Cypress Hill have rarely sounded this focused. [Nov 2018, p.105]

Their parched, skeletal songs, built around simple guitar figures, Appalachian-style harmonies and super-catchy tunes merit a wider audience. [Jan 2020, p.109]

Though you might struggle to dance to it, Punish, Honey is an unexpectedly saucy missive from the serious electronic underground. [Nov 2014, p.119]

A lovely, soothing aural balm. [Jan 2020, p.113]

He delivers stompers and torch-carriers alike with irresistible power, all couched in sonic opulence. [Feb 2018, p.111]

Beautiful and candid, One Breath proves Anna Calvi has her frailties. They just happen to be as captivating as her strengths. [Nov 2013, p.106]

While not every idea feels as flesh out, Modus Vivendi teases a talented artist trying something genuinely new. [Apr 2020, p.105]

No One Is Lost is the closest they've come to fulfilling their potential. [Jan 2015, p.132]

The result might be a different kind of journey, complete with detours and dead-ends, but its as compelling as any he's taken so far. [Jun 2016, p.111]

City Music maps a landscape of uncertainty and wonder, Morby first steadying the wheel with his sure songwriting, then letting it spin. We've all been there, but not quite like this. [Aug 2017, p.111]

Such is the accessibility of the music here that its myriad stylistic zigzags don't jar, they simply thrill. [Jun 2015, p.104]

If Noah And The Whale's The First Days Of Spring dealt with identical subject matter from a 20-year-old's perspective, 46-year-old Everett's tale is darker and more adult. And painfully brilliant. [Feb 2010, p. 104]

These supremely accessible, expansively produced, mostly summery pop songs often suggest a less bilious, more fleet-footed Frank Turner. [Jul 2014, p.112]

Startling, gorgeous and illuminating, The Practice Of Love sees Hval continue to stretch the parameters of pop. [Nov 2019, p.111]

On this fifth album, they are now both a more complex and straightforward version of the thoughtfully serrated quartet of 2002. [Oct 2014, p.106]

The River In Reverse's soulful arrangements and warm textures are no surprise. [Jul 2006, p.113]

Alone again, naturally - and rather beautifully. [Apr 2020, p.106]

A masterclass in the art of collaboration. [Mar 2018, p.108]

There are moments of exquisite melancholy to treasure. [Dec. 2011 p. 136]

While it's undoubtedly the frontman's vision at play here, it's the alchemy between the siblings that turns these songs into something truly special. [May 2019, p.106]

No band should by rights sound as sharp, melodic and funny more than 50 years into their career, but Sparks are no ordinary band. [Jun 2020, p.113]

An inescapable sense of conviction makes it transcend nostalgia. [May 2016, p.106]

There isn't a song here that isn't a low-key delight. [Jun 2016, p.111]

Everything I sNew is an inspired volte-face that gives second albums a good name. [Jul 2009, p.128]

From start to finish, it's moving and beautiful stuff. [Jun 2015, p.105]

Relatively speaking Home Economics finds a much warmer and more colourful band at work. [Jul 2015, p.112]

It'd be easy to throw the "emo" tag at them, but Matt Pryor's approach has more in common with the disarming honesty of Weezer's Rivers Cuomo than mere whinging. [Nov 2002, p.100]

It's a flabbergasting, intense album that demands intense listening. [May 2010, p.123]

There's plenty of regret and "emotional disgust," but it's applied with piercing guitar lines that resemble a soppier Interpol. [Mar 2004, p.112]

This is a record that demands what's left of your time. [Aug 2015, p.107]

The result is his slickest and best-produced record yet: all warm beats, electric piano and weeping, reverb-y pedal steel. [Nov 2018, p.113]

It's one still stamped with his own sound, a sonic approach that, even at its most drowsy, threatens to blow the walls down. [Oct 2014, p.104]

Politics seldom sound this heartfelt and honest. [Oct 2017, p.108]

Music of stark, placid beauty. [Apr 2005, p.121]

For such a heavenly record, an all-star cast makes perfect sense. [Jan 2020, p.108]

The first section--an intoxicating invocation of sea voyages and Bacchanalian rites--is richly instrumental, the second an otherworldly swirl of chants and ecstatic song that couldn't have been made by anyone but them. [Jan 2019, p.106]

A rousing and defiantly modern revolution in sound. [Mar 2020, p.119]

It never sounds over-considered or a grab for mainstream success, but rather the joy of an artist relishing new territory. [Feb 2019, p.106]

The tension between invigorating, often exhilarating joyful music and disconcertingly bleak subject matter may be one hardwired into hip-hop tradition, but J Hus's innovative, genre-defying style and evocative, elliptical lyrics prove it can still be an intoxicating combination. [Apr 2020, p.107]

This is a record marked by its elegance, pace and excitement. [Jun 2015, p.110]

Beneath the hazy romance, California sunshine and chamber-pop sheen lies something less blithe and breezy. ... Quite the trip. [Sep 2020, p.108]

These are deftly executed songs that regularly throw out unexpected curveballs within their Gorky's Zygotic Mynci-like bounce. [Sep 2017, p.109]

It's angry, piss-yourself funny, bursting with ideas and endlessly quotable. [Aug 2015, p.107]

Unlike their forebears, they are never guilty of over-stretching their songs, ensuring Syd Arthur supply lushly brocaded pleasure throughout. [Jul 2014, p.102]

Overall this is brain music of remarkable potency. [Aug 2003, p.102]

What could so easily be just another folky Americana album is lifted high above the norm by the sheer strength of Porterfield's quite brilliant songwriting. [Aug 2013, p.96]

Unlike other wannabes, Pink shares Madonna's two best assets: a keen eye for the next collaborator to further her cause and the ability to sound like Pink no matter what shape her cause takes. [Dec 2003, p.133]

