Zimpel's most electronic album to date, though it's the kind of moody electronics you're more likely to find in the cinema than the club. [Apr 2020, p.114]

While it lacks the polish of a major pop album, it's not dulled by the overthought conservatism that might bring with it. [Mar 2018, p.115]

Strawberry Jam sounds as if it was a blast to make; happily, the fun doesn't stop there. [October 2007, p.94]

The songs are so delicately crafted that it never feels predictable. [Feb 2012, p.103]

They do lean away somewhat from the buzzsaw pop-punk which made them favourites of Kurt Cobain, and toward streamlined '70s FM rock, as well as new wave power pop in the vein of The Only Ones and The Flamin' Groovies, with a few interludes of Byrds/Big Star jangle. But don't be fooled by such mellow moments. [Jun 2016, p.116]

Tahabort, however, soon kicks up a rousigly Fela Kuti groove, and there follow divergent echoes of Saharan folk and, on the band's titular tune, Algerian Rai, to vary up the ever-pleasing dusty meanderings. [Jun 2016, p.112]

Never straying far thereafter, it all makes for a heavily addictive, comfortably numbing kind of experience. [Jul 2009, p.131]

Reflective, humourous and romantic, Catacombs is perfect for those long summer nights ahead. [Jul 2009, p.133]

Packed with songs of delicious but unsettling despair. [Apr 2012, p.98]

After almost a decade in the shadows, Eska is ready to take her place in the spotlight. [May 2015, p.104]

Sounds like a malfunctioning iPod loaded with The Neptunes, Aphex Twin circa Windowlicker and The Last Poets--only with all the fragments miraculously falling in just the right places. [Jun 2003, p.104]

Unrest follows a clean electronic trajectory, which manages to project both urban complexity and domestic quiet, while Oye's free-associative lyrics meander amiably here, there and nowhere. [Mar 2003, p.109]

A fantastically overwrought and indulgent yet also controlled exercise in emotive guitar rock. [Nov 2002, p.103]

He is a great storyteller and Still Fighting is littered with broken war veterans, bruised lovers and others thrown on to life's scrap heap. [Aug 2013, p.95]

This is one of those exquisitely rare records on which maturity and vitality are equally matched. [Aug 2002, p.127]

These are great songs, regardless of categorisation. [Mar 2005, p.101]

They capture a group on the brink of a startling transition. [May 2013, p.116]

The radio sessions on this nine-disc set show that their most anthemic songs could just be as captivating in an intimate setting, but it's the live sets here that really illustrate their story. [Dec 2018, p.117]

A purely musical delight. [May 2007, p.126]

Errol makes the listener work for its pleasures, but they're worth it. [Apr 2020, p.112]

The 50-year-old's songwriting blue streak continues on Dig, Lazarus, Dig!!!, a triumphant album that merits all three exclaimation marks. [Apr 2008, p.105]

Life after Defo occasionally feels like flicking through someone's heartbreak diaries. [Apr 2013, p.99]

More subtle delights from the bearded Mr. Beam. [Feb. 2011, p. 117]

Near-perfect "Prairie Gothic". [May 2012, p.96]

There's neither a wasted note nor wasted word. [Sep 2017, p.110]

Largely the results are first-rate. [Jun 2010, p.132]

Intriguing, stylish stuff. [May 2004, p.111]

It's on the conceptual pair of tracks 45s (c.69) and 45s (c.14), where he contrasts two generations of hipsters hanging outside the same club 45 years apart, that his imagination really takes flight, though, giving an exciting glimpse of where “tradition” folk rock might go. [Jun 2014, p.108]

As an album, it's something of a revelation; the stunning sound of an artist being born again. [Oct 2015, p.113]

Where You Stand finds the quartet catching up with themselves and displaying real depth and maturity. [Sep 2013, p.108]

Two of Everything is a smorgasbord of delights and unexpected touches. [Oct 2011, p.130]

The follow-up sounds like an altogether more professional job. [Feb 2017, p.112]

