The results, while never quite suggesting imminent breakthrough, are sometimes elegiac. [Nov 2006, p.147]

It's like being hit over the head by a giant hammer in a neverending Itchy & Scrathy episode. [Jan 2009, p.113]

At times it verges on beautiful classical pop. At others, it's like listening to a taxing piece of modernist musical theatre. [Aug 2013, p.105]

As an act of Catharsis, Storm Damage was clearly an important one for the singer, even if ultimately it yields mixed results. [Apr 2020, p.114]

Occasionally distant, the restrained urgency of Dracula and soulful vocals of Closer ripple with an enticing warmth. [May 2013, p.113]

Bish Bosch is an album even fans won't necessarily play often, but on those special occasions, as per title, it very much does the job. [Jan 2013, p.104]

Leaving no room for nuance,it's a relentlessly dark wall of sonic aggression. [Apr 2012, p.101]

Mastodon return to the dense riffing of old. [Aug 2014, p.109]

The Low Highway has the brains and passion of Earle's last few releases, even if it's not especially surprising. [May 2013, p.100]

Happyness's second LP is deceptively well thought-out, deftly constructed around unusual chord changes, and laced with subtly eyebrow raising sonics. ... Making you wonder just how impactful this able trio might be if they properly pulled their finger out. [Jun 2017, p.106]

Aims for the middle ground, aided by Phil Ek and a sturdier indie-rock back-up that doesn't always suit them. [Mar 2020, p.120]

It's the same sure-footed, Beatles-inspired pop that made them so popular in the early '90s. [Sep 2007, p.100]

Swedish electro-pop hipsters take understatement to a new high. [Aug. 2011, p. 117]

The real revelation is Kaur herself, a wonderfully gifted singer whose shimmering vocals prove every bit as effervescent as her name. [Apr 2011, p.98]

Another quirky, engaging curio.[April 2012, p.98]

Here, melody and charmingly lo-fi electronics vie for attention next to moshpit riffing. [Apr 2011, p.106]

Enthusiasts for dooomy extremes will find much to love here. [Apr 2015, p.97]

When the songs are powerful enough, it all works gorgeously. But elsewhere, songs as Ordinary Life or Nigel & Fiona drift towards diluted boho chic. [Nov 2001, p.122]

Feminist Sweepstakes is a clever, catchy Day-Glo riot that anyone can join. [#184, p.140]

Beyond the just-add-tears euphoria it also shows a band capable of a rawness that their self-created, slightly precious, image masks. [Dec. 2011 p. 135]

A collection of delicate, woozy and otherworldly electronics. [Sep 2013, p.99]

While there's no doubt that listening to the Super Furries' seventh album is mostly a pleasure, there are moments when it feels like a little less relaxation might have paid off. [Sep 2005, p.116]

The follow-up repeats the trick, scattering dreamy pop between industrial soundscapes. [July 2010, p. 129]

The results are largely impressive, particularly on the fragile country of Follow Me Down, but you can't help feeling that eventually Nap Eyes will need to look to more distant horizons to maintain everyone's interest. [Apr 2018, p.112]

Though probably not the best place for the uninitiated to start exploring the work of this often brilliant and evocative musician, at the same time, songs such as the aching South rank up there with his best. [Jul 2019, p.110]

There's nothing that reeks of genius here, but there's enough to be getting on with. [Oct 2012, p.97]

I Don't Run often feels like a post-tour comedown, meandering and forlorn, where its predecessor was uplifting and catchy. [Jun 2018, p.110]

Emily Haines remains a commanding frontwoman, but where once she railed against war and consumerism, here she sticks to wishy-washy reflections on love and life. [Jun 2009, p.127]

It's remarkably poised, a level gaze that could give a little more away. [May 2019, p.111]

Devoid of the chest-thumping drama of the real thing, this sprinkling of tracks, largely taken from Second Toughest In The Infants and its follow-up Beaucoup Fish sound curiously neutered.... Hugely disappointing.

