Mid Air amounts to 14 enigmatic variations on this mood, just piano, voice, the occasional pale moonbeam of orchestration, which miraculously never feels monotonous or morose.

This wired counterpart [to 2016's lush Singing Saw]pays tribute to a New York tat now exists only in the songwriter's head, or his record collection. [Jul 2017, p.35]

While Waxahatchee has never sounded more suited for mass approval, Crutchfield has never seemed truer to herself. [Apr 2024, p.30]

This 50th anniversary reissue of their faultless second LP still digs deep to find six unreleased studio cuts. [Jan 2020, p.39]

LaVette remains at the peak of her considerable powers at the age of 77. [Jul 2023, p.37]

As a lyricist, she remains the understatement queen, “Let’s keep all our doctor’s appointments” from “Be Careful With Yourself” perhaps one of the most superbly subtle statements of devotion in recorded song. Nobody underdoes it better. [Sep 2022, p.26]

Songs Of Our Mothers taps into something much bigger than itself. ... It also helps that the music is quite remarkable. [Oct 2019, p.38]

[Fuzz is] eight glorious tracks of heavy, frantic and, yes, extremely fuzzy, proto-metal. [Nov 2013, p.71]

The wry, heartfelt "Cash Up" and truly touching "Amberjack" are highlights; that he exits on the breezy, sardonic bonus track "Juliefuckingette" is a reminder, though, that yes, it's still Malkmus. [Apr 2020, p.30]

There is something about this music that is warming, aqueous, immersive and endlessly engaging. [Mar 2024, p.18]

In the china shop of his last five years' work, this LP is the bull. [Jul 2015, p.70]

There's uncommon immediacy to Crazy Horse-style bashers like "Knock Knock" and "How To Live," as well as big-sky ballads like "Long Vows." [Oct 2012, p.73]

The arrangements are bigger, the language more dense, the symbolism darker. [May 2013, p.72]

Outstanding. ... Aside from the supple elegance of Landes' warm voice, the most arresting element is her sharp songwriting, which succeeds on a number of levels. [Oct 2018, p.26]

From the ominous beatless fog of recent tracks "State Forest" and "Beachfires"-the compilation is sequenced for flow, rather than chronologically-emerge some unexpected shapes. [Feb 2020, p.43]

The songs are pillowed by vaporous electronic backing that recalls the slow-moving, aquatic drift of Push The Sky Away and the sonic explorations of Cave and Ellis' Minimalist Soundtracks. [Dec 2016, p.26]

Together, the North Carolina instrumental trio revel in heady improvisatory zones. .... There's no lead voice here, just three musicians moving as one. [Nov 2023, p.32]

This set is a confirmation and welcome addition to the catalogue of recorded Alice Coltrane music and spiritual jazz. [May 2024, p.48]

A mighty musical exorcism. [Dec 2023, p.30]

Desperation is as refreshing as it is welcome. [Aug 2013, p.73]

It's a sharp turn to the left for Swift and a fine reminder that she is more than just a gleaming pop phenomenon, but a remarkable songwriter too. [Oct 2020, p.36]

As with the best bedroom punk records, the bloody-knuckled passion and immediacy of these 13 rapid songs transcends any cavils about sound quality. [Oct 2003, p.130]

A highly satisfying bridge between the log-cabin museum pieces of Revival and Hell Among The Yearlings and a more rockin', Basement Tapes-ish Americana. [Album of the Month, Aug 2003, p.96]

With Have You In My Wilderness her songs feel brighter, more pop, yet they're also just as lush, as considered and as quietly experimental. [Oct 2015, p.77]

There is more raw drama here, a prevailing starkness. [Nov 2014, p.65]

Something More Than Free finds Isbell sounding surer of himself, as a songwriter and a man. [Aug 2015, p.79]

There's a sombre edge to almost all these songs, even when the Hammond organ is wailing and the backbeat is a mile wide.... Morello's presence is crucial to the tone of the album. [Feb 2014, p.65]

Something that scratches the same itch that first propelled him and his audience into a record shop. ... To keep that hunger alive, you need to feed it with new inspiration. What you hear on Fat Pop is the reciprocation of that care. [Jun 2021, p.16]

It's a dozen of his finest compositions reworked as bluegrass tunes, and it's magnificent. [Oct 2023, p.31]

It's an album of songs beautiful on the surface, but with darkness nibbling on all sides. [Sep 2017, p.18]

In a world supersaturated with electronica, Broadcast are nonetheless bold, rare and crucial. [Sep 2003, p.97]

It is arguably, the Replacements album that best balances the tension between the snotty punk rockers they began as, and the crossover success they were terrified of becoming ... [The included demos and mixes] will find favour with adherents of the rougher, readier Replacements, who around now were struggling with whether or not to blossom into something bigger. [Nov 2020, p.52]

An outstanding record which you'd be unwise to miss. [Aug 2004, p.91]

He's never sounded quite so bitter as he does on Wrecking Ball.

