Eleven-minute workout Don't Look Down's shifting continents of influence cement the notion of a band tightrope walking with aplomb. [Apr 2026, p.91]

Even though Marathon is rife with such oblique, ominous trails (Safety offers "Compleete us/King snake ringed with rust"), it still feels like a personal and revealing testimonial. [Apr 2026, p.93]

Excellent comeback. [Apr 2026, p.90]

Meek may wander but he can't help but drift back to idiosyncratic introspection which gives the album an entrancing sense of dream logic. [Apr 2026, p.85]

Frisell is travelling a unique, but to old admirers, rather familiar path here. [Apr 2026, p.91]

Sounding sharper than they have done in years, they’re more up for the fight than perhaps ever before.

Every song on Nothing's About To Happen To Me bears Mitski's distinctive mark. [Apr 2026, p.85]

Hen's Teeth is benchmark roots music from start to finish. [Apr 2026, p.85]

Nearly seven years and three albums after Shepherd In A Sheepskin Vest, the first record to emerge from Callahan the family man, listeners should probably be acclimatized to his mid-life openness by now, but even by his recent standards, My Days Of 58 exhibits a clarity, a directness – even, on the tender depressive ramble of Stepping Out For Air, a sharp vulnerability. [Mar 2026, p.78]

The result is Gorillaz's most ambitious (and moving) record to date. [Apr 2026, p.84]

The clarity of Eçevit's tenor, the quality production values maintained throughout and the contrasting styles make for a thoroughly enjoyable ride. [Apr 2026, p.85]

This is a musically assured, soulful descent into life's messy middle. [Mar 2026, p.81]

Starts with a raw, retro-rock song with a big, catchy chorus - one of several swaggering electric guitar numbers (Strange Companion; Loyalty; On fire) But there's a lot more going on in these 12 songs. [Mar 2026, p.87]

Largely an album of blues covers that isn't terrible just, well, perfunctory. [Apr 2026, p.84]

Debut arrives fully-formed. [Apr 2026, p.94]

Drifts toward sounding like Sonic Youth. .... Lots more here, though, including elevated noiserock, early Factory-style nihilist post-punk, and a clanking highlight, I see Poseurs Every Day. [Apr 2026, p.93]

Light but ultimately sunblinding, things really get going in the second half. [Apr 2026, p.93]

Though overly familiar for boomers, perhaps, Wasted On Youth's sibling rivalry-fuelled irreverence will likely chime with Gen Z kids seeking their own Oasis, not mum and dad's. [Apr 2026, p.86]

As candid as Steiner can be, this doesn't play like a primal scream: her naked vulnerability makes it a remarkably moving experience. [Apr 2026, p.91]

Dizzying stuff. [Apr 2026, p.91]

Despite the numerous positions, No Lube So Rude becomes a little no-note. [Mar 2026, p.80]

Confirm Mumford & Sons are back in business. [Apr 2026, p.85]

What makes this combined reckoning of Brian's last, fully-engaged studio albums for The Beach Boys, with all of their peaks and flaws, such an enlightening, unexpected pleasure is the chance to hear the earnest dedication and breadth of inspiration in this brief window of renewal, long obscured by false promo and Brian's ongoing trials. [Apr 2026, p.96]

The trio's key facet is their instrumental nous, all hypnotic tension and release with abrupt chord/gear shifts. [Mar 2026, p.88]

Anyone who fell for Fontaines D.C.'s 2019 debut Dogrel should find plenty to love in this first offering from Cork's Cardinals. [Mar 2026, p.81]

Strange Life warrants recognition, Stein and co's passion undimmed. [Mar 2026, p.80]

An extraordinary comeback. [Mar 2025, p.84]

Few can match The Cribs for their facility with bruised melodies and crunchy dynamics, perfecting here a transatlantic noise that draws equally on Smithsian jangle (the jaunty Never The Same) and Sonic Youth squall (Dark Luck). [Mar 2026, p.86]

Buchanan's Voice is the star, but his songs rarely let him down. [Mar 2026, p.86]

The covers format doesn't facilitate too much untamed Scabies (sadly), but Brian himself poignantly appears on The Last Time. [Mar 2026, p.81]

A powerful and uplifting experience. [Mar 2026, p.84]

It's late-night, it's autumnal and it's really rather lovely. [Jan 2026, p.82]

Brutal and delicate, merciful and relentless, [Ahmed] luxuriate in the new spaces and sightlines the studio opens up. [Feb 2026, p.87]

