It's not tidy, but fittingly for such unabashed pop maximalists, there's a lot to love here. [Jan 2019, p.84]

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

Their 14th release enschews improv for structure, its hulking grooves boosted by Melvins guitarist Buzz Osborne and the distinctive noir wail of new label boss Mike Patton. [Apr 2009, p.107]

The songs about hurt, hardship but also hope are sung in raspy voices with sparse guitar and farming tools used as percussion. [Dec 2019, p.88]

While all but a handful of the songs from the 13 track Angels & Queens have already been drip-fed via a series of singles, EPs and last year's seven-track mini-album, Gabriels' desire to take their time with the making of their long-awaited debut album has certainly paid off. [Jun 2023, p.84]

Flow Critical Lucidity – the best record Moore has been involved in since Sonic Youth’s The Eternal, 15 years ago now – feels as close as he’s come to something new. [Nov 2024, p.86]

Unlike the four prior archival editions, Joni’s Jazz gives listeners very little that’s new. .... It is tempting to see it, then, as a chaotic but mostly coherent and sometimes very compelling streaming playlist, given deluxe physical form. [Oct 2025, p.46]

With no grounding bass, the groove is understated on a 13-minute title track that imperceptibly limbers from low-end oscillations and primitive pitter-patter into a billowing, blazing free jazz-prog odyssey in its own distinct dimension. Szun Waves sweep you into it. [Nov 2018, p.95]

Ultimately, Futurology is brave and unexpected, and though some of it galls, much is magnificent. [Aug 2014, p.87]

Not least of the record's triumphs is its vindication of a band at its peak even after all these years. [Mar 2018, p.94]

After the past 12 months, you might feel you want and need more escapism than Spare Ribs really offers. Yet if everyone's been made to gaze into the abyss this year, it's a relief, a comfort--maybe even a pleasure--to find Sleaford Mods in there, gazing right back at you. [Feb 2021, p.80]

Throughout Seek Shelter delivers the sort of ragged MC5/Stooges/Stones cocktail Primal Scream have spent a career trying to nail. [Jun 2021, p.85]

Angels of Darkness, Demons of Light, Vol. 2 is a looser affair, showcasing Carlson's improvisational chemistry with long-term percussionist Adrienne Davies, bass player Karl Blau and cellist Lori Goldston. [Mar 2012, p.102]

It is - and it sits comfortably besides Squeeze's finest works of the late '70s. It might even be better. [Apr 2026, p,92]

The more elemental moments - Sour Flower's mournful rustle of handclaps, cymbals and Fender Rhodes, or the intimate, guitar-led Green Papaya and Can't fight - are understated, introspective and more powerful. [Aug 2020, p.84]

In Of The Earth he has slipped its bonds almost entirely, crafting a holistic, electro-acoustic world music that defies categorisation. [Apr 2026, p.89]

Wrongtom's enthusiasm for collaboration is everywhere apparent on In East London's salute to the capital. [Nov 2012, p.94]

Transience is another reminder that Eric Goulden is arguably the only one of his Stuff-era peers to remain a scarily powerful and forward-moving musical threat. [Jun 2019, p.90]

A return from the wilds. ... Some of the best vocal melodies Tabish has yet channelled. [Jun 2020, p.93]

This is an absolute joy. [Jun 2023, p.92]

This record shows an artist stretching out to fill space, refusing to settle for anything small. [Oct 2024, p.85]

Vocal melodies take a back seat to the overall 'vibe', but it's a groovy corner of the musical universe to spend time in. [Apr 2025, p.87]

This parting gift from Philadelphia-based guitarist Jack Rose stands as a superlative statement of his love for pre-war American music. [Apr 2010, p.95]

[The Trinity Session was] An alt-folk classic--and this might be one too. [Aug 2018, p.93]

Ten spare, spacious folk-Americana songs, many of them lovely, and the instrumentation is subtle and beautiful. [Sep 2020, p.87]

Nine wordless, shape-shifting essays. [Oct 2021, p.93]

Beautifully elusive. [Apr 2024., p.85]

Star Wars confirms that Wilco now fully own a unique American noise wherein nothing is wholly traditional or wholly experimental. But if the band’s own sense of self is stalwart, the characters they detail are consistently unmoored.