If you liked 1972 in 1972, or liked '1972' in 2003, you'll find yourself swimming with this. [Album of the Month, Mar 2005, p.90]

Even when they're singing about the horrors of nuclear holocaust -- as they do on the Hendrix-ish "Mushroom Bomb" -- they can't help but sound quite addictively cheerful. [Aug 2020, p.27]

He left an enormous amount of music in those 10 years, the bulk of it gathered in this much-needed career overview of the forgotten solipsistic genius of rock’s golden age, in which the strike-outs turn out to be as fascinating as the home runs.

Mental Illness is as elegantly dark as a wrought iron gate. [May 2017, p.35]

Eve might just be her strongest yet, bold in its subtlety and intimacy, with Zedek's writing bittersweet and observational. [Sep 2016, p.81]

A glorious album. [Mar 2013, p.76]

While there's nothing as pop as "Windowlicker" here, it's still thrilling to hear him romp deliriously through all manner of styles in the key of Apex for the bulk of these dozen tracks. [Nov 2014, p.71]

Warm, uplifting and fizzing with both passion and virtuosity, Rejoice is not only a fitting last will and testament from Masekela, but a glorious affirmation of music at its most potent and universal. [May 2020, p.22]

It's the quintet's talent for sneaking in moments of surprising prettiness that makes their seventh record such a charmer. [Jul 2013, p.81]

On The Worse Things Get, Case asserts herself less in a literal sense, but paints the most emboldening and endearing portrait of herself yet. [Oct 2013, p.76]

It's spellbinding, shiver-down-the-spine stuff, and enough to have any self-respecting Quadropheniac dusting down their scooter for one last run down to Brighton. ... Their best since Quadrophenia, then. [Dec 2019, p.22]

Producer Craig Street's customary forte is smoothness but the grittier Muscle Shoals influence he's channeled here is perfectly tailored. [Nov 2012, p.77]

The official line on In Utero is that it's a raw uncomfortable document of a band in turmoil and a songwriter on the edge. That's partly true, but it's also cathartic, invigorating, full of terrific, scabrous pop songs, and a good laugh to boot. [Nov 2013, p.86]

The new varnish appears to add little to an already sumptuous-sounding set.

Another radical musical/ psychological metamorphosis. [Jun 2024, p.39]

A Major new British talent is born in William Doyle's solo debut, which sounds like the great lost album that Brian Wilson, Eno and Bjork should have made together. [Feb 2014, p.75]

Peace Or Love is their most cohesive album yet. While it’s not a world away from their previous work, the mood is noticeably more stripped-down and melancholic. ... Kings Of Convenience seem to have discovered the purest essence of the music they create. [Aug 2021, p.26]

It's the interplay between the core duo, and between the American and African influences, that gives Wood/Metal its hypnotic pull. [Nov 2016, p.23]

Tightly structured, lavishly orchestrated, brilliantly realised. [May 2019, p.18]

Like Disney on methadone scored by Jack Nitzsche with a gun against his own head, trying to remember this soundtrack he once wanted to make, which teamed Judy Garland and Neil Young. [Album Of The Month] [Sept 2001, p.86]

This is berserk, this is brilliant, this is now. [Nov 2003, p.107]

This sounds like the record Vic Chesnutt's been waiting his entire life to make. [Apr 2005, p.112]

Clarke is both perpetuating and recontextualising the music of the mid-20th century. [Sep 2023, p.24]

Gone are the stark acoustics of his noughties output, replaced instead by a layered warmth and gorgeous, semi-orchestral settings that make him sound like a spiritual descendant of early '70s Laurel Canyon. [Feb 2014, p.77]

An endlessly fascinating maze of sound.... This decade's Endtroducing..., possibly. [Jun 2003, p.98]

A bold debut that continues their frenetic explorations of post-punk kraut-jazz but also moves into more electronic and soundscape-like worlds. [Jun 2021, p.33]

McMurtry's latest lifts storytelling-in-song to meticulous new levels. [Sep 2021, p.29]

A creative triumph out of Mali's darkest hour. [Mar 2013, p.73]

You don't get bands like Blur very often. They deserve great boxsets, and this feels like one. [Aug 2012, p.85]

Demonstrates that PSB are without peer as exponents of the pop single. [Aug 2023, p.50]

These 11 tracks, recorded at various locations, also confirm he's more than a neo-classical specialist. [Dec 2013, p.68]

