Swarming with rich atmospherics, it's a wee-small-hours treasure trove for fans of Blue Nile, Scott Walker or Bill Callahan. [Jan 2018, p.90]

Hammill's best solo album in a long time. [Dec 2017, p.91]

This handsome 3-CD box contains both concerts in their entirety for the first time. [Jan 2017, p.104]

The 35-track odyssey serpentines on an exotic carpet of plangent electric and acoustic guitar sounds through whimsical, sub-Basement Tapes Americana, languorous, Grateful Dead-like psych-folk and hallucinogenic, Lennon-esque-pop. [Jan 2018, p.92]

Simultaneously soaring and depthless, soothing and unnerving, solemn and joyful, McPhee's excursions feel weird, unknowable, as if the path we're on is both bright and labyrinthine, a certain route to the unknown. [Feb 2018, p.94]

This terrific follow-up [to 2016's Hold On] captures the sparks again, and there are plenty of them. [Mar 2018, p.97]

[the Lost Brothers] are most at home in melancholy autumnal folk-lands. [Feb 2018, p.99]

Clever and very subtle grown-up electronic pop that beats with a broken heart. [Mar 2018, p.93]

Young weaves 11 modern blues of frail longing around backwards guitar, mumbling bass and homemade percussion, his chanted lyrics like pale fragile spells for escaping the 21st century. [Jun 2018, p.93]

Their easy familiarity is evident throughout The Siren's Song, with its beautiful mix of of Kacy's crystalline vocals and Clayton's inventive, deep-groove country guitar. [Jun 2018, p.91]

[The E Street Band] are barely present. Despite the sterile production, it's a vivid portrayal of personal torment, with great songs. ... Human Touch and Lucky Town make sense: the work of a man focused on changing nappies or seeing his therapist. ... In Concert/MTV Plugged confirms, the sacred texts were better served by E Street's idiosyncrasies. [Jul 2018, p.105]

Brilliant throughout. better than the official Stage with an art-rocking sound he never quite bettered. ... An essential purchase for Bowie fans. [Aug 2018, p.102]

Beautiful songs studded with dissonant eruptions of noise. [Oct 2018, p.94]

Glenn Jones's repeated trips to the well of John Fahey's American Primitive legacy seem to yield even more refreshing results. [Sep 2018, p.90]

There's no faulting Shemekia Copeland's voice. [Sep 2018, p.91]

Where the comic thesp rabbitholes back to 1980s telly music, with sincere, library-esque 'ommages. [Dec 2018, p.94]

Understandably, the 76-year-old's voice has lost some if its technical precision, but the backdrops have light touch and when she growls Don't Lie To Me's motif, "How do you sleep?" or evokes "thunderclouds of alibis" on the imperious The Rain Will Fall, she oozes despair and fury. [Jan 2019, p.84]

Mollestad Thomassen's adoption of free-flowing soloing brings a sound less claustrophobic than before. Extraordinarily, in doing so, no power is lost. [Feb 2019, p.87]

Throughout, this is a masterclass in pop fun. [Mar 2019, p.98]

They push forward by recasting the music around them and assimilate it into who they already are. [Apr 2019, p.88]

The songs on this collection are warm and human and worth the wait. [May 2019, p.94]

Ishmael Ensemble cleverly, psychedelically blur the lines. [Jun 2019, p.91]

Three Demons is yet wilder, more alien and untidy, swerving trad rockabilly's regulation grooves and crescendos in search of an often sinister and cactus-trippy otherness. [Jun 2019, p.94]

On this taut, pithy set he offers sardonic observations of human folly. [Jul 2019, p.93]

Featuring chamber music, operatic art singing, spoken word, drum circles and horns and woodwinds ecstatically blowing--all outside-time examples of the group's motto: "Great Black Music, Ancient too the Future." [Aug 2019, p.95]

Highlights include an Afrobeat makeover of Curtis Mayfield's Billy Jack and a soul-jazz revamp of Talking Heads' Once In A Lifetime. [Aug 2019, p.90]

An incantatory history of the acoustic guitar, as instrument of devotion, dance and lament, at times The Borametz Tree also feels like a book of incantations, spells for the universal elixir of joy, conjured up by a master alchemist. [Jul 2019, p.93]

The fervid prog punk of Flesh Fondue, the synth collision of 65 Million Years Ago and the trippy Nets Of Space are further high-points on this constantly regenerating trip. [Nov 2019, p.94]

