Ted Kessler
The sound is raw, psychedelic, eclectic, fuzzy. They’re still trying to reach out to as many palates as they did on ‘Rings…’, but there’s an urgency here previously absent
13y
Coldplay did the hard part. They made a second album that’s significantly better than their first. It’s a belter.
14y
'I Might Be Wrong' sounds significantly better than both of the studio albums that spawned it.
13y
Jay-Z is the don of the one-liner, the couplet, the verse and the chorus too.
13y
‘Supernova’ just about justifies its existence, if not its long gestation. Above all, it whets the appetite for the next TLC album, forecast for late November. That date, though, is fluid.
11y
It's not, as has been signalled, Super Furries' best album. It's their worst. That's still aeons better than most other left-of-centre alternative British pop bands, but it's nonetheless a disappointment.
13y
Seems that after all the pale imitators, Radiohead finally have a competitor worthy of healthy comparison.
12y
The perfect west London group: a multi-cultural funky figment of white, indie, suburbanite imagination – an interactive cartoon band who use dub and hip-hop techniques to create sickly-sweet bubblegum pop.
11y
There are plenty of other highlights: ‘Stroke Of Death’‘s genuinely innovative – if queasy – scratching; ‘One”s strident soul introduction to the album; Redman, Ghostface, Method Man (hooray!) and Cappadonna (boo!) exchanging blows on ‘Buck 50’… but, as with most Wu releases, one-sixth of the album could’ve been shaved off to make it truly essential.
12y
Its sheer magnificence and spirit is such that the danger of it overwhelming anything that follows it is obvious. This, after all, is the musical signature of the year
11y
While her third solo album, 'Homogenic', is probably her most weird, it is also her best.
11y
Sometimes these sounds can open doors to fresh musical perception and sometimes it can feel like having your skull drilled into. 'Richard D James' falls into the former category.
1y
'Travelling...' is an improvement on previous efforts because in amongst the funky wanking there are a handful of bittersweet gems.
11y
It's a record that races with heavenly string arrangements and huge sweeps of emotive rock orchestration, one that bristles with a brittle urgency. It is not a wake, but the sound of a band in bloom.
11y
If you're looking for a progressive blues band in 1996, then rest assured that OCS would've punched their weight in the late-'60s when this stuff was regarded as almost cutting-edge.
9y
Only Tricky's 'Maxinquaye' rivals 'It's Great When You're Straight... Yeah!' for lyrical, musical and sonic invention this year. And we all know where he got his cue from...
10y
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