Seen from 2022, Stereolab's sheer breadth of endeavour here can justly be vaunted as heroic. [Oct 2022, p.100]

Pale Blue Eyes' debut album deftly executes a type of electro-inclined pop which initially surfaced as the edges of post-punk softened to embrace melody over angularity. [Sep 2022, p.94]

Forsyth knows exactly how far to let out the line before returning to the earth's atmosphere, leaping forward, bringing it home. [Sep 2022, p.95]

McKenzie is so focused on craft ahead of melody that an album this determined to be without jokes might have actually benefited from a couple. [Sep 2022, p.93]

12 self-penned kitchen-disco bangers, each one a gem. [Oct 2022, p.84]

King fulfils his promise. ... His honey-rich voice and whipsmart guitar playing are the standouts here. [Sep 2022, p.86]

Bares no audible strains of road weariness. ... Retain[s] all their live urgency. [Sep 2022, p.91]

Its overload of big-picture polemic, explosive virtuosity and tune-rich entertainment certainly takes some unpacking, yet is consistently thrilling. [Sep 2022, p.89]

Their ongoing Heavy Rocks series plays things relatively straight, however, restricting their palette to metallic tones. Even so, this third volume rewrites the rulebook. An opening brace of tunes gallop like vintage Motorhead, if they were being chased by wild banshee saxophones. [Oct 2022, p.90]

The demos here colour in the blanks and the alternative mixes are like watching a favourite movie from a different camera angle. But Against The Odds reminds the listener that there were always two Blondies. [Sep 2022, p.98]

Smith's usual meditative, ambient-leaning approach is dialled back in favour of soaring wonky pop, ornate neoclasical and even quasi dancefloor movements. It gives rise to her most joyous music yet. [Oct 2022, p.87]

Though musically more fulsome, lyrics are still key. [Sep 2022, p.96]

If All Of Us Flames feels more hopeful, rest assured there is o downscaling of tension or combat. [Sep 2022, p.89]

With every album, Jacklin is finding more of herself, strengthening her voice. It's complicated, but Pre Pleasure is a joy to hear. [Sep 2022, p.88]

Though the ingenuity of the project occasionally outguns the quality of the songwriting, Darnielle's spadework has resulted in a zesty, spontaneous-sounding record. [Sep 2022, p.95]

A trip that feel like it's over way too soon. [Sep 2022, p.89]

His voice remains strident as the album veers from pared-down solo to spritely contributions from the likes of Chaim Tannenbaum and David Mansfield, plus a less successful string arrangement. [Sep 2022, p.90]

A concept album set in the 1890s, revelling in simplicity. [Oct 2022, p.92]

What makes it great is something else - an energy and a vibe that give the strange sensation you're there with them. [Oct 2022, p.84]

It's a free-wheeling surge of glitchy beats and fizzing, ravey energy, with the wobbly UK garage underpinnings of Echo Party a notable standout. [Oct 2022, p.86]

TKO raps over vignettes with sonic left turns. His style sneaks in social comment. [Oct 2022, p.92]

A mix of pulsing, oven-ready bangers and darker reflections, Freakout/Release exudes the confidence of a band operating at its giddy peak. [Sep 2022, p.91]

Heartmind is unlikely to break him out of the smoked-glass shell of cultdom. ... Yet this album does display notable lushness. ... It proves McCombs doesn't need any dream machine to induce new visions: 10 albums in, he's more than capable of looking at the world differently all by himself. [Sep 2022, p.84]

Fluorescent keyboards crowd Kiwi Jr.'s once-open spaces on Chopper, making the surface of their first "produced" LP feel more like an oil slick than the band's past terrain of jagged delights. [Sep 2022, p.93]

Breathlessly brilliant stuff. [Sep 2022, p.93]

Danger Mouse's illustrious production CV is a big draw but it's his classy discretion in play here, giving plenty of space for Black Thought. [Sep 2022, p.86]

The entirety celebrates the ecstatic simplicity of that era [1950s-60s] of pop. [Sep 2022, p.86]

Mixture of West Africa and Caribbean influences. Oscar Jerome's glowing highlife guitar opens Dide O, a midway tryptic with Soul Searching (Afrobeat) and We Give Thanks. (soul). [Sep 2022, p.96]

Branch's inspired improvisations, bold melodic leaps and bluesy burr of a voice buoy over Nazary's inventive, depth-charged beats. [Jul 2022, p.91]

Escapology is frequently, characteristically unsettling. [Sep 2022, p.86]

This sequel traverses reassuringly similar zones, with Tuttle's banjo threading in and out of the FX atmospherics, and an expanded instrumental cast - notably fellow travellers Chuck Johnson and Luke Schneider on pedal steel - operating with equal subtlety. [Sep 2022, p.86]