Though the motherlode of unreleased music found on Slanted And Enchanted and Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain’s reissues is absent, many of the extra tracks here are worth checking out. ... The rest of this set shows that it’s still a station very much worth stopping at, now more so than ever. [May 2022, p.42]

Cross has created something of a mesmerising mini-masterpiece. [Sep 2019, p.24]

His most towering achievement to date. [Aug 2003, p.114]

If the songwriting at times falls into cliche, the performances--passionate, eloquent, spilling over with regal harmonies--are anything but. [Jul 2015, p.72]

Evocative of Harry Nilsson and Randy Newman at their most extroverted, McKenzie’s songs provide great warmth, too. [Sep 2022, p.28]

It may be OR's best album yet. [Oct 2016, p.36]

Here are nine songs that confidently mix Station To Station piano, Beach Boys harmonies, Kosmische guitar and even free jazz. [Jun 2021, p.31]

A broader exploration of form. ... Like most everything here, ["Geraldine" is] a beautifully weighted moment. [Jun 2017, p.26]

An exemplary set. [Feb 2014, p.76]

He's made one of the great albums of modern Americana, and one suspects that a reluctant star is born.

There’s a tenderness to the way he puts the instruments in conversation with one another, drawing out Younger’s harp and Macie Stewart’s melancholy violin solo. That’s ultimately what makes this record so powerful, even if you’re not familiar with its touchstones: by colliding the past with the present, McCraven makes a point of making progress. [Oct 2022, p.24]

Both adventurous and accessible, a record in love with the obliterating power of sound. [Apr 2003, p.120]

Without question, Schmilco is Wilco's quietest, most disquieting album. [Oct 2016, p.24]

Sparse and otherworldly, yet powerful and dynamic. [Mar 2020, p.24]

As a representative trawl through Lanegan's solo albums, Has God Seen My Shadow? gets it very right indeed. [Feb 2014, p.94]

[A] hugely satisfying album. [Jul 2016, p.66]

Her ambitious third record marks anther giant progression in an already distinguished career, and offers provocative thoughts on sacrifice and identity that should outlast its 48-minute runtime. [Oct 2016, p.22]

At times it hits harder and heavier than anything they've attempted before. [Nov 2020, p.32]

They immediately settle back into a familiar dynamic on the aptly titled opener “Let’s Do It Again”, with the band providing a lively and sympathetic soundtrack to Cartwright’s tale of loneliness and longing. They’ve learned more than a few new tricks over the years, as evidenced on the lovely psychedelic chamber-pop saga “Just Say When”, a duet with Coco Hames. [Jun 2021, p.31]

Another stunning album. [Mar 2022, p.29]

In isolation, it’s a dozen of Young’s best songs, powerful no matter how many times they’ve been reshuffled since. But in reality, it risks getting lost in the shotgun spray of Young’s self-curation. [Oct 2023, p.49]

The clarity and effervescence of much of V can seem revelatory. [Apr 2023, p.34]

This sprawling, beguiling collection strives to reveal all, but every answer brings more questions. [Jul 2019, p.18]

Supremely inviting, warm and ruefully radiant. .... A crown on a career still going strong. [May 2024, p.31]

Some of the rather quizzical couplets here, all of them set to heart-wrenching chord sequences that hark back to the band's favorite 1970s guilty pleasures. It set SFA apart from the world of Britpop in the mid-'90s. [Dec 2016, p.51]

This seamless synthesis of sinew and silicon is crucial to the album's slippery feel: there's a pleasing fluidity and crooked funkiness to the arrangements that Yorke sometimes struggled to achieve on The Eraser. [Mar 2013, p.66]

if Shannon Lay's solo expression has been a steady blooming across three albums, Geist represents its full-blown folkish splendour. [Nov 2021, p.29]

Though Cleveland's delivery is generally far more subdued, Manzanita shares a similarly transportative, anciently psychedelic feel with The Incredible String Band's magical '60s work. [Apr 2023, p.24]

This is adventurous modern music which uses old rock and singer-songwriter traditions as the raw material to be manipulated. [Album Of The Month, Feb 2002, p.110]

Due to Joe Dilworth's propulsive drumming and Holger Zaf's synth work, these 12 tracks never stray into stuffiness. [Mar 2016, p.71]

The Stand-In has everything that made its predecessor special--big voice, expertly crafted tunes, clever backings, a deft mix of stridency and restraint--but is definitely a step up.

There's a purity to them that's as much a product of her spirit and artistic choices as a demo's function. ... The Demos in particular still overwhelms with its conviction and visceral wallop, almost 30 years on. [Sep 2020, p.47]

Remarkably, the world they create together never curdles into sentimentality. ... Wednesday turn that stabbing pain into triumphant rock'n'roll. [May 2023, p.39]