[It] can't top the early stuff. [5 Aug 2006, p.29]

An oddball pleasure.

Despite the occasional flashes of brightness, it sounds like they’ve taken that brief (an homage to the mundanities of love) to heart.

'Trust Me’ works, kinda, by doing R&B without palely imitating US fare: take ‘Hot Stuff’, smooth ’80s dance-pop that makes game use of Bowie’s ‘Let’s Dance’.

Given the somewhat disjointed making of this record – a journey that stretches from 2017 to mid-lockdown – it lacks the cohesiveness of recent material. The songs origins, however, have come from a completely different place for Morby, one more instinctive and reflective, as he jots down snapshots and musings eloquently into a handy piece of kit. Given that it kickstarted a new exploration in his songwriting, the resulting project is still worth savouring.

His taste for sonic jumble can be overwhelming.

This fifth album is a relatively sedate affair.

A twisted, mucky treat. [15 Apr 2006, p.35]

The resultant album is exactly what you’d expect from this mix of personnel.

A strange record, but an intriguing planet to get sucked into.

It's like Scissor Sisters on tranquilisers. With a bit of ELO. And a dash of Ramones. And, with this eclecticism, a worrying lack of focus. [5 Jun 2004, p.57]

Though not quite closure, ‘Lost Wisdom Pt. 2’ is the sound of Mount Eerie reaching clarity.

Despite the air of musical schizophrenia, 'Intensive Care' is OK in a sort of karaoke way. [22 Oct 2005, p.43]

It's a hit and miss affair.

While Tyranny is wildly self-indulgent--and often at the expense of quality - you could never say that it's boring.

‘Honestly, Nevermind’ is an unexpected elevation from the bland trap, R&B remakes and Drake’s melancholic attitude to love we heard last time around. He doesn’t quite shift the latter as much as one would hope – the album is as tiresomely woe-is-me as anything he’s ever done – but the house sound has at least given him the creative boost that his recording career has been crying out for recently.

Despite its glimpses of greatness, though, this album revisits too many of the rapper’s trademark themes to truly make good on his jubilant pre-release promises.

It's good to have them back--but only just.

The music of Amplifying Host blends baked American blues with the ghosts of this island's folk tradition to wonderful effect, especially on 'Tessellations', which is like coming across a bedraggled family cooking beans around a campfire in the tinder-dry ruins of what was once a chocolate-box timber-framed cottage.

The expansive arrangements feel like unnecessary decoration. But on the billowing ‘You Got Me Time Keeping’ and sweet single 'Sometimes' Black's experiment works, injecting new flamboyance into his introverted songcraft.

It may lack the immediacy of 2018’s hookier ‘Remind Me Tomorrow’, but this unyielding record is, at times, a powerful reckoning with the age of uncertainty.

Tracks such as "Excuses," "Animal Backwards" and, in particular, "Into the Mirror" caress the ears with hypnotic funk, yet these triumphs are only ripples against a stronger tide, as lyrically Omni is a damp blanket.

If the band suffer from anything, it’s being too serious for their own good, but the sheer propulsive nature of the majority of the record makes it undeniably attractive.

You Were Right pretty much fulfills all the criteria for being a successful radio rock record, apart from the one about having a chorus you can actually remember 12 hours after hearing it.

The dark and sexy new songs shine their brightest when coated with a layer of her previous sparkle; which makes the artist’s second album a fine but frustrating release.

This one fares better than most in audio form, but whether ‘Natalie’s Rap’ will be enjoyed by anyone who hasn’t already wet themselves at the video is debatable.

Even if they're a hard band to fall in love with, this record is ridiculously easy to admire.

Less of a concept album, more of a patchwork, Mirrors runs together not so much seamlessly as breathlessly.

[‘Gold Rush Kid’ is] a fun and curious ditty, yet the songwriting frustratingly positions Ezra as someone who got lucky, rather than an ambitious auteur ready to set his own fate after years of hardship. Elsewhere, though, this theme comes secondary to descriptions of a crisis induced by losing control, with bright, almost homespun production tasked with keeping our narrator grounded.