Louis Carnell crafts grime's own I Hear A New World. [Dec 2015, p.91]

While Powell's bruised vocals evoke early Cat Power, she does remarkable things with that sound. [Sep 2020, p.87]

Altogether, with added depth and melody, it’s Maries’ best yet. [Jun 2025, p.88]

Songwriter Darnielle expertly renders the acute emotions of adopting a new tribe and the resignation that life often forces. [Jun 2017, p.89]

Stubborn Persistent Illusions may be their best yet. [Aug 2017, p.96]

The results are often magical, the tracks' man-versus-machine provenance never jarring, the music often utterly liquid in feel. [Apr 2020, p.95]

Overflowing with ideas. [Apr 2021, p.83]

This one's a real keeper. [Apr 2025, p.87]

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

Heroic riffing and Joe Cardamone's raw yodel ensure they never disappoint. [Aug 2013, p.98]

Well-crafted and unfussy. [Sep 2023, p.92]

It's Orcutt's genius to find tenderness in the most forbidding places, and this time out he does so in the best possible company. [Oct 2025, p.85]

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

An open, emotionally congruent record that never tries to be clever and yet rarely seems dull. [Apr 2004, p.99]

It's all oddly refreshing, aurally exciting and a whole lotta fun. [Jun 2019, p.94]

The big screen really suits him. [Jul 2019, p.94]

A gently rambling rumination twinkling with congas, shakers and bird-like flute. [Oct 2019, p.92]

These songs engage on intimate, interior level. [Sep 2021, p.95]

Moves from a first LP of monumental pinguid hypo-groovers to a second of fried-amp creepy-crawl sludge and crude-oil ghost harmonics. [Dec 2021, p.86]

Achieves optimum velocity from the off, and barely settles for less than a vigorous simmer throughout. [Apr 2022, p.85]

13 is a shape-shifting delight sans longueurs. [Jun 2026, p.88]

The best pieces here really are as good as their previous iterations; very occasionally, perhaps even better. [Jun 2026, p.96]

The joy of Steely Dan's early albums was that their superior playing, production and craftsmanship was vibrantly energetic, spiced with rollercoaster twists and turns, and deeply sardonic lyrics... Fagen now lacks those vital extra elements, leaving just craftsmanship with no spark. [Apr 2006, p.104]

Whitmore's sparse new songs brilliantly realised. [Oct 2011, p.105]

The sound might be spacier and more panoramic, but there's still some grit in the mix. [May 2007, p.110]

A personal statement that is simply too accomplished to fall into pastiche. [Apr 2015, p.96]

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 languid voiced one has rarely sounded better. [Jun 2012, p.100]

Forsyth's emotional power is entirely here and now. [Feb 2020, p.88]

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]

With echoes of caribou, Chemical Brothers and Underworld also fluttering in the mix, Avery's is a compelling, club-friendly debut with crossover appeal to the headphone set. [Nov 2013, p.89]

Likewise explores empathy's limits and dialogue's importance, Quinlan's densely-packed lyric sheet give anything hackneyed a wide berth. [Feb 2020, p.92]

Oren Ambarchi and several of his distinguished collaborators move from cold pulsing grooves to free electronic jazz freakout in a manner most conductive to euphoria. [Jan 2017, p.97]

Protest songs can be dour, but Bradfield dresses lyrics adapted from the poems of Patrick Jones in his most ornately uplifting arrangements. [Sep 2020, p.85]

Rully Shabara and Wukir Suryadi call spirits from the soil with enough power to trouble the Richter scale. [Feb 2019, p.91]

In the category of great rap reinventions, file it next to Daniel Dumile's post-KMD rebirth as MF Doom and Ultramagnetic's MC Kool Keith re-training as Dr. Octagon. [Aug. 2011, p. 94]