Charming. [Sep 2022, p.95]

Patina exists on an arc where grunge, the rave era, Britpop et al never occurred. What would have happened if the second half of the '80s had defined much of what came next? Tallies provide the answer - these nine tracks are that good. [Sep 2022, p.94]

Wriggins remains his own elusive self, his songs forever moving between the prosaic and the ecstatic. [Sep 2022, p.89]

Intense. But the much tougher stuff here is emotional. [Sep 2022, p.86]

Deschanel's light, Astrud Gilberto-style vocals float wistfully and when they collide with Ward's harmonies on Deirdre or with er own harmonies on Melt Away, it soars. [Sep 2022, p.94]

The band retreated into the more self-contained approach which has spawned My other People. [Jul 2022, p.92]

The result is a sparkling 24-minute digital raga that builds to a tumultuous mid-point crescendo, before gliding elegantly out of the other side. Euphoric synth-pop that's smart and never po-faced. [Sep 2022, p.90]

Its mercurial art-pop is dotted with contrary pulses and unexpected detours. [Sep 2022, p.96]

A diverting curio, then, rather than essential. [Sep 2022, p.87]

As Ever, they're at their best when Amy Millan and Torquil Campbell trade vocal lines. [Aug 2022, p.92]

Without the accompanying visuals, Ugly Season makes most sense when there's a vocal to centre it. [Aug 2022, p.86]

It puts ZZ's impeccably-tuned engine room under the microscope, their "just us and the music" gambit paying off. [Aug 2022, p.90]

It's gauzy visions suggesting some rediscovered private press folk oddity from the '70s, Segall's faultless melodic instincts lent an edge by Bolan-esque warble, inward-looking lyrics and, on Saturday Pt 2, wild saxophone duets. [Aug 2022, p.87]

Its sure-footed '60 psych, garage and country is potently rendered. [Aug 2022, p.89]

It's difficult to detach this record from the harrowing specificity of its backstory, yet Riderless Horse never makes you feel like an intruder. That's testament, after 12 long years, to Natasia's skills, the undimmed songwriter able to transform all the pain and horror into something indelibly beautiful. [Aug 2022, p.88]

It's extra-colourful and top quality. [Sep 2022, p.87]

Moonshine occupies that rich space between hope and melancholy, smooth, maybe, but not without its hooks and catches. [Aug 2022, p.90]

Perhaps the most mellow and settled LP of White's career. ... These slow burns seem good for White. [Aug 2022, p.84]

Making a little go a long way on a contagious return, up there with commercial peak Cabs circa The Crackdown and Micro-Phonies. [Aug 2022, p.94]

At best, Fear Fear is as compact and airless as its title, an existential crisis dancing in warm leatherette. [Aug 2022, p.87]

It's a beautiful, nuanced record, the sound of new boundaries forming and realigning. [Aug 2022, p.94]

Hellfire, for all its sporadic intensity, is less harsh than previous Black Midi records. [Aug 2022, p.83]

The star is Derek Trucks' sweeping washes of whooshes that wrap the five tunes in a warm blanket, 12-minute ender Pasaquan showcasing his stinging, dexterous, raga-blues brilliance. [Aug 2022, p.95]

Katy J Pearson's second album heralds few radical stylistic shifts, but showcases renewed confidence, intention and focus. [Aug 2022, p.86]

There's something quietly masterful about The Other Side Of Make-Believe. Strong, dignified, scarred but moving forwards, it's the sound of a band charting emotional disturbances, but emerging renewed. [Aug 2022, p.91]

Producer/arranger Joel Burton steeps Bock's butterly-rich voice in shifting contours that match the nuances in her words while leaving acres of space. [Aug 2022, p.90]

You do wonder what, exactly, fires his pistons and to what end, but quality control remains excellent. [Aug 2022, p.91]

At 70 minutes it's worth wallowing. He's pushing his own boundaries. [Aug 2022, p.90]

Sounds great and further reveals the era-oddness of Prince's blending of '80s drum machine funk with late-'60s heavy rock. [Jul 2022, p.100]

It's the garlanded ritual folk of Kan Me ("May Song"), however, that underlines this is a record of changing seasons and transitional states. Accept the offer of tea but prepare to lose days in the process. [Aug 2022, p.90]

Each of them [psalms] is spoken word, less than two minutes long, and set to music that's ominous, ambient, spectral and spiritual. That's side one; side two is taken up with a 12-minute instrumental - a ruminative play of dark on dark, with a deep drone and synthesized choir of ghosts that's quite lovely. [Aug 2022, p.96]

Household Name is their Cannonball moment, supercharged pop that also acknowledges Smashing Pumpkins and Veruca Salt. Momma wear it well; celebrating, not denying, their inspiration. [Aug 2022, p.91]