Opener ‘Teenage Exorcists’ really would have been an awkward fit on ‘Rave Tapes’, a rare vocal-led effort with the enveloping guitar of shoegaze and REM’s anthemic tenderness. More plausible is the idea that ‘History Day’ and ‘HMP Shaun William Ryder’ were left off the album because they’re basically Mogwai-by-numbers. Of the remixes, Fuck Buttons’ Ben Power, trading as Blanck Mass, triumphs.

Finn certainly takes a paddle – if not quite a dive – into fresh sonic waters.

Technically accomplished and assured record, which doesn’t do a massive amount to deviate from the template of Catfish’s debut.

California is too long, but has the humour, pace, emotion and huge choruses of a classic Blink record. Mission accomplished.

It's not, as has been signalled, Super Furries' best album. It's their worst. That's still aeons better than most other left-of-centre alternative British pop bands, but it's nonetheless a disappointment.

Backed up by producer 30 Roc, Big Papito and Boi-1da, this 15 -rack album is sometimes ‘big’ and sometimes ‘clever’, but occasionally goes awry.

Nothing new here, as you might expect, but a handful of catchy tracks could teach those young whippersnappers a thing or two about melody. [11 Mar 2006, p.43]

Ultimately, this is tinkering around the edges of a formula rather than a bold stylistic shift--and while this makes Kannon an easy disc to recommend to newcomers, ultimately it goes nowhere SunnO))) haven’t gone before.

Smith’s made the grade on this serviceable first record Lost & Found, and the path to her becoming Britain’s next global export is looking pretty clear. If only it was made to feel less of a drag.

St Catherine’s surface may be polished to perfection, but much of what’s underneath feels hollow.

Canta Lechuza deflates its ambition by bleeping and whirring in every direction at once, landing in a confused heap of awkward samba jangle and rippling steel drums, a curious and compelling mess.

Touted as half 'Get Ready', half 'Technique', it lives up to every predictable stylistic retread that entails, to the point of self-parody.... Thank Christ, then, that the songs are so good. [26 Mar 2005, p.49]

Tracks like ‘Angels On A Passing Train’, swoon with religious imagery and elevate in their choruses, nodding unashamedly to Dylan and Springsteen, while ‘Jesus In The Temple’ is a BRMC mosey into the sunset, delivered with adventurous gusto that’s matched by anything found here.

But from supposedly passionate Vonnegut fans we could do without ‘Sons Of Privilege’ and its student union pop at Uncle Sam (chief findings: U.S.A.=B.A.D.), while much of the rest slips into shouty default mode.

Maybe it’s because the whole sex-food thing is so overdone that the 18 tracks never drag, and it’s not often you can say that about a hip hop or R’n’B album.

When Khaled does make magic happen, it’s plain to see his brilliance – as when he pairs H.E.R. with a dancehall-infused backdrop on ‘We Going Crazy’, utilising the singer’s silken vocals in a way we’ve not really heard before. But, as with all Khaled albums, there are plenty of misses too. The low points here come when you can’t really hear Khaled’s imprint at all.

While DONDA certainly isn’t a rushed job, it could have benefitted from West spending a little less time on it and learning when to let things go. Nobody needs all 27 of these tracks, but dig deep into its contents and you’ll find enough gems to make his 10th album worth your time.

[It] takes some persistance. [18 Mar 2006, p.35]

Melodramatic ballads like 'Secret Love Song' and 'Love Me Or Leave Me' aren't as entertaining, but they're outweighed by the sassy kiss-offs of 'Hair' ("He was just a dick and I knew it") and 'Grown' ("Your voice dropped and you thought you could handle me").

It's easy enough to ignore until a real stinker passes by. [2 Sep 2006, p.21]

Ire Works is their most controlled effort to date, even more so than 2004's mainstream-friendly (relatively speaking, of course) "Miss Machine."

