Mixes have the tracks - stacked guitars and vocals, bustling basslines, played and programmed drums - hurtling along as if crammed into a tunnel. [Mar 2024, p.25]

Much of Drum's Not Dead suggests a Ligeti score for The Blair Witch Project as played by The Residents. [Mar 2006, p.88]

Enchanting arrangements, glistening instrumentation, and Griffin's hypnotic vocals carry the day. [Mar 2010, p.86]

Her follow-up, produced by Mark Howard, adds country-gospel choirs and fussy arrangements to her palette, steamrolling any nuance she might bring to these characters. [Apr 2018, p.23]

Too often a limited voice and over-egged arrangements strain to little effect. [Aug 2009, p.94]

If she began coasting on 2002's Under Construction, here pop's most innovative black female is on repeat mode. [Feb 2004, p.72]

Light and airy, pretty in parts, but devoid of muscle, grit or originality. [May 2002, p.96]

For chunks of the album there's an unshakable feeling of familiarity. [Jul 2018, p.27]

There's nothing here to surprise anyone familiar with Mogwai's chiefly instrumental, epic soundscaping. [Mar 2005, p.120]

His tools may be blunt, and too many tracks sound like unfinished sketches, but Zomby manages to summon a uniquely unsettling atmosphere. [Aug 2011, p.107]

If a few concessions are made to mainstream mores here, it still works on its own idiosyncratic terms. [Mar 2022, p.25]

Sade Adu and co return with more snoozy, expensively produced, quiet-storm soul. [Mar 2010, p.95]

Elegant backgound music, better live, you suspect. [Dec 2007, p.98]

Good, but the exciting notion of a genuine career left turn feels increasingly unlikely.

Throughout, his mellowness of tone is the album's defining feature. Miraculously, thanks to the minutiae of the arrangements, it's a sound that never becomes one dimensional. [Oct 2009, p.96]

Tindersticks have returned refreshed, but some of the old dissolute glamour is gone.

Living With Yourself showcases McGuire's playing with minimal adornment. [Nov 2010, p.94]

Too much of it is lost in homogeneous country balladry more often associated with Trish Yearwood and all the other Nashville guff. A pity, because Moorer's voice is an expressive thing. [Mar 2010, p.94]

"Normal" offers the most accessible punk foot-tapper that races past but leaves you wanting more. [Nov 2010, p.97]

The music does not so much take off as forever taxi toward the boundary fence. [Dec 2013, p.70]

An acquired taste. [Jan 2005, p.124]

Her decision to forgo electric guitars on @#%&*! Smilers results in the aural equivalent of watercolour washes, lovely and tasteful but lacking presence. [July 2008, p.102]

This, assembled by Menahan Street Band guitarist Tom Brenneck, painstakingly recreates the tropes of classic '60s Southern soul--impassioned vocals, shimmering guitars and fruity horns. [Mar 2010, p.85]

It's not much of a move forward, and arguably a step back. [Sep 2013, p.85]

It's bombastic, but you can't fault its ambitions. [Jun 2007, p.115]

They've mastered the basics, but still have miles to go. [May 2017, p.26]

Big Dada, Beans, Sayyid, Earl Blaize and High Priest riffle through more fresh ideas in the opening six tracks than contempoary hip hop will in as many months. [Oct 2009, p.91]

A curiously uninvolving affair. [Jun 2004, p.95]