Serves as both a potent primer on the traumas and triumphs of life in a not-so-racial America and an enthralling demonstration of her playful musical sensibility. [Jun 2019, p.37]

It is music whose scope, erudition and vitriol makes everything else in this year of exceptional musical timidity seem puny. [Nov 2003, p.106]

Crackles with a wisecracking energy. [Aug 2020, p.36]

When Nevermind rocks, it does so extremely. [Oct 2011, p.101]

Together they make smart but unstudied pop music, as invigoratingly weird as it is instantly winning, stuffed with gleefully incompatible styles and with a broad emotional range. [Oct 2022, p.31]

All Mirrors is her boldest reinvention yet. [Nov 2019, p.30]

Natural Brown Prom Queen revels in ear-catching beats and hooks while still maintaining Parks’ mile-a-minute rate of musical ideas. [Oct 2022, p.34]

Anglo-Saxon sextet Sweet Sweet Lies dress nasty themes in sweet acoustic melodies and sharp suits. [Mar 2012, p.98]

Yes, it’s fascinating at times to be a witness to the meticulous construction of great music, but the contents of this boxset feel a mite desperate, rather than generous, and the flabbiness of its 11-minute jams is entirely inappropriate for an album that famously doesn’t contain an ounce of fat.

In short--a monumental album.

For all the ideas and juxtapositions that illuminate these songs, none feel jarring or tokenistic. [Apr 2015, p.79]

Over two decades on, in remastered form, these tracks have aged well, retaining their multi-layered, bass-heavy eclecticism, and moving back and forth between gentle melancholia and hands-in-the-air euphoria. [Jun 2017, p.49]

It’s an odd sort of idea: a trio paying tribute to themselves. But even if no new ground is being broken exactly, there’s a pleasure in hearing the old space cadets out on manoeuvres. The music of Apollo is meditative and benign, yet strangely inscrutable; a reminder that while you might be able to visit space, it will never be home.

They sound as Zappa seldom does: not over-thinking it, and guilelessly lost in the moment and in the exuberant joy of the playing. [Feb 2020, p.40]

A heroic, controlled crash landing. [May 2020, p.25]

Grief, memory and friendship billow up throughout the nine tracks. [Mar 2021, p.31]

Artists from Phil Lesh, Bob Weir and Steve Earle, to J Mascis and Aaron Lee Tasjan, whose "Travelling After Dark" is a strong cut - interpret Casal's lifetime of work, fittingly as radio staples. [Feb 2022, p.37]

Feeding The Machine operates in a bold and unorthodox way. [Apr 2022, p.34]

Recalls both Erykah Badu and Arlo Parks, but there's no heavy shadowing here. [Apr 2023, p.32]

Black Bayou is a showcase for Finley the storyteller, an artist who can convincingly inhabit narratives that may not be entirely based on his own experiences, lifestyle or even beliefs. [Nov 2023, p.27]

Four crisply recorded shows.... A super-funky artefact. [Aug 2015, p.94]

Richer textures, but no luxury-studio sheen or indulgence: the expanded resources are deployed with the care and rigour that characterised her previous use of humbler tools. Her voice is so distinctive and her writing so personal that a strutting backbeat and a flying hi-hat don't affect the essential character of the music. ... Perfect. [Mar 2021, p.36]

Fed is beautifully excessive, ornamented with dazzling soul/pop arrangements. [Sep 2008, p.114]

A vivid storyteller, June approaches traditional music with a similar mix of irreverence and affection. [Apr 2017, p.30]

Golden Hour doesn't carry quite the same bite as either 2015 predecessor Pageant Material or 2013's Sam Trailer Different Park, preferring a more loved-up vibe that favours pillowy sophisti-pop over bittersweet country. [May 2018, p.30]

It's a lean, thrillingly muscular set from a genuinely distinctive talent. [Oct 2018, p.26]

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

It's hard to believe there will be a better record than Last Exit released this year. [Jul 2004, p.102]