It's all wildly self-indulgent, but pleasant enough.

Unsurprisingly, it’s overcooked in places. In addition to super-producer Max Martin (Taylor Swift, Katy Perry), an array of producers come and go on the 17-track record that nearly stretches to a full hour. ... But little could possibly dampen the record’s spirit and spunk.

While Bought to Rot might not possess the focused tenacity of Against Me!’s latest record, ‘Shape Shift With Me’, it’s a varied, meandering album that roams freely across multiple genres.

Just when you're starting to worry some of the cancer vibes might rub off, he'll crack that underdog grin and knock out a number like 'Hey Man (Now You're Really Living)', backed by a bunch of cheerleaders. [18 Feb 2006, p.36]

There’s no doubting the musicianship on display across ‘What Kinda Music’. Misch and Dayes certainly complement one another. But it’s hard not to long for a little disruption to the album’s soothing sonic cohesion. While they were clearly having fun, it was probably more fun to make than it is to hear.

Without visuals to add a knowing wink and a flourish of pop absurdity, it sometimes settles into a comfortable groove of trap-influenced drum beats, moody instrumentals, Frank Ocean-y electric guitars and percussive brass peals. Rarely deviating from earnestness, this is at odds with the absurd brilliance of his defining moments thus far.

There’s still enough dusty amplifier buzz and garagey thump to keep indie aesthetes happy, but intentionally or not, Spectrals now sit in a sonic nook which most resembles the stolid pre-punk orthodoxy of pub rock.

It’s uneven, with flashes of brilliance. Blood is a record that builds slow and steady, as it continually keeps you on your toes with its experimental and exploratory nature.

Today, in a world rooted in an entirely different stratum of rock, they're as lively as the corpses that archaeologists hook out of peat bogs: perfectly preserved, but not great for dancing or conversation.

Some of the album’s charms only emerge when you search hard for them, as on the disjointed gloom of ‘The Light In Your Name’ or the dankness of ‘Spiral’, and there are a few ponderous cold spots.

‘Algorithm’ will probably appeal more to the older hip-hop cynics, though anyone who grew up in a house where their parents played ‘California Love’ or ‘It Was A Good Day’ will also revel in the nostalgia offered by the record.

This compilation isn’t anywhere near as enlightening or engrossing as its source material, but if you’ve seen the film, read the think-pieces and are now determined to buy the album, there’s just enough here to make it worth your while.

‘Trip The Mains’, perhaps Webb’s finest composition yet, appears to share its electrifying opening riff with Donna Summer’s disco classic ‘Hot Stuff’, before diving headfirst into a seismic chorus that’d shatter Blondie’s ‘Heart Of Glass’. Elsewhere, the haunting ‘Scream Whole’ begins as a soothing lullaby, before unravelling itself into a doomy slice of noir-pop. This momentum is intermittent though, disappointingly.

Frustratingly, flashes of the wired energy that got them noticed in the first place are few and far between.

Shopping’s sound is minimal, and almost every song kicks off with a Spaghetti Western guitar riff before being met by a steady beat and chanting vocals by various members.

The main problem with '...Thunder Canyon' though is it's long - 72 minutes long - which suggests when Banhart let his muse fly free, he forgot to keep a check on his ego, too. At its best, this is subtle, touching, beautiful. At its worst, it's meandering and smug. You're entertained, but unsettled.

Ultimately, the record doesn’t feel wholly complete. By the final rotation of this imperfect kaleidoscope, there are inconsistencies that only highlight the fractures that underlie Ephyra. But Woman’s Hour have a knack for communicating this feeling so gracefully.

Coheed have picked up more prog nuances so it fits that this, the last in the sequence, is their most ambitious yet, best embodied in the eight-minute 'The End Complete.'

Breakfast turns out to be a reasonably hearty meal, definitely sausage and waffles rather than the aural porridge that "alternative hip-hop" summons up.