It works as an excellent overview of his career. [Jan 2016, p.118]

An ideal Fall primer for the uninitiated. [Mar 2018, p.117]

Tracks such as The Way It Goes or Suck It Like A Whistle are dynamic, dramatic rap-funk, which find the ambition to measure up to her obvious talent. [Mar 2019, p.118]

The thematic predecessor to this LP underlined Yoko Ono's re-evaluation as a musical envelope pusher by a new generation of artists including Cat power, Spiritualized and The Flaming Lips, who all reworked moments from her back catalogue. This sequel successfully repeats the trick. [Mar 2016, p.112]

To make warm, immediate pop music that sounds so out of the ordinary is a rare feat. [May 2017, p.106]

It's the bolder likes of 'In the Middle of the Night' and 'I Wish I Were' where she really leaves her mark, somewhere between Patti Smith and ghost of Edith Piaf. [June 20008, p.148]

Errors have always been technically thrilling, but [this album] sees the four-piece imbue their machine-like synth and riff soundscapes with a new-found warmth.[Feb 2012, p. 104]

The 23-year-old Nashville resident's keening voice can drag you in with either the acoustic intimacy of 22, which resembles the stark folk of Father John Misty, or the electrified rock of Ramona. [Mar 2013, p.95]

Fans of Real Estate in particular, will be in ecstasy. [Jun 2016, p.117]

Green Twins is high on sonic invention. [Jul 2017, p.108]

Eating Us has a more cohesive sound than its lo-fi predecessor, but still radioates weird and wonderful vibrations. [Jul 2009, p.117]

Coy, genail and funny... a potent antidote to the usual chill-out porridge. [#184, p.140]

Personal but detached, fizzling but restrained, it's indie-pop with a brain and a soul. [Sep 2017, p.110]

Happiness may remain an elusive quality in AIC's music, but variety is not. Be it the acoustic parts in Fly or elegant a cappella vocals of Maybe, they juggle power and poignancy like masters. [Sep 2018, p.110]

Has the evocative tang of something ancient and the folk-rock idiom of the modern age. [Feb 2005, p.103]

With its shoebox percussion and no-budget production, Sleeper is a work of desolate, cracked genius. [Sep 2013, p.108]

Goddess is a while world to get lost in and it looks like Banks is a star just waiting to happen. [Oct 2014, p.104]

Casually unique and an unbounded joy to listen to, it's the quintessential Baxter Dury album. [Nov 2017, p.105]

Nicholas Drain Lowe, now 62, remains sweetly lethal with a tune. [Oct 2011, p.124]

Taut, and wired with determination. [Jul 2005, p.119]

While these tracks have definitely been soaked in the dour euphoria that The Cure specialise in, The Twilight Sad are very much their own band. [Feb 2019, p.116]

They manage to pack such a powerful emotional punch across these 10 tracks. [Feb 2019, p.117]

The songwriting is more direct. [Jun 2020, p.105]

It's Hynde who steals the show with her lip-curling vibrato, part Elvis, part Dusty, never more intoxicating than on the seductive 'Almost Perfect.' [Jul 2009, p.129]

There's stark simplicity to Tonra's lyrics that's evocative enough to consistently land emotional haymakers. `[Apr 2013, p.99]

She avoids excessive sugariness via edgy, sensual lyrics and Timbaland's superlative production. [June 2002, p.123]

This one's a colorful addition to Smith's rambling canon. [Sep 2017, p.109]

There's a sense of make or break here, but it's clear what they deserve. [Sep 2013, p.109]

There's a real and sinewy loveliness to these compositions. [Jan 2018, p.106]

Uneven as it may be, Black America Again is a stirring reminder of the Chicago MC's relevance. [Feb 2017, p.113]

It's his sharp, searching lyrics that elevates 3.15.20 to giddying heights. [Jun 2020, p.106]

This mix proves his skill again. [Mar 2013, p.96]

