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]

It has a gentle, pared-down intimacy, flowing with acid ballads and devotional dream pop. [Jul 2022, p.86]

Timeless and joyful. [Jul 2022, p.96]

Here's some blood and guts from Toronto in the prime-time 1970s. And it doesn't just sit there. [Jul 2022, p.101]

Here, Marc Almond's slightly-too sharp voice and Dave Ball's compendium of antique synth tricks are once again a perfect pop match. [Jul 2022, p.93]

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

Occasionally, they favour the billowy and formless- Waving A Whit Flag goes nowhere, albeit moodily - but their best tracks showcase Yorke's song most transparently; Panavision and Free In the Knowledge are two of his loveliest in years. [Jul 2022, p.90]

She's taken a great leap forward at the very moment one was required. [Jul 2022, p.89]

Beautifully black. [Jul 2022, p.88]

Dana Margolin isn't just reckoning with a break-up, but a near-total collapse in its wake. ... Yet the prettiness somehow makes listening feel more voyeuristic. [Jul 2022, p.92]

There are moments of real beauty, and Air may well prick up the ears of film producers looking for new scoring talent, but as a listening experience in itself, it's often heavy-going. [Jul 2022, p.90]

A record that feels warmer, wiser and less forced than any of his albums so far. [Jun 2022, p.88]

The melodies and fire return in Baby I'm Coming Home, but held up against their past triumphs, Dropout Boogie often sounds half-cooked. [Jun 2022, p.84]

There is a confidence and intensity at UCLA that explains why that concert was an under-the-counter favourite. [Jun 2022, p.96]

Citizen Kane Jr. Blues has the challenged audio of a cassette machine hidden inside a coat or under a napkin. it also has the precious, authentic thrill of one-night-only magic. [Jun 2022, p.96]

Professionally recorded with a slightly altered song order (no Down By The River). There is a definite air of victory lap. [Jun 2022, p.96]

It builds a new stoic eloquence into her vulnerability, even if the stark, birdsong-imbued Darkish drips with Radiohead-like ennui. [Jun 2022, p.84]

Endless Rooms presents a tightly-knit ensemble creatively, thrilling ablaze. [Jun 2022, p.90]

Side two, however, veers into arch Euro-pop (I Don't Have Control Sometimes) and moody balladry (Stand By Me), and Sunflower Bean's new-found confection begins to set one's teeth on edge. [Jun 2022, p.87]

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

If you've been waiting 11 years for this, you'll be relieved to know it won't disappoint. [Jun 2022, p.87]

Warpaint's finest album so far. [Jun 2022, p.88]

Without making concessions, she's delivered her most accessible album yet, perhaps even her best. [Jun 2022, p.84]

WE is Arcade fire's best album since 2010's The Suburbs. By circling back, they've once again moving forward. [Jun 2022, p.86]

Throughout, frontman Stuart Murdoch's succinct dramas are typically populated by vulnerable dreamers and seekers, some still Young And Stupid (the opening track), others a reflection of how his Christian beliefs embrace the tenets of Buddhism. [Jun 2022, p.87]

On one hand, there are well written songs here, served up on a bed of country tunes via Jack White's rarefied, obsessively aesthetic Third Man label. But then there's the cheap, digitised sound, with all the charm of a Hallmark Country Christmas album dropping an '80s home organ down the stairs at Nashville airport. [Jun 2022, p.86]

Wen It Comes is a mood piece on which Gavanski appears to chronicle living through a waking dream. [Jun 2022, p.89]

A multi-faceted and in turns amusing and affecting album. [Jun 2022, p.86]

Singer Ann's third solo LP is her most Heart-like, cruising between drivetime and blues-rock. [Jun 2022, p.89]

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

Lengthy spoken-word soliloquys (in German), sonic paintings of air raids and oracular avant-classical minimalism sit alongside more familiar Laibach Strum und Drang - the group's disorienting way with reframing materials makes for an unnerving experience full with violence, trauma and insight. [May 2022, p.86]

Break Me open doesn't stray too far from his day job. ... When his music rises to match the power of his words - the strings-and-horn-laden crescendo of Crestfallen - the results are stirring. [May 2022, p.90]

BP retain a youthful fixation with personal drama, biting lyrics and angular guitars, laced with keyboards. [Jun 2022, p.94]

Blood Karaoke ought to be an incoherent mess. Instead, it's a sometimes beautiful, sometimes brutal sound collage, with unexpected twists and turns every few seconds. [Jun 2022, p.84]

The best moments - Where The Water Clears The illusion's untethered vocals, for example - come with an edge of unease, pushing Prochet onwards, upwards, and out of her beautifully suspended animation. [May 2022, p.86]

At its best, it harkens to long-lost, dense-sounding riff grinders such as Breaking Circus or Earth, but there's light as well as shade too and Broken Sugar positively twinkles. [Jun 2022, p.87]

The propulsive beats, loping low-end and metallic synths of Glass Effect push the swirling arrangements of last year's Breathe Suite EP into a deeper realm. [Jun 2022, p.89]

If 2018's fragile debut At Weddings tended to become lost in the beautifully abstract mists as the Pastor's daughter explored faith and its losses, I Don't Know Who Needs to Hear This... navigates using sharper corners and edges. [Jun 2022, p.84]