Casually devastating. [Mar 2026, p.86]

A sprawling Daphni DJ set in microcosm, Butterfly is feel-good music of the purest kind. [Mar 2026, p.89]

EXPO's bleak outlook is explored inventively, live and electronic elements expertly collaged from an unpredictable sonic palette. [Mar 2026, p.81]

He makes it all the juxtapositions and fusions feel fresh and natural.[Mar 2026, p.80]

The cumulative result begs a position beyond the band's canon, in an intriguing mini universe of its own. [Mar 2026, p.80]

Craven Faults harness electronic power to recount compelling stories. [Mar 2026, p.88]

Wormslayer feels like the band's most consistently corporeal record since the Britpop era's iconic K. [Mar 2026, p.83]

Splitting the difference between the digital and the hand-cranked, Geologist has opened up his own haunting little universe. [Mar 2026, p.81]

The album burns brightly, like a widescreen musical travelogue. [Feb 2026, p.87]

Often startlingly brilliant. [Mar 2026, p.85]

It's the limpid slow tunes - Opal, Night Shade and more - that stand out. Only Storyville overstays its welcome, spinning off into a free-form scrabble, but the lovely Something More restores harmony. [Mar 2026, p.86]

It's the rarest of soundtracks: one that makes you excited to watch the documentary, not the other way round. [Feb 2026, p.80]

Yes, it can be formulaic, but when it's this deadly, bring on the soundalikes. Mar 2026, p.97]

Jana Horn is a singing magic eye picture somewhere between the scratchy emotional static of early Cat Power and itchy Talk Talk Spirit Of Eden jazz. Unfocus and see. [Feb 2026, p.84]

The album is a great showcase for the Fontaines D.C. guitarist's production skills, which makes even occasionally inert material punchy and dynamic. [Mar 2026, p.81]

Brown's post-production science turning these intricate guitar matrixes into something smeared, meditative and wholly transporting. [Feb 2026, p.97]

Even as she turns 73, Williams sounds present, ready to mix it, and therefore as good a hope as we have. [Mar 2026, p.83]

There's so much controlled carnage to this double LP that it just flashes by. [Feb 2026, p.90]

Bailey has been constantly moving towards something truly great and Can't Take My Story Away gets her closer still. [Feb 2026, p.82]

Van's back, lending vocals to Ain't That A trip, a joyous R&B number that provides one of many highpoints on Hunter's eleventh album. [Jan 2026, p.86]

By turns numinous and spectral. [Feb 2026, p.81]

Music that's moving, beautiful and uplifting. [Feb 2026, p.83]

Keeps a glossy electropop trajectory, but there's a precarious tilt to the shoegazing rush of Do You Still Believe In Me? or the startling heartbroken lyrics of Dolphins. [Feb 2026, p.87]

An inspired, unique dramstist, at the peak of his powers. [Feb 2026, p.81]

If this is a less turbulent FWF manifestation, they're still powerful, churning perilously. [Feb 2026, p.80]

Dry Cleaning have lost none of their distinctive edge, their idiosyncratic set-up proving to be endlessly elastic, as big as they want, as small as they need, 
to capture the chaos of the world. No hidden messages here: Secret Love is a wonderful record.

There are sweet moments on The Demise Of Planet X - not least guest appearances from Aldous Harding (Elitest G.O.A.T.) and Life Without Buildings' Sue Tompkins (No Touch) - and a more delicate musical palette, but the overwhelming mood is one of weariness; with the state of the world and the tedious, endless gotchas. [Feb 2026, p.85]

If you like your teen dreams served a la Smokey Robinson And The Miracles, you'll find plenty to swoon along to here. And no nonsense. [Jan 2026, p.87]

Wish You Were Here somehow still connects. Lyrically affecting, musically adventurous, but always accessible, it's as relevant now as it was a half a century ago. [Jan 2026, p.92]

Inner Day's voyage around the edges of the avant universe might be challenging, but it can also be mesmerising. [Dec 2025, p.83]

Her songwriting pen has never been sharper. [Jan 2026, p.83]

Live God does what the best live albums do: capturing both the thrills and spills of the performance and the audience's rapturous response to it. [Feb 2026, p.82]

The fistful of Memento Mori tracks - especially the slow building Speak To Me - confirm what a strong, brooding album it was, but they're rattled off early in the set, leaving a glorious cavalcade of (mostly) hits for the second half. [Feb 2026, p.81]

Frequently gorgeous collection of slow-motion jazz standards. [Feb 2026, p.87]

