In the transition from imitator to originator, the old boy has made one of his best albums ever. [Oct 2011, p.83]

Love And Theft was quite unlike any other pop album--apart, that is, from Modern Times, its direct and audacious sequel. [Sep 2006, p.72]

This is a stunning album, bristling with astute and funny words, glorious tunes and delivered in performances all the more impressive for sounding so utterly effortless. [Mar 2008, p.80]

What's in here finds the band inventive, unfailingly tuneful, and, rather belying the title, mellowing magnificently with age. [Aug 2009, p.87]

You have to adjust to its lack of ornamentation and let it settle, seep, uncurl like smoke or love. And there are songs here to equal his best. [Album Of The Month, Dec 2001, p.100]

80 minutes of astonishingly powerful and beautifully preserved music. [Sep 2023, p.43]

As with Martin's other special edition remixes, his work is subtle and tasteful. ... Listening to this package, it's clearer than ever just how Revolver set the template for the Beatles' future. ... Their peak, as well as the end of something - can be found here. [Dec 2022, p.40]

Unavailability has also played its part in pumping up the myth – so much so that you wonder if, heard in 2008, these songs stand to disappoint. In fact, key moments of Pacific Ocean Blue square dramatically up to your loftiest expectations.

LA Woman is at times a raw and bluesy affair, but still one of exquisite taste and judgement. [Feb 2012, p.84]

This slice of weird-rock from a more contented American decade is playful and preposterous in equal measure. [Feb 2009, p.89]

It features tracks recorded with rock outfits like The Flying Hearts which recall Jonathan Richman and Lou Reed; minimal, folksy miniatures that sound a ltttle like John Martyn or James Taylor; and a string of delicious, whimsical synth-pop songs that are as good as anything in the early-'80s canon. [Dec 2008, p.115]

Exile itself remains the tour de force it's been since release in May '72. [Jun 2010, p.104]

For all the influences, their voice is uniquely, gently mad. [Mar 2004, p.88]

What's absolutely consistent is Young's almost alchemical ability to mesmerise with the sparest of tools - his reedy quaver and sturdy but unflashy accompaniment providing the only embellishments to his elliptical lyrics and aching melodies. [Jan 2010, p. 120]

The best rapper this country's ever produced, period.... Next to Dizzee Rascal everybody looks pale, uninteresting and irrelevant. [Sep 2003, p.98]

Even at 25 years remove, Doolittle's lively morsels still taste startling fresh. [Jan 2015, p.89]

It excels at that classic pop trick of combining the euphoric with the melancholy. [Apr 2005, p.108]

The supersized culmination of the Chili Peppers' artistic journey. [Jun 2006, p.102]

It's remarkable... how much of a piece the entire set is, reflecting how skilfully Waits has welded the various tributary styles of his art into a seamless whole. [Dec 2006, p.122]

He concocts a series of dazzling interior epics with just a fingerpicked acoustic guitar and his echo-drenched voice. [Nov 2006, p.101]

Finn’s writing is sharper than ever, the various narratives driven less by the wordy exposition of yore than acute observation, devastating detail, by turns exclamatory, epigrammatic and grainily authentic.

Starts loud, alienated and proudly rockist, and stays right there. [Jan 2012, p. 93]

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

Whereas the fucked-up, punk attitude [Ryan] Adams feigned on Rock'n'Roll was based on little more than pique, The Heat is all genuine passion, brimming with energy, anger and great tunes sandwiched between the dense guitars. [Jul 2004, p.114]

Fully realised in its ambition, Bon Iver possesses all the austere beauty and understated emotiveness of its predecessor. [Jul 2011, p.81]

Tell Tale Signs is awash with evidence of his staggering mercuriality, his evident determination even in the studio to repeat himself as little as possible, re-takes not merely the occasion for refinement, the honing of a song into static finality, but serial re-imaginings.

There is an unassuming brilliance to much that they do and, as ever, We Used To Think The Freeway Sounded Like A River is a-bristle with finely-tooled detai.

In ditching the band ethic, they've tapped into the finest folk gothic traditions of death, suffering, misery and hardship and fashioned a paradoxically uplifting, transformative record of extraordinary power. [Album of the Month, Jul 2003, p.110]