The album becomes more experimental and confident as it progresses. [#236, p.59]

When you listen to Made Out Of Sound, you feel encouraged to immerse yourself in every note, cherishing the beauty of this otherworldly space. [Apr 2021]

For music as heavy as this, the performances and production are impressively agile and light on their feet. Ultrapop is clear-eyed and enraged, pristine and pulsing with adrenaline. [Jun 2021, p.46]

On four extended tracks, Fennelly’s various keyboards (synthesizer, harmonium, piano) function as kind of bedrock that deftly accommodates a variety of tacks and textures from his partners. [Oct 2023, p.53]

Akoma is unpredictable without any recourse to smartarsedness, Jlin keeping everything sounding fresh and spontaneous, as though both she and the listener are on a journey of innovation and discovery. [Mar 2024, p.48]

The detail and artistry of Take Me Apart more than justify the wait. [Oct 2017, p.56]

He hits every track as if he’s smashing an Idaho potato. [Apr 2022, p.59]

Despite the sonic shifts – from grinding electronic roars to manipulated vocal samples and field recordings to shimmering harp to desolate piano – it remains unified, because of Ayewa. [Mar 2024, p.50]

Frost's most fully realised work to date. [May 2014, p.62]

Keszler’s percussion underpins Coates’s soaring cello as Laurel Halo ensures the combination stays orderly. Its calm melancholy reflects the quoted text that ends: “Need little. Want less. Forget the rules. Be untroubled.” [Aug 2018, p.67]

A taut, brutal collection which is as strong as anything they've released in their previous incarnations. [June 2003, p.65]

The sound sources themselves are not of intrinsic importance – it’s what the musicians do with them that matters – but in opening up these questions, these wonderings, Under~Between does much to create its imaginative worlds. [Apr 2021, p.51]

Godfather is no mere retread, not the sound of youth but an idealised memory of it. [Mar 2017, p.56]

Perhaps their most forceful to date. [May 2015, p.49]

It's a beguilingly well-delivered statement in a dialect that was sidelined in favor of the cult of bass or the florescent synths. [Dec 2011, p.53]

There is a mellowness to the album, underscored by Albini's older, deeper voice, that suggests their edge has been lost. [Nov 2014, p.68]

Air is also an omnipresent agent in Davachi’s extensive use of the pipe organ, as on “Vanity Of Ages” – an exquisitely slow unfolding of clustered tones that give rise to a shimmering microtonality. ... A similar compositional approach is used for the string pieces “Icon Studies I” and “Icon Studies II” but the effect is intimate and fluid rather than cosmic and imposing [Sep 2022, p.44]

Would their punk model work for a Stravinsky cover, with its unique challenges? The answer given by this recording is a resounding yes. [May 2014, p.58]

The guests (Denmark Vessey, Nick Offerman--yes, Ron Swanson himself--and Your Old Droog among others) are perfectly judged and the deeper message of the album, that relaxation and repose in 2018 are luxuries that those on the frontline can’t afford, is delivered with extra heft and power thanks to the lightness of touch and the sardonic style hiphop’s coollest couple demonstrate throughout. [May 2018, p.63]

Hard edged synths and massive, crunchy beats lend righteous swagger to Gordon’s bleary guitar squalls and jetlagged sprechstimme. [Mar 2024, p.46]

On earlier releases, the traces of anger, sorrow or despair rippling through the found voices seeded roaring rock improvisations that empathetically rooted and resisted the calamities visited upon them. But the improvising on [Skinny Fists] falls within beat parameters too tightly determined to generate any really useful dissonance. [#200, p.66]

Not a visionary rollercoaster thundering around the heavens, but a rewarding slow and subtle grower. [Oct 2011, p.53]

Ghosts continues the work of previous albums, but nonetheless manages to be a blast of fresh air. [Mar 2012, p.57]

Now far from young, and sounding a little tired, his voice is still tender with yearning, and devotees will welcome a further installment in his emotionally ramshackle story. [Sep 2013, p.52]

[The] precisely arranged layers of keyboards and guitars have as many behind-the-door delights as an advent calendar. [Oct 2013, p.46]

Most of Infinity Machines' 110 minutes consists of lengthy, evolving jams build upon elephant's heartbeats bass beats overlaid by slowly building washes or jabbing trills of analogue synth, brain-sucking white noise and wailing saxophone. The later adds greatly to the miasmic atmospheres. [Apr 2015, p.56]

Dean McPhee's guitar sound is both richly textured and strikingly direct. [Apr 2015, p.63]

Much thought has gone into the arrangements and programming, and that provides surprises as well as variety, but the consistent bottom line is respect for the songs, which is surely the best way to pay tribute to Collins herself. [May 2015, p.52]