An exhilarating workout for mind and soul. [Dec 2015, p.103]

It's hugely rewarding. [Jul 2006, p.118]

There's a renewed focus and a hitherto undetectable oomph, both achieved without jettisoning their trademark subtlety. [Nov 2013, p.116]

Draws you in and then pulls you under. [Apr 2020, p.108]

Their debut album marks a major hike in ambition. [Sep 2011, p.116]

Still raging, not drowning, their flame burns unfashionably on. [Oct 2010, p.110]

There is little that feels dull or predictable. [May 2017, p.107]

An atmosphere of heightened weirdness prevails. [Jun 2020, p.95]

[A] brilliantly unsettling album. [Apr 2016, p.110]

If seeker of the hip-hop's next wave need not apply, those with an appetite for rugged, screwfaced late-90's New York rap should find this keeps them scowling like it's 1999. [Mar 2913, p.111]

This fourth album is all the better for its subdued tone, mining its own strain of sozzled melancholia via underwater guitars, waltzing rhythms and lyrics steeped in wistful regret. [Nov 2008, p.123]

With elements of Afrobeat, house and indie rock, E Volo Love is an assured affair, [Feb 2012, p.107]

You'll have to search long and hard for a more original and distinctive album this year. [April 2012, p.100]

So we get stomping piano pop hits (I'm All Over It), supper-club R&B (a cover of Rihanna's Don't Stop The Music) and finger-clicken' ruminations on the stage of the planet (Wheels, If I Ruled the World). Proof the thrill is in the chase. [Dec 2009, p.111]

A superb piece of work. [Apr 2002, p.117]

What on paper sounds like an awkward hotch-potch, actually makes for an hugely enticing, fluid record.

Chatham County Line's format has barely changed, but it has matured deeply. [Jul 2014, p.104]

Screen Memories feels like the cryptic overspill, gnomic fragments of ideas and visions embedded in gloriously baroque synth-pop. [Dec 2017, p.109]

Her voice is magnetic enough to tilt the Earth's axis, the grooves so deep and plush that they could upholster a Cadillac. [Apr 2020, p.109]

A typically quirky commentary on contemporary culture's transient nature that's also attuned to the shifting moods of modern club sounds. [Feb 2019, p.116]

Overall Open Here is joyful and reliably brilliant. [Mar 2018, p.108]

The reverse-order approach does remind you that he has sustained startlingly well, and perhaps as importantly, that he's still in the game. [Jan 2015, p.135]

Resolution is a furious and unrelenting broadside of searing riffs and invention. [Feb 2012, p.107]

Often ludicrous, Pure Luxury is a brilliant escape. [Aug 2020, p.108]

The War On Drugs might never quite find what they're looking for but with a record as gloriously realised as A Deeper Understanding, it feels like they're getting closer every day. [Sep 2017, p.104]

Blur have had many more than 18 hits; certainly there are sufficient omissions to form the bulk of a second disc.

It's a mode that can feel pedestrian in the wrong hands, but Muncie Girls capture the sound's uncomplicated euphoria in style. [Oct 2018, p.115]

An arty, confident and exhilarating debut. It's everything pop music should be. [Mar 2005, p.94]

A brace of new collaborations with Canadian duo Tegan And Sara, whose pop sparkle illuminates Bad Ones' nocturnal tech-house, reveal yet another facet to Dear's ever-changing modes. [Nov 2018, p.105]

Old dogs, old tricks, but when the tricks are this good why would you want new ones? [Dec 2015, p.106]

A smart melting pot of influences and references. [Jan 2018, p.113]

Freighted by unflinching lyrics, Manic is a magnificent - and magnificently raw - pop confessional. [Apr 2020, p.110]

Expanding your sound without losing your edge is a tough trick to pull off, but Hookworms manage it with inner space to spare. [Mar 2018, p.111]

Civilians is the most approachable and coherent of his recent offerings. [Oct 2007, p.98]

A roaring cosmic-rock romp, equal parts Muse-esque space station stomps and jitterbug Krautrock rhythmics. [Dec. 2011 p. 137]

Redeemed, revived, irresisitable: it seems R.E.M. were only sleeping after all. [Apr 2008, p.99]

There's a naivety and nostalgia to his evocation of woozy times on Northern beaches that is uniquely loveable--the perfect music for a summer's day. [May 2008, p.140]

By digging deep The Charlatans have made their best album in a decade. [Feb 2015, p.111]

All told, the grand old men of post-rock still rock. [May 2016, p.108]

The likes of Once and Now That I Found You suit the stripped-back aesthetic perfectly but it's the strings-assisted version of Sad Song that is the real showstopper here. [Jun 2020, p.100]

A glorious reminder of Perry's unique musical gifts and unhinged imagination. [Jul 2019, p.115]

The San Francisco five-piece remain unforgiving epic, vocals mostly descendant from that same raspy wraith lineage. [Aug 2018, p.108]

The mood here is still adolescent but with a growing emotional and musical sophistication. [Jul 2015, p.115]

It's genuinely exciting to think where The Horrors might go from here. [Jun 2014, p.105]

Their juggernaut third album is the sound of a band becoming ever more defiantly themselves. [Sep 2020, p.104]

Their fourth album continues their stimulus for head and viscera. [Jul 2014, p.107]

[Makes] two known quantities thrillingly new. [May 2004, p.101]

There's a significant talent emerging here. [Aug 2012, p.100]

Nine jewels of noir glamour. [Nov 2017, p.108]

Across the range of these 13 short songs is the sound of a singular musician revelling in his gift. A wonderful return. [Jan 2020, p.106]

This is music to get lost in. [Dec 2015, p.106]