Not only because of Ellis's extraordinary vocal command and gasp of dynamics but because his songs manage to be both mysteriously personal and yet immediately emotionally resonant. [Feb 2026, p.80]

It'll leave you hoping De La never stop. [Feb 2026, p.80]

The packed tracklist suggests perfectly imperfect nuggets. ... The haunted, magical lies of Gonna Learn Too Crawl, meanwhile, invite close listening to his more muted, intimate moments, too. [Feb 2026, p.81]

Hatchie is moving into interesting territory. [Feb 2026, p.84]

A title that came to John Darnielle in a dream vividly interpreted as the score for a musical. [Feb 2026, p.90]

Absorbing follow-up. [Feb 2026, p.90]

How much of ...Jazz Age was completed before Bailey's death is unclear, but his final at is one of his greatest. [Jan 2026, p.84]

This is an outfit broadening its musical horizon as the record spins. [Jan 2026, p.88]

A clearer-headed Goulden has given eight of those under-loved songs the garage verité treatment they needed all along for England Screaming. [Dec 2025, p.82]

Zajac's gnomic lyrics make the direct bits hit that bit harder, and if there are swamp-fuzz debts to J.J. Harvey, it is still a powerful piece of personal witness-bearing. [Jan 2026, p.85]

Otherworldly as it is ineffably uplifting. [Jan 2026, p.82]

A lovely album, but not one which lingers. [Jan 2026, p.87]

Nugent's own stately take on I Am Asleep And Don't Waken Me, Caoimhe Hopkinson's lovely Jamieson's Favourite and Junior Brother's joyous tumble through The Lark In The Morning bring playful spirit to old pub session favourites. [Dec 2025, p.87]

Holy Island nods to mid-period Flying Saucer Attack, Souvlaki-era Slowdive, maximum-shimmer Ride and motorik. Such influences are offset by an innate drama which inexorably draws inwards. There is, though, a potentially overwhelming backstory. [Jan 2026, p.91]

Thick Rich And Delicious is moreish powerpop; a dish best served loud. [Dec 2025, p.87]

With Childish producing, they pick up where they left off. [Jan 2026, p.84]

There are effortless covers of Bo Diddley (Dearest Darling) and Slim Harpo (Got Love If You Want It), but mostly it's Childish's own back-catalogue that is mined and re-imagined here. [Jan 2026, p.82]

Rock solid debut from an exceptional singer. [Dec 2025, p.86]

They conjure contemplative moods (A Cowboy Without Cows; Night Library) without rogue textures, no instrument or showy motif photo-bombing the arrangements. [Jan 2026, p.90]

Stunning. [Jan 2026, p.84]

Nelson still plays Trigger. .... Willie's technique varies 'twixt hard blues and laid-back swing. This novel approach is a perfect description for both Nelson and Hagard's personal interpretation of how they perform country music. [Jan 2026, p.83]

A huge step forwards: certainly professionally but surely personally too. [Jan 2026, p.84]

Anthology 4 offers another transporting parallel view into how The Beatles did what they did, from the pre-fame beginnings to the end and after. [Dec 2025, p.12]

Amid these diaries of dissolution, there is defiance - plus a consistent compositional potency that suggests latter-day Damon Albarn. [Dec 2025, p.85]

Teamed, the trio's rich vocal-blend and sometimes sparkling, sometimes scruffed modern country is deeply impressive. [Jan 2025, p.84]

Moments of odd musical cosplay, meanwhile, are outshone by such hits as Silly Love Songs and Let 'Em In. [Jan 2026, p.96]

A glorious snapshot of Silver in his prime. [Dec 2025, p.99]

A complete set from Minneapolis's First Avenue in January 1985, powered by the sulphurous char of Bob Mould's guitar and Grant Hart's heart-attack drumming, showcases their alchemical blend of classic pop melodicism and punk velocity, closing with apocalyptic Beatles and Byrds covers. A second disc of stray recordings previews their 1986 Warners debut and burgeoning maturity. [Nov 2025, p.101]

Elevated by Austra's opera-trained vocal, thrilling fluctuations confirms she's progressed from grief to anger, and with serene finale Good Riddance, acceptance. [Dec 2025, p.84]

The absolute highlight is Dion's magnificently assured live performance of his own King Of The New York Streets. .... New York Minute stands out, with its overt nods to Dion's late-1950s doo wop sides. [Jan 2026, p.89]

The shock of the new has evaporated, but she's subtly evolving and broadening her palette. [Dec 2025, p.78]