Pop itself is not a problem, it's just that in Tarwater's take on it nagging tunes and interesting textures are in short supply. [#253, p.65]

While the album is pleasant, it takes a long time to open up. And once opened, it's nice, but hardly revolutionary. [#236, p.61]

Car Alarm strips away the exotic and the curious. [Nov 2008, p.70]

Two nostalgia trips for the price of one. [Sep 2011, p.62]

It's clear that Bell retains a sure grasp of form and dynamics. Hard to shake off, however, is the nagging feeling that you've heard all this before. [#236, p.62]

Sadly much of Music Is A Hungry Ghost is marred by a pebbledash of clicks and glitches -- that already overused signifier of au courant production. [#207, p.87]

The tracks are curiously undramatic, punching elements in and out like a demonstration reel. [Mar 2013, p.54].

This record has its moments, for instance the squarewave basslines and breakbeats of “Edelweiss” and the outro to “Climb Ev’ry Mountain”. However, as is often the case with Laibach, the pervasive air of calculated irony prevents the album from passing from the ridiculous to the sublime, even when it all gets so silly that on paper it sounds like it should. [Dec 2018, p.52]

Voyeurs of the disintegration of the human condition will be able to gorge on vicarious thrills to their black heart's content. [#246, p.62]

The song ["Yonder Blue"] is as intricately tied into pop and soundtrack tradition as the rest of the album, but it carries an immediacy that otherwise eludes The Catastrophist. [Jan 2016, p.72]

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]

More Light is, on the whole, more of what made him great--songs with airhead titles like "Where'd You Go," which stretch glorious guitar solos over solid chopping riffs--but it's packed with too much filler. [#200, p.80]

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

There's little to set the sombre half-tones of the Cave and Seed world alight with suspicous glimmers. [#228, p.59]

In its favour, the album is immaculately realised, with a chromium production sheen that Lustmord imitators can only dream of. On the minus side: the fact that the album's polish makes it sound safe and predictable. [Jul 2013, p.69]

“Dreamfear” sticks to the artist’s more conventional penchant for collage-style dance music. .... “Boy Sent From Above” is less convincing, clumsily layering Auto-Tuned vocals over the kind of schmaltzy synth one might hear in pop outfits like Yazoo. [Mar 2024, p.54]

Laced never stays still long enough to be pinned down. [Jun 2011, p.57]

The mish-mash of styles wouldn't be an issue if it sounded like Pateras and Patton were surrendering to something other than themselves, but what comes across instead is a desire to demonstrate mastery. [Jan 2015, p.70]

While some will label these 12 pieces as evidence of Alex Paterson’s genius, the majority definitely won’t, and although it’s a well-produced work, it doesn’t bend or expand expectations. [Sep 2018, p.54]

Ping-ponging between krautrock, deep funk, free jazz and pre-techno synth workouts, they could have easily released it as three short, more coherent LPs; some credit, at least, ought to go to Soul Jazz for indulging them in these spartan times. [Jan 2022, p.72]

“Airavata” falls into kitsch, with Atwood-Ferguson on electric guitar and violin/viola. The album’s often better than that, however. .... In all, a mixed picture. [Dec 2023, p.42]

Some tracks go on far longer than is comfortable, some peter out prematurely, some wander off in a direction that doesn’t immediately make sense. But even without the context of Troxler’s career, that’s fine. It’s obviously a personal record, with a distinctive sound palette, expressing some fairly profound and fun experiences. [Jun 2019, p.58]

As per usual after listening to an Oh Sees release, I’m impressed by the execution but left cold and hollow by their studious style. [Oct 2020, p.59]

'Corporate Cannibal' is the exception, and Jones, a miracle of nature at Meltdown, proves more fallible on Hurricane. [Nov 2008, p.64]

Shorn of its images, Carpenter’s score for David Gordon Green’s reboot of the Halloween franchise is oddly aimless. There’s the instant jolt of recognition: that simple piano phrase is resurrected, and given a steroidal boost, its famous 5/4 rhythm now underpinned with a sturdy kickdrum. But after that the music hardly seems to build in intensity, or riff off each other; there are certainly no new hooks or textures that sear the listening ear like the first. [Nov 2018, p.53]

It's a shame that the the young skate rat seems to be so caught up in his own hype, as beneath the bluster and amped-up angst, there is something interesting going on. [Jul 2011, p.54]

If the Wu-Tang Clan's A Better Tomorrow was a shoddy attempt at cinematic audio in a Hollywood blockbuster sense, this is the arthouse variety show alternative with caricature Ghost as compere. [Sep 2015, p.57]

The first part of this milary-concrete triptych is mostly vague interference and Radiophonic Workshop-style wibbling about that towards the end, has developed into discomforting BBC Ceefax music. The middle section is sonically richer... Part three is illbient comedown. [Jun 2013, p.51]