Total fun for your brain. [Dec 2019, p.107]

On a par with McCraven's similarly sprawling and revolutionary Universal Beings--and that's no mean feat. [Jan 2020, p.89]

It's Holmes who provides the spark throughout Cypress Grove. [Feb 2020, p.94]

While relatively straitlaced on hooky earworms Good Mood and Hexagons, it vanishes into a netherworld of hypnotic minimalism amid Tol Circle's warped Mantovani exotica and the title-track's spaced-out disco frug. [Jan 2020, p.91]

Like Hope Sandoval, Savior's smoky timbre is cucumber-cool rather than over-emotive. [Feb 2020, p.86]

The resulting fusion suggests nothing less than an Eastern Astral Weeks. [Feb 2020, p.94]

Masterful vocal mash-ups with London songstress Poppy Ajudha, South African electronic upsetter Nonku Phiri and a wonderfully gravelly Obongjayar help propel this testament to Boyd's illimitable outlook far into the stratosphere. [Mar 2020, p.91]

She's a great storyteller and her guitar has plenty of country twang. But the sound is of her own making - defined by her huge one-of-a-kind voice. [Mar 2020, p.94]

It's a giant leap forward for one of the most original voices around. [Mar 2020, p.84]

Hutchings has suggested his Ancestors work is an update of the griot tradition - weaving social commentary into seemingly harmless party pieces. We Are Sent Here By History achieves more: transforming impending doom into an affirmation of life. [Apr 2020, p.92]

Serene, mostly, where free improv is usually abrasive. [Jul 2020, p.88]

The most instantly appealing to date, channeling a high degree of emotional intensity and a remarkable sense of joy through minimal instrumentation. [Jul 2020, p.87]

A mutant sound equal parts soft-pop, hard-fusion and psychedelic prog. [Jul 2020, p.80]

There's something likable and everyman about his voice, which sits easily with the variety of vintage country styles on these 14 new songs. [Sep 2020, p.87]

Here across 11 instrumentals, it's a totally entrancing journey as grooves are saturated by horn swells, eerie organ, bad-trip backwards guitars and drum breaks ready for sampling. [Nov 2020, p.83]

Something of a sonic lucky dip, these 20 short, super buzzy impregnably titled tracks often switch beats or cut-off abruptly, underlying its rule-breaking creator's rookie confidence. [Oct 2020, p.93]

Punchier and more accessible, while still showcasing the sextet's psychedelic bona fides. [Nov 2020, p.84]

Strange Lights Over Garth Mountain, Raymond's staggering second album, leaves no doubt that she is among the most vital, dynamic voices within the still-teeming solo guitar orbit. [Dec 2020, p.82]

British cellist and Radiohead collaborator has created something darker but much more impressive [than 2018's Shelley's On Zann-La]. [Dec 2020, p.87]

Poised somewhere between rootless anger and quiet revolution. [Dec 2020, p.87]

Mazurek's rare talent for sculpting and reshaping space remains blissfully intact. [Dec 2020, p.85]

It's McCraven's gift to integrate radical individuals into his inclusive sound design; exuberant groupthink in action. [Nov 2020, p.84]

A pair of Bartz originals are frenetically reworked, while the veteran's scything sax on new Harlem To Haarlem steals the show. [Jul 2020, p.88]

Timeless. [Jun 2021, p.89]

While not short on garage freakouts there's added twang to Hell In Texas and a spaghetti western shimmer on New day's unheavenly chorus. [Jun 2021, p.90]

It's even more tightly coiled, its motivational and cautionary messages immediate and often terrifying, its roots as ancient as the rolling landscape around is native Holly Spring, Mississippi. [Aug 2021, p.86]

10 tracks of grainy electronic drift, tension and poignancy. [Aug 2021, p.81]

Chilled, down-home charms remind of Duckworth and early dc Basehead. [Oct 2021, p.99]

The only downside seem to be an audience with a dreadful sense of rhythm clapping along. ... But an excellent selection of songs, beautifully performed. [Nov 2021, p.103]

He finds drama in the mundane. [Nov 2021, p.94]

An intermittently discomfiting record, tinged with sadness and beautifully composed. [Oct 2021, p.97]

Stirring, seductive album. [Dec 2021, p.88]

A beguiling outing, cinematic in scope and ambition. [Jan 2022, p.86]

A reminder that Green Day's songwriting is far more nuanced than they're often given credit for. [Feb 2022, p.96]

A series of musical shocks driven by Marcal's powerful vocals. [Feb 2022, p.89]