Everytime they hit their stride, as on 'Weightless,' a delicious coupling of joyful guitar riffs and Matthew Caw's warm falsetto, it is quickly followed by a bog-standard indie jangle. [Mar 2008, p.108]

It's all very cinematic and atmospheric but with lyrics offering a light, sixth-form poetry vibe, much here is easy to bid adieu to. [May 2020, p.109]

The overall feel is Sonic Youth Unplugged. [Oct 2007, p.106]

Hey Venus! feels like a missed opportunity. [Sep 2007, p.94]

While you'd hope there is some post-concert studio enhancement afoot, the result is in effect an overly basic live album of new songs. [Oct 2010, p.120]

What's missing is a sense of Glover himself as a defining character. [Feb 2017, p.112]

There's beauty amid the sonic desolation. [Sep 2017, p.116]

Not cutting edge, but it;s looking sharp all the same. [Nov 2017, p.111]

Cutler's surgically meticulous programming skills and ear for mesmeric melodies.... elevate this follow up to 2010's Emerald Fantasy Tracks above simple ['90's techno] homage. [Jun 2012, p.106]

It's not all restrained and even if in parts it sails too close to generic Americana, there's much evidence here that O'Donovan is one to keep an eye on. [Aug 2013, p.103]

This wonderfully sleazy chunk of dirty, dangerous rock'n'roll gets Stuart firmly back in the game. [Mar 2016, p.115]

The frequently heavy subject matter is brightened musically by flashes of pedal steel and taut strings--meaning things never get too oppressive. When it's over though, you're left feeling you've been touched by something deeply elemental. [Dec 2017, p.109]

The Age Of The Understatement is a frustrating thing shot through with clear signs of its authors' gifts, but too beholden to its influences where it should be stidendt and distinctive. [May 2008, p.125]

There are a few missteps along the way--the attitudinal stomp of Wicked being one--but it is otherwise executed with authority. [Jan 2018, p.114]

It's folk, yes, but with a wickedness instead of a waistcoat. [Feb 2013, p.113]

Group Sounds is as good as anything they've put their name to previously. [#180, p.110]

Like his debut, From Every Sphere chokes on moments of indigestible excess. [Mar 2003, p.108]

The five Retina tracks are hauntingly intense....Iris is far warmer-sounding. [Sep 2010, p.123]

Undoubtedly ambitious, drawing on soul, jazz and squalling rock, the best moments keep the focus on Monche's own voice, with Shine's radical poetry reminiscent of veteran firebrands The Last Poets. [May 2011, p.112]

Not for the casual listener, but enormously rewarding if you hanker for some NY loft space in your croft house. [Feb 2014, p.115]

Offsetting these slightly creepy lyrics, however, are seductive sonics. [Mar 2020, p.122]

Decidedly monochrome, but strangely never dour. [Jul 2014, p.119]

Robust structuring is a blessing and curse: for all the frills and trapdoors, Ex-Hex's workmanlike rhythms eventually get monotonous. [May 2019, p.111]

Oozing with dark passion, Nux Vomica is very Nick Cave. [Oct 2006, p.127]

They are a band still in search of that one killer track. [Mar 2017, p.108]

Though never matching the otherworldly brilliance of their first two albums, Moonbuilding 2703 AD does at least find these 50-something space cadets still aiming for the stars. [Aug 2015, p.111]

Achilles Last Stand and Nobody's Fault But Mine notwithstanding, Presence sounds as rushed as it was. [Sep 2015, p.121]

Staying true to a 20-year career of uncompromising extremity, it will take commitment to breach this seventh album's walls of noise. [Dec 2009, p. 113]

While his message is clear, the means of conveying it comes up wanting. [Sep 2012, p.98]

True, few tracks contain anything as mundane as a tune, but this sound of the underground taps an exhilarating energy. [Jun 2013, p.116]

The occasional vocals dilute the atmosphere, softening the bionic techno edge of the best tracks, but on Dilate, Vessels sound like a band widening their horizons to impressive effect. [Apr 2015, p.112]

In the second half, the gloom gradually lifts with dreamlike ballads Midnight Ease and Until You Kiss Me, and some of its predecessor's brilliance returns. [Sep 2018, p.110]

Full marks, then, for ambitions but there's still a powerful sense here of a man trying way too hard. [Aug 2018, p.108]

It's accomplished but hard to love, with many squawking digressions. [Jul 2012, p.97]

Musically, it sticks to bardic folk ramble or--as on the brilliantly bilious Have A baby--bubblepunk aggro, but lyrically, Lewis is still finds new paths zig-zagging through his familiar patch. [Dec 2015, p.109]

Whereas that time [on Off My Rocket At The Art School Bop] the sharp lyrics were backed by memorable tunes, here he isn't pulling up any trees musically. [Nov 2016, p.107]