Nuanced writing, full of tender challenges to lost souls, and Shelly's warmest sound yet. [Jul 2022, p.92]

It's all expertly arranged to maximise the unbrushed bohemian intensity. [Aug 2022, p.86]

All in all, it's lovely, uplifting stuff. [Aug 2022, p.87]

Throughout there is a sense of making music for the sheer thrill of it. ... This is Newcombe celebrating the moment and at his best. [Aug 2022, p.92]

While Reggae Film Star is often droll, Jurado's empathy for his characters - from the enduring recriminations of Lois Lambert to the aching isolation of What Happened To The Class Of '65? - often makes for affecting songwriting. [Aug 2022, p.87]

It just sounds so good. Warm and natural. And Earle's voice has rarely sounded better. [Aug 2022, p.91]

His singing, always restrained, is so low-key that it risks losing the listener's attention, but the playing supplies the feeling. [Aug 2022, p.95]

Its four long, richly-textured instrumentals thrum with existential reverence. [Aug 2022, p.89]

Occasionally, the joke is pushed too far (the feigned English accents and campy synth-pop of Muscles). Mostly, however, McBean's native gift for riff and songcraft transcend any conceptual archness. [Aug 2022, p.92]

It's when Spektor is less showy and more direct that her songs are most affecting. [Aug 2022, p.86]

Up And Away is warmer and grittier than its '80s-polished predecessors, infused with the '50s/'60s trad folk and hybrid pop records her grandparents and parents spun for her. [Jul 2022, p.90]

The debut - one of several solo releases by CSNY post-Deja Vu - is the stronger of the two, heartfelt and unpretentious. Nash's voice has barely changed and the band arrangements are mostly subtle and complementary. [Jul 2022, p.86]

There might only be five songs here, but each one has a similar transformative effect. [Jul 2022, p.88]

Her insinuation of millennial angst-pop into pre-millennial alt-rock is so deft and affecting that Sometimes, Forever rewards the investment. Soccer Mommy feels like the real deal, [Jul 2022, p.92]

In Amber goes the whole hog. ... Frequently beautiful and occasionally offers succour. [Jul 2022, p.90]

Strange's earnestness is artful, and Farm To Table an uplifting triumph. [Jul 2022, p.88]

This trick of balancing heavy and light serves Mercury well. [Jul 2022, p.88]

It's a beguiling mix for the most part, even if they have overly sacrificed melody on the altar of rhythm. [Jul 2022, p.93]

These opaque, often uneasy sounding songs conjure nature's unpredictability and vulnerability as well as its beauty. [Jul 2022, p.89]

O'Brien prowls around angular guitar and drums. Imagine a Kim Gordon-fronted PiL. [Jul 2022, p.97]

Whip-smart and wonderful. [Jul 2022, p.89]

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

Capture Jackson at his very best. ... These eight songs are both questing and healing. [Jul 2022, p.89]

Luminous and alive, Dear Scott is just what Mick does: Head music, straight from the heart. [Jun 2022, p.82]

These 11 songs - several expansive - are often sophisticated indie pop with a lot going on. musically and lyrically. [Jul 2022, p.95]

A potent artistic tour de force, White Jesus Black Problems' message is ultimately a simple but life-affirming one: love can conquer all. [Jul 2022, p.94]

With his trademark gothic drawl, Patterson Hood limns close highway calls with perspicacity, then mourns the compatriots he's lost to foibles and vices alike. Perennially underrated Mike Cooley, meanwhile, hands in some of his sharpest-ever writing. [Jul 2022, p.86]

The follow-up to 2020's When We Stay Alive continues that LP's fragile introspection. [Jul 2022, p.97]

The trio's debut album is rich in textural sophistication, carving hooks from fidgety harmonics and swooning whammy-bar abuse. [Jul 2022, p.86]

Big Time doesn't feel like a definitive transformation - it's still tender and unfurled in places - but it does have a new clarity, a sense of masks peeling away, veils dropped. [Jul 2022, p.84]

There's real creative confidence on display here. [Jul 2022, p.92]

They return forever changed to confidently shape a form of country music that is entirely of their own character. [Jul 2022, p.87]

11 searching, beautifully rendered songs which rhythm section Jay Bellerose and Jennifer Condos finesse with artful subtlety. [Jul 2022, p.91]

A few numbers tread too similar a beat; but then there's the gumshoe monologue of Brexit At Tiffany's and The Sergio Leone mash-up of Saint Michael - which is windswept, stately and might, just might be hopeful. [Jun 2022, p.91]

Adept at expressing keenly observed details in a Beat vernacular, he makes excellent use of a 14-piece string section and more drum machines than are typical for him. [Jul 2022, p.89]