angel Snow are all superb. [Feb 2014, p.91]

Vega's spirit still blazed with righteous passion even when his body was giving out. Now it glowers like a ghostly light sculpture from beyond the grave, predicting current atrocities and still bang on for modern times. [Sep 2017, p.89]

The Curious Hand is that rare thing in folk: original, self-contained and unencumbered by the genre. [Dec 2017, p.88]

It's a unique kind of unhappy listening, too toxic on the universal scale to be bled out. But it leaves you galvanised, purged and recharged for the unending war against mediocrity. [Mar 2019, p.90]

She sounds like a full band as vamping pianos, rubbery double basses, freeform vibes and skittering beats collide. [Sep 2020, p.85]

It's a compulsive listen. [Feb 2021, p.85]

Rare, Forever's prevailing mood is sensuous and luxurious. [May 2021, p.88]

The free-est, fun-est, most psychedelic Villagers record so far. [Sep 2021, p.76]

This is not only Horace Andy's best album in 40 years, but it is also a work of lasting power. [May 2022, p.84]

With its own low-key sparkle Archangel Hill stands testament to a musical third act every bit as engaging as anything that went before. [Jun 2023, p.91]

Familiar elements (Nancy Wang's cheerleading vocals, sparse instrumentation colliding, lyrical misanthropy) are present and correct, but everything is bolder and deeper. [June 2010, p. 93]

Snares feels more like No Age's greatest hits than their fifth album. [Feb 2018, p.95]

It's Beach House's grandest vision yet. [Mar 2022, p.83]