Promise Of The Real can't match Crazy Horse's lumbering majesty, but their youthful energy and sweet harmonies are infectious. ... The attempts at collage are pretty corny, with crows, pigs and bees all wandering into the mix. [Aug 2016, p.58]

“Carapace” is one worth returning to, an agitated Pixies-style rocker that pogos up and down for three energetic minutes. Equally enjoyable is the kosmische inspired interplay wired into “Lurk Of The Worm”, together with the bolts of grunge that light up “Where Have You Been All My Life?”. Elsewhere some of Pollard’s songs can be compared to those of Peters Gabriel and Hammill, two distinct guiding voices who can occasionally be heard whispering in the hull of this inflated blimp of a record. [Mar 2019, p.52]

He's tightened his flow ever so slightly, but the brutal artlessness of his writing and character remains. [Jan 2012, p.69]

On tracks with genuine maverick talents like E-40, his fundamental lack of character appears (or disappears) in sharp relief. [Apr 2015, p.65]

The voice of singer Rolynne provides a fluency and depth missing elsewhere; her emotional precision and expression cut right through the ornament of this otherwise rather forgettable album. [Nov 2017, p.66]

Brooks builds eight neat instrumentals from gradually layer guitar, playing in a closed circle with himself, a dialogue that is sometimes affecting but more often banal. [Aug 2014, p.59]

Somebody’s Knocking is marginally more rockin’ than 2017’s uninspired Gargoyle – due to a slightly increased emphasis on guitar – but it doesn’t measure up to 2014’s Phantom Radio (or its EP companion No Bells On Sunday). [Oct 2019, p.63]

Aside from the odd flurry of inconsequential Afrobeat-inflected guitar, the style of Someday World is middlebrow session fare. [May 2014, p.61]

The too brief, purely instrumental “Sensational” is the best track, with suggestions of Weather Report’s jazz rock expansiveness. But the general impression is gimmicky and lightweight – effects without causes. [May 2020, p.66]

Sic Alp's latest might make for acceptable audio wallpaper--nice tunes and all, just ragged enough to contrive an illusion of edginess--but it crumbles under closer scrutiny. [Mar 2011, p.58]

It begins as quite a thrilling ride. But at this level of concentration, ten minutes feels like an hour; it soon becomes enervating. [#255, p.55]

Surrender To The Fantasy showcases the latest stage yet of their oddly trad transformation, the unkempt electric savagery of their past domesticated to the point of extinction. [Nov 2013, p.56]

The mirth on offer here is thin fare, for the most part. [May 2014, p.63]

Leaving Meaning has all of the reassuring turgidity and tortured self-importance devotees have come to expect plus a cast of name contributors (The Necks, Ben Frost, Baby Dee, Anna von Hausswolff among others) for that vital essence of “Well, if they’re working with him, he’s probably OK, right?” [Dec 2019, p.57]

The atmosphere is underwrought, miserable, monochrome. [Jun 2015, p.46]

It's hard not to feel that this dense conceptual flotsam is arranged around a lucuna. [May 2014, p.67]

An album remarkable only for just how bland it gets, despite every effort to the contrary. [Feb 2016, p.60]

Urstan can be seen as a remedial effort. [Apr 2012, p.58]

His latest disc is only occasionally compelling. [Jun 2015, p.50]

Celebrity guests or not, this is what Beans is--a densely indigestible acquired taste. [Apr 2011, p.70]

Apart from a few works for chamber instruments, which have a similar pleasing air of fakeness to Michael Nyman’s faux baroque cues for Peter Greenaway, these sketches all have uncertain origins and textures. [May 2020, p.66]

Guillermo Scott Heren's eight record as Prefuse 73 is oddly colourless (or should I just say boring) suite of compositional drifts. [Apr 2011, p.70]

He’s hung up on Jesus rather than pneumatic women. It’s hard to tell if that’s an improvement, but it doesn’t seem like a regression either. ... An album with zero fat, dense in at least three senses, two of them positive. [Dec 2019, p.60]

Not hating the LP, but not liking it much either, seeing it as a mid-level release covering all bases; political interludes, references to reparations and racism, interspersed with rap-frat boy antics. [Sep 2019, p.58]

Parallels frustrates as much as it entrances because it feels like a collection of separate tracks corralled together for expedience. [Sep 2017, p.53]

The music is gentle but ominous, and it’s hard to be sure which impression they want to linger. “Read The Room” and “Teleharmonic” are more conventional rock songs; the former in particular could have come off any 21st century Radiohead album. [Mar 2024, p.52]

Prophets Of Rage can’t help sounding a little male-menopausal even if lyrically the targets remain crucial and the trajectory remains ferocious thanks to the sheer undimmed timbre of Chuck’s meshrattling voice. [Sep 2017, p.55]

The momentum doesn't dip through the sunny but sinister celebration of "T-Shirt Weather In The Manor," Kano's rapid flow over electronic rowdiness on "new Banger" and the stunning dancefloor swagger of "3 Wheel Ups."... The album peters out after that. [Mar 2016, p.46]