It's all quite ridiculous and lots of fun. [Jul 2018, p.111]

An album overflowing with ambition and ideas. [Summer 2019, p.109]

Memphis soul is tapped by JTE ... the regret and pain of his songs harking back to the days when drugs had him thrown out of his father's band. [May 2012, p.91]

[Locked Down] offers a vivid reminder as to why his myth has endured for so long. No one else comes close to sounding like this. [May 2012, p.96]

Butler's spacey sing-song tones skip across the muddy off-kilter beats, forging a sound that is both immediate and moreish. [Aug 2017, p.110]

Those who investigate Heartbreak Pass may find themselves enthralled. [Jun 2015, p.107]

Against the odds, Norris and Alkan really do possess the magic touch. [Aug 2016, p.108]

As armistice appears to exist on this sixth album; the more ethereal elements of the band's sound have been reined in, but so has much of the agresion, resulting in a smoother ride that allows Moreno's melodic ear to shine and seduce. [Jun 2010, p.123]

Mulvey is very much his own man on this highly intriguing debut. [Jun 2014, p.117]

[In The Now] doesn't stray too far from the latter-day Bee Gee template as songs such a s Grand Illusion, Star Crossed Lovers and the swooning ballad The Long Goodbye combine harmonies with memorable melodies. [Nov 2016, p.105]

Packed with intriguing melodies. [Mar 2005, p.99]

Hideously wrong, fantastically right. [Jan 2019, p.114]

All thoughts of age, celebrity and stadium itineraries melt away as the Stones work their peculiar alchemy with vigour, mastery and jeu d'espit. [Feb 2017, p.114]

The gamble has paid off in a sometimes challenging but constantly rewarding musical odyssey. [July 2008, p.96]

It's intimate, folkie, more Anglo than Mojave 3, not at all Slowdivey. [Dec 2008, p.108]

Mesmerising. [May 2012, p.96]

Utterly cinematic, it owes as much to Vangelis's Blade Runner soundtrack as derrick May's minimal techno. [Jan 2010, p. 120]

The Courage Of Others charts a terrain more folksy and pastoral with a greater sense of melancholy and fear at its core. [Feb 2010, p. 106]

In the moving figure of The Bride, Khan has delivered her defining statement as an artist. [Aug 2016, p.109]

Play's inventiveness will restore his reputation as a puck-like, maverick talent.

It's the their best album yet. [Aug 2012, p.102]

His simple, unadorned songs of longing, belonging and love are so striking that contributions from such distinctive guests... pass almost unnoticed. [Apr 2005, p.118]

It's an album that more than makes up for Franz Ferdinand's extended absence. [Sep 2013, p.96]

It's a record that might even disappoint on first listen, but one that reveals many subtleties and wonders over time. [May 2006, p.118]

It is their poppiest, most direct album yet, with a '60s swing permeating throughout its 10 tracks, but Cox has never sounded so disconnected from the world. ... It is a lean and often brilliant album. [Feb 2019, p.110]

Vague prog touches and thrash influences soon emerge, offering breadth and depth. [Dec 2012, p.109]

The sonic scope here is far wider, incorporating both industrial and squawking jazz into something that chimes perfectly with uncertain times. [Jun 2020, p.106]

The end result is a heavyweight tour de force, and Polly Harvey's most fully-realised album to date. [May 2016, p.102]

Heavenly. [Mar 2012, p.97]

That you are compelled to stay listening to see what it might be is proof of this record's eerie power. [May 2016, p.111]

They have shed their gormless, drifting amateurism and turned themselves into a classic American pop band. [Aug 2009, p.109]

In truth, there are unexpected delights at every turn here, not least in the realisation that Mercury Rev may only just be hitting their collective stride. [Sep 2001, p.115]

It won't dethrone Endtroducing... from the pantheon but at last Davis has rediscovered the hidden door to that entrancing night-time world. [Aug 2016, p.111]

This freewheeling third record is picthed just the right side of sobriety. [May 2010, p.112]