The Decemberists have never sounded more ordinary. [Feb. 2011, p. 114]

A record whose hooks sometimes struggle to sink their claws in. [Sep 2018, p.113]

These skeletal blues are for addicts only. [Nov 2012, p.98]

In Search Of works best when swept up in a wave of wistful optimism. [May 2019, p.111]

Now it would seem that the 40-year-old is keen to get back to that place, smashing through extremo rockers such as You Get To Rome and enjoying himself so much that he often audibly breaks into laughter. Sometimes, though, it tips over in to jammy self-indulgence. [Summer 2018, p.110]

The focus on Darnielle's wonderfully evocative phrasing makes his songs sound like enigmatic fragments of short stories. [May 2011, p.120]

As her voice took centre stage on the original recordings too, the effect of stripping away almost everything else isn't that radical. Still, for anyone unfamiliar with Foster's work, this represents an excellent starting point. [Mar 2016, p.110]

The overall effect is warmly intoxicating and that the album comes so close to matching up to the records it's in thrall to means you can forgive its obvious debt to others. [Mar 2014, p.110]

Often sad yet always warmly sympathetic, it's a well-weighted, smartly observed collection of attractive pop. [Jun 2010, p.132]

Though frontman Tom Dougall's subdued vocals prove a little one-note over an album, the ground's certainly safer than it was three-fifth of Toy's old band. [Oct 2012, p.112]

While Space Gun has its moments of off-kilter brilliance, they are cancelled out by more earthbound, laboured-sounding fare. [May 2018, p.108]

[The soundtrack is paring] the sound down for wistful and occasionally beautiful miniatures. [May 2013, p.106]

A strange dream state, then, with not a smiley or glow-stick to be seen. [Jul 2014, p.100]

Pitched somewhere between the Blues Explosion and Grinderman, it's an awesome racket, but the lack of time spent means the potential of 'Next Time' and the fevered 'New Meaning' have been lost in the rush to record. [July 2008, p.108]

Unlikely to win any new converts then, Pylon still remains a triumph of wilful perversity. [Jan 2016, p.113]

A solid, if not essential, Desert Sessions return. [Dec 2019, p.109]

While the proceedings might be more restrained than usual on the '80s hardcore-aping Husker Don't and Sabbath clatter of Halloween 3, if you think Lightning Bolt have softened you're very much mistaken. [Jan 2020, p.110]

Thirty years since first making her entrance as the distaff Tom Waits, Rickie Lee Jones still sounds utterly unique. [Dec 2009, p. 126]

A big talent but no Billie Holiday. [Sep 2013, p.102]

Tennessee Pusher pushes their envelope further still. [Oct 2008, p.149]

Shaver's always been a tough guy making trouble on the edges of a Nashville that values slickness. [Oct 2014, p.119]

A collection of songs of pleasing weight and completeness, their musical joints expertly dovetailed, their detailing crisply hand-carved. [Jun 2016, p.108]

This debut collection of lo-fi chillwave-esque electronics and introspective song fragments locates itself deftly between Animal Collective's strung-out post-rock and the drum machine-powered sketches of Casiotone For The Painfully Alone.[Dec. 2011 p. 137]

A dreamy, atmospheric record. [Oct 2012, p.98]

The result was a record stranded between the two [mainstream or underground cool], hummable, but too quirky to cross over. [Nov 2009, p.101]

At times, it's too mellow. [Summer 2019, p.108]

There's a pleasing mundanity to their lyrical scope. [Feb 2020, p.115]

The No. 1ers' frenzied, hypnotic soundwhirl of old is leavened by the addition of precision-tooled beats and a shiny top-coat production. It works magnificently on the propulsive Yambadi Mama, yet less so when the motorik thumb pianos are left virtually unaccompanied. [May 2016, p.111]

Gallows is less significant than its predecessor, but it often sounds more urgent. [Oct 2012, p.100]

Soulful debut from Omaha's answer to Duffy. [July 2010, p. 136]

They churn and drone their way through five epic tracks culminating in the 16-minute And I Will, a pop-psycho-trip of wailing voices and flutes. At this late stage in the game, it's excellent behaviour. [Mar 2018, p.104]

Veteran art-punks reinvent themselves 35 years on. [Feb. 2011, p. 125]