Everything Perfect Is Already Here avoids emotional overload, instead offering solace and a loving embrace, a haven of calm and normality. [Jun 2022, p.86]

Holds together as a coherent statement, offering - like its predecessor, 2015's Right On! - a more modest, bare-bones vision of the spectral, goth-adjacent dark pop of her day job. [Jun 2022, p.86]

Weighty subtexts and a consistent mood of restrained portent haven't entirely banished the aforementioned arpeggiated banality here, however, which is a shame, because in places Heather gives rein to an otherwise repressed idiosyncrasy. [May 2022, p.94]

Solid and dependable rather than spectacular. [Jun 2022, p.91]

The rest can't quite compete [with the 18-minute The Dripping Tap], and is at its best on the contrasting Magenta mountain and Presumptous. [Jun 2022, p.84]

The combination of piano and the string ensemble Scoring Berlin has some overlap with sonic contemplations of Max Richter and Arvo Part. But Eno has a distinctive style and picks just the right chord change or string colouration. [May 2022, p.88]

A saucer-eyed treat. [Apr 2022, p.84]

Mahal and Cooder are giving back here like so often before. [May 2022, p.92]

The whole thing is furious, funny and, not least in the toy-town conscious reggae of Health Is Wealth, deeply loveable. [Jun 2022, p.92]

Hugely entertaining. [June 2022, p.91]

The youthful buoyancy of Dogrel has ebbed away, there's a chill deep into the bones of these big, bold songs. ... Fontaines D.C. sound full of new life. [May 2022, p.93]

For every peak there's an occasional trough. [May 2022, p.88]

Constant hitmaker or beautiful waste of time: like all great alchemists, Kurt Vile proves you can be both. [May 2022, p.87]

This is not only Horace Andy's best album in 40 years, but it is also a work of lasting power. [May 2022, p.84]

Deeper investigations are recommended. [May 2022, p.94]

A meditative counterpoint to Reflection. [May 2022, p.94]

Cue more mariachi mystery carefully balanced on John Convertino and Joey Burn's tenth studio LP. [May 2022, p.90]

[Godrich's original tracklisting] play to what Malkmus saw as the album's "psychedelic, trippy" strengths. .... A deep dive of the box set's bonuses turns up further treasures. [May 2022, p.98]

This is a new mature indie scene in the making. [May 2022, p.94]

The debut solo album is as ornate as 2009's Veckatimest, with Rossen now playing almost all the buccaneering acoustic guitars, cascading piano lines, cellos and woodwinds himself. [May 2022, p.94]

The sparseness lends a quiet power and intimacy to proceedings. [May 2022, p.100]

lightning Boogie is as unimaginative as its title, but when they calm down In This Lifetime, they twinkle. [May 2022, p.94]

A more intimate dimension to this incisive chronicler of beleaguered times. [May 2022, p.88]

A shoegazing-inclined Zombies sums it up. [May 2022, p.92]

The sound of a plan coming together - the novelty wearing off, but a different light switching on, all day long and beyond. [May 2022, p.88]

The Unfolding is an inventive and accessible mix of acoustic instrumentals and electronics with an elemental atmosphere. [May 2022, p.92]

The most focused and exciting White Solo record yet, a precision-tooled digital reconfiguration of his rock bona fides. [May 2022, p.89]

Camp art-pop songs matching Kassie Carlson's surreal lyrics with burbling synths and booming basses, it might snag GT the audience they crave. [May 2022, p.96]

An immersive audio tour that acts as a kind of Baltic analogue to ambient jazz pin-up boy Jon Hassell's more equatorial excursions. [May 2022, p.92]

Crooked Tree is a bountiful harvest, fruit of more dedicated application. [May 2022, p.91]

As Chloë And The Next 20th Century sees Father John Misty escaping into his parallel Hollywood reality, it's highly entertaining to slip in alongside him. [May 2022, p.90]

The first half of the album is techno-pop, finely balancing euphoria and heartache. .... The subsequent ballads' more fragile. [May 2022, p.89]

Though-provoking yet full of fun, DePlume's willingness to dig dep has turned up a genuine treasure. [May 2022, p.88]

Unlimited Love's sprawling 17 tracks almost inevitably include a few free-spirited missteps, with Aquatic Mouth dance and poster Child getting stuck in a groove. Nevertheless, an impressive consolidation of their strengths. [May 2022, p.89]

[Producers Joe Goddard and Al Doyle] bring a fitting smoothness to the cheesy exotica groove of Wild Flowers, and a swinging clarity to Fatso's '80s P-Funk electro-grind. Elsewhere, At The Hotspot can be too hectic for wider recommendation. [May 2022, p.90]

With enough disco detonators aboard for three Top 5 albums, here's the feel-good hit album of 2022. [May 2022, p.95]

With most cuts clocking in under five minutes, Sonancy's austere precision carries right through to its auteur's Chrome-esque robo voicing. [Apr 2022, p.80]

On paper it might sound like a filler - nine songs, none of them original, some newly recorded, some not - but to listen to it's wonderful. [May 2022, p.94]

Nancy Andersen sings like a chillwave Sade, her understated poise more histrionic vocalists couldn't access. [Apr 2022, p.89]

[An] Extraordinary album. [Apr 2022, p.92]

Labyrinthitis is another tantalising Destroyer album, one that resists being clutched too tight or loved too hard as it roams its peculiar world. [Apr 2022, p.86]