Wonderfully immersive stuff. [Mar 2022, p.85]

The result is Proustian, the 18 tracks an overwhelming rush of joy. [Apr 2022, p.82]

It's another late-life triumph. [Jun 2022, p.87]

An exquisite distillation of hope and perseverance, mystery and humanity. [Jun 2022, p.87]

Just one problem: at 38 minutes, it's over far too soon. [Jul 2022, p.91]

This is pure, unpolished ur-boogie, a foundation course in rock'n'roll. [Jul 2022, p.95]

The 12 songs making up their self-titled first album, though, are broad in scope and full of individual flourishes. [Oct 2022, p.89]

Crackdown is fuzzy but focused and shows the blues' future is in capable hands. [Oct 2022, p.86]

Balances past and future with stylish precision on uplifting fourth LP. [Oct 2022, p.92]

The lack of drums adds extra intimacy to four gently rising and falling Lloyd originals. ... Understatement is Ocean's greatest strength. [Nov 2022, p.84]

Their third LP is mostly comprised of ground-quaking punk-dance anthems, they're also politically charged, shot through with ribald wit, simmering anger and references to philosopher Frantz Fanon. [Dec 2022, p.93]

Ezra Collective's confidence hits a fizzing high on this freewheeling 14-track double. [Dec 2022, p.87]

Titles like Telekinetoscopes and After The Visions are as gripping as the levitating grooves and flickering pulses that accompany them. [Jan 2023, p.93]

Eight lengthy bouts of exquisite thrumming folk. [Jan 2023, p.86]

The group demonstrate their vocal prowess on Hamba, a relentless dance groove featuring plaintive a cappella harmonies. [Dec 2022, p.89]

Muted, syncopated beats, ghostly pedal steel and icy Solina string machine conspire to create the effect of a slow-motion scene: unwanted debris blowing away in the wind, with our stronger and more resolved singer standing at the centre of the wreckage. Even amid the ashes of her past, it seems, Margo Price keeps burning ever more brightly. [Feb 2023, p.80]

Highly seductive and pulsates with youthful energy. [Mar 2023, p.88]

Strong Stones in the '80s vibes set the tone. [May 2023, p.95]

[Ben Gregory's] emergence from psychiatric treatment to go solo has restored ambition, engineering a starling psychodrama, both spiritual and musical. [Jun 2023, p.87]

The cumulative effect is lulling and hypnotic. [Jun 2023, p.89]

A delightful album. [Apr 2023, p.82]

Villagers lives in its own hermetic and compelling space; it's not too late to pay a visit. [Jul 2023, p.84]

A furiously funky soundtrack to impending doom. [Aug 2023, p.85]

As The Murlocs wave their freak-flag high, the party raves on via the taut Southern rock riffage of Common Sense Civilian and Russian Roulette's rogue Farfisa. [Aug 2023, p.78]

Stylistic touchstones veer toward the William Blake's 7 weird of Julia Holter, Henry Cow and Julie Tippetts' prog-jazz outlier Sunset Glow. Incomprehensible/irresistible. [Sep 2023, p.87]

Expansive, restless, subtly volatile, Radio red is intriguing enough to keep it locked. [Sep 2023, p.84]

A slinky, soulful, witty, mid-paced affair. [Oct 2023, p.81]

The story arc LeBlanc has stitched into the songs never get in the way of sheer enjoyment of the tunes he's created. Grand concepts are a tricky move for any artist, but LaBlanc pulls it off with plomb. [Dec 2023, p.91]

If life's what you make it, here Anderson makes it sound very beautiful indeed. [Dec 2023, p.92]

From top to bottom, what a joy it is. [Jan 2024, p.88]

Nau isn't especially original, but he is especially beguiling. These are songs to luxuriate in. [Feb 2024, p.89]

There are 808s and sensory synths galore, but it's the powerful message and those voices - tough soulful leads and contrastingly sweet gospel harmonies - that hold sway here. [Mar 2024, p.87]

This cool and stylish record should make the jazz best-of-year lists. [Apr 2024, p.90]

The songwriting's uniformly exceptional, the messaging on-the-nose and inspiring - and boy, can he still play guitar. [Apr 2024, p.82]

Love In Constant Spectacle is watchful rather than showy, its songs not boxing up one simple mood at a time but sitting with their uncertainty. Nuance might be going out of fashion in the world outside, but in here, Weaver speaks it fluently. [May 2024, p.83]