This is Toumani's best work since 200o8's The Mande Variations. [Jul 2014, p.88]

Bowles apples his clawhammer style to reverberating experiments. [Oct 2016, p.100]

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]

Andorra arrives in reverberant, sun-drenched spumes of falsetto vocals, crunching guitars, pulsating drums, jingling sleigh bells and fluttering flutes. [Sep 2007, p.109]

Here is The Stooges Mk I's answer to the James Williamson-era Metallica KO - ferociously exciting on the brink of collapse. [Sep 2020, p.99]

WYTMWY is Knox in typically epic form, a suspenseful fusion of country-folk ballads and Twin Peaks cabaret. Bu there's a fresh clarity here too. [Feb 2021, p.88]

A delicate, inward-facing set. [May 2024, p.80]

The Parisian has lost his cool, let rip, taken his metaphorical shirt off, and it sounds liberating.

Is not only utterly delectable but manages to find genuinely new ways to shape heartbreak. [Dec 2002, p.114]

Though the production isn't listener-friendly and the lyrics can be lovelorn in excelsis, Arthur's strong melodies and arresting imagery always win through.

The longer the album runs the more engaging the songs seem to become. [May 2004, p.104]

His best yet, a mix of reimagined trad pieces, diverse covers and elegantly rowdy new jams. [Nov 2018, p.89]

This darker edge lends substance to some of Vile's best songs to date. [Oct 2015, p.94]

Imbued with harmonies, melody and some hard-edged dynamics that draw on Led Zeppelin, this is what the pastoral Pink Floyd of 1971 might have done next. [Apr 2016, p.91]

Note Eaglehurst/The Palace, an ecstatic workout that mythologises a shared house of Brit jazz tyros as an inspiringly sacred space. [Dec 2018, p.92]

The guests never distract from or overshadow the Malians. [Oct 2020, p.88]

The follow-up packs a whole heap more precision ramalama. ... Top class. [Nov 2020, p.86]

Throughout Francis Lung turns dark emotions into bright and welcoming songs. [Jul 2021, p.83]

Thirty-five albums in, incredibly, GBV are still scaling new heights. [Apr 2022, p.80]

Welcome echoes include Bramah's sinister, cogent non sequiturs and the contorted, sharp-edged rock sounds, and the urgent to interpret everything as a reference to MES becomes flesh with the spectral/beefy Harlequin Duke. [Jul 2023, p.85]

Into his eighth decade of unblinkered creativity, Hayward continues to thrill. [Dec 2023, p.93]

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]

It is a little heavier on the electric-piano than the louche post-punkers' previous outings, with Diaphanous, Map Of The Night Sky and Out Sweet Sould reaching out toward the baroque, Coral-style musical theatre that defined Bid's records as Scarlet's Well. [May 2026, p.89]

An entire LP of these earthy yet cerebral pop constructs would have been no hardship whatsoever. [Oct 2011, p.92]

These are exquisitely sad songs of spare belongings and reduced circumstance, about men who fail, and the women who stay with them. [Dec 2018, p.91]

A fine collection from a timeless song craftsman. [Mar 2023, p.84]

It's a familiar mix of delicate acoustic tracks and crunching country rock - but The 400 Unit has evolved via the deepening emotional heft of their leader's songwriting. [Jul 2023, p.86]

Hieroglyphic Being aims to take you to a higher state of consciousness. There's plenty of fun to be had there. [May 2025, p.91]

It's disappointing that there aren't one or two more inspiring moments, especially when there's a roughly equivalent number of duds. [Jan 2017, p.92]

Some of the purest, restorative, most unburdened music imaginable. [Oct 2016, p.98]

Any agitation on Katherine Paul's second LP is gently expressed. [Oct 2019, p.92]

Highly engaging. [Dec 2019, p.96]

In another world, Andy Warhol would want to manage them, but on this evidence, Horsegirl have pop down to an art by themselves. [Mar 2025, p.86]

Teen Dream is a lovely album, but there's more to admire here than to actually love. Oddly, that may not be a problem. [Feb. 2010, p. 94]