Thankfully, closer ‘Goodbye Blue Sky’ is a sumptuous country swoon capable of wiping clean the record’s hoarier moments, and we end embedded once more in LaMontagne’s misty mystique.

Breakfast, for all its modest attractions, never quite transcends its talented-journeyman origins.

There's something missing here, and that something is soul.

Turn it off halfway through and it’s brilliant.

For five songs, it's the best album ever, rattling along on post-punk guitar flourishes and Cale's auto-tuned vocal. After that it descends into an enjoyable weirdathon.

Completists can tick a box, but it'd be a shame if this was really the original New Order's last word.

It's odd that parts of it sound too careful.

Glory is no masterpiece, but it’s a marked improvement on 2013’s ‘Britney Jean’, a messy attempt to merge thumping EDM tunes with supposedly reflective midtempo songs.

Sonic risks are taken, but they don’t always pay off.

It is, however, undoubtedly a collection of many good songs. From start to finish, it’s a relentlessly difficult listen, and one that suffers from little in the way of dynamics or variety of tone.

While this fifth album, marrying incisive political commentary with intense introspection, epitomises Ghostpoet, it doesn’t add any new colours to his palette. He doesn’t sound like he’s even trying to push himself.

If the trimmings were removed from ‘It’s Only Me’, it might rival his previous releases – instead it’s a few notches shy of greatness

Marian Joan Elliott-Said, Poly Styrene to you, is one of punk's great cult icons. Her band X-Ray Spex was one of the most inventive and fun of the era. Her first record in aeons, Generation Indigo provides ample proof of both aforementioned claims.

The problem is not so much with the contents as with the packaging. ‘Mind Chaos’ is a pop record, and, as a pop record, it kind of works – it’s full of chart-friendly singles and sung by a bunch that are bound to find themselves doted on by 13-year-olds.

What could be mistaken for something approaching a masterpiece reveals itself as far more hollow.

Though the album gets a little messier and more unfocused from this point, ‘Oceans Niagara’ points to a beautifully bright future for the M83 project.

Understated, ramshackle garage-pop treats. [22 Jan 2005, p.51]

It would have been a major disappointment had ‘Escapades’ just been a rehash of leftover Justice cuts. Thankfully Augé’s thirst for the strange makes this album an odd but interesting solo proposition, which still makes some room for dancefloor slayers.

Yet amongst [a few] luminous choice picks, sometimes it gets lethargic – and the record stalls.

It’s a shame that Quirk’s quirky vibrato is so prominent as it ruins an album that otherwise sits somewhere between untroublesome and mildly enjoyable

The sound has clearly dated, and John Cooper Clarke’s guest vocal on ‘Let You Down’ feels phoned in, but uptempo limbshakers ‘You’re So Good For Me’ and ‘Changes’ are as solid as anything they did 20 years ago.


Although still fans of start-stop measures and tempo changes, this time around songs are given some welcome room to breathe and the quartet focus on grand, pastoral soundscapes, which loosely recall the likes of Pink Floyd.

Ultimately Anything In Return suggests a tendency to follow the musical trends du jour rather than defining a true Toro Y Moi sound.

This is a man who penned a song called 'Chimbley Sweep' without conceding how daft that sounds, and this overblown opus about a mythical Margaret is equally wet and earnest.

Cloud Nine could certainly do with a few more musical ideas, but this shouldn’t trouble Kygo unduly--after all, the same problem never held back David Guetta and Calvin Harris.

‘=’ adds up to another album on which Sheeran comes off like a millennial Lionel Richie – namely, a very gifted singer-songwriter who’s sometimes sunk by his saccharine streak.

Only when Leithauser relaxes the template does he start to cock it up.

LM5 is the culmination of the band’s growth over the past seven year. Yes it may sometimes musically miss the mark; but with its strong and relevant message it’s something of a milestone for the band.

For all their fitful moments of greatness, these albums remain too cluttered with filler to measure up against the best of the band's stuff, though ¡Dos! is a tentative step in the right direction.