Deerhoof being Deerhoof, the arty, poppy, proggy noise is jagged, cathartic, and occasionally grand. [Nov 2021, p.88]

Probably his most varied album. ... The extremes work better still, be it Cyrus's eyebrow-raising raw trawl through Metallica's Nothing Else Matters or the vocal pyrotechnics which course through Young Thug & Nicki Minaj's Always Love You. [Dec 2021, p.87]

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

The music's suboptimal sound quality is only a minor drawback to a sonic experience whose raw intensity is both disquieting and uplifting. [Nov 2021, p.102]

Fun House moves Duffy ever closer to the revelatory heart of the matter. [Nov 2021, p.92]

Move, a blistering collision of heavy rock and Latin pop. The remainder of the album ranges from percussive jazz-rock and bouncy Latin Techno to febrile thrash metal. [Dec 2021, p.87]

Nothing remotely insipid here; rather anger as an energy and top tunes. [Dec 2021, p.84]

Skin takes in soul, jazz and trip-hop, and more than fulfils her early promise. [Dec 2021, p.90]

It's a mark of Shauf's talent that songs this deft could ever have been left to gather dust. [Dec 2021, p.92]

Let It Be might be the runt of The Beatles litter but it's half of a very good album. ... The outtakes discs are very much works in progress, as The Beatles chat and work their way through new songs: an eavesdrop into their process. ... What comes through is how true The Beatles were to the idea of going back to their youthful inspirations. [Dec 2021, p.99]

There are simple messages, delivered earnestly, but the magic of this group has always been their ability to translate the elemental into the transcendental. It is a miracle they pull off frequently on My Morning Jacket, with confidence and inspiration, every moment a fresh beginning. [Nov 2021, p.85]

In amongst the jumble of influences, trad indie-guitar Parquet remains: in, say, the early Go-Betweens-y Just Shadows, and the galvanising lyrics of collective consciousness - written pre-pandemic, but wonderfully inspiring for late 2021. [Nov 2021, p.84]

Moondust For My Diamond stays the right kind of precious. [Nov 2021, p.91

Delicate yet resolute, Geist is a beautiful spin through the windmills of Lay's mind, unreal in the best ways. [Nov 2021, p.92]

Audiobooks' adoption of absurdity continues to confound in the most delightful ways. [Nov 2021, p.91]

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

A classic rock record, in all senses. [Nov 2021, p.84]

Instinctual, fully lived-in record, it touches and thrills. [Nov 2021, p.93]

Their most forward-facing jazz album yet, packed with complex, multi-storied compositions you can still dance to. [Nov 2021, p.89]

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]

This 5-CD sets lets us revel in his creative process. [Nov 2021, p.102]

The emotional honesty and lack of bravado suits him. [Nov 2021, p.87]

There's nothing here to stop her rise. [Nov 2021, p.87]

Bleak but often gripping stuff. [Oct 2021, p.97]

Results range from the radio-friendly but obvious to the obscure but not a word out of place. [Oct 2021, p.96]

The excellent concept sometimes outshines the music, but if everyone's a tourist, this is the trip to go on. [Nov 2022, p.88]

The sound of a man stretching out... What breadth of vision McCaughan has. [Nov 2021, p.86]

A big-sounding record, it feels like a step forward for Segall. [Nov 2021, p.91]

Gorgeous and achingly candid. [Nov 2021, p.93]

Never sounds less than game. [Nov 2021, p.87]

The gently ticking, lightly compressed acoustic instrument arpeggios will be familiar to fans of both songwriters, but it's the pair's half-whispered vocals blend that enchants. [Nov 2021, p.88]

Bonkers idea. ... Stranger still, the whole thing works a treat. [Nov 2021, p.87]

Beyond such vivid, often thrilling caricatures, however, the acrid smoulder of The Donkey, the mysterious haunt of Legal Ghost and the nuanced pop of New Romeo Agent prove that Tropical Fuck Storm have yet to succumb to glib nihilism, and that tenderness and poetry are still within their grasp. [Nov 2021, p.87]

Should rightly have fans and newcomers alike punching the air in solidarity. [Nov 2021, p.88]

A lugubrious but fresh, genre-bending take on modern club music. [Nov 2021, p.91]

A 50/50 new/old split: reworkings, questing solo turns and a rare all-out rocker. [Nov 2021, p.94]

Inspired by Elena Ferrante's dense domestic dramas, wears its complexity lightly. [Nov 2021, p.94]

Local Valley has no lows, nor any thrilling highs, but it's an even, easy pleasure from start to finish. [Oct 2021, p.91]

Throughout, the Brothers' riotous dustbowl carnival sounds and Ian's pointed deadpan make for a consistently entertaining cocktail. [Oct 2021, p.92]

By embracing the space between, Taylor has created a meditative, magical record. [Oct 2021, p.91]

It's intimate but also voyeuristic. [Oct 2021, p.86]

It's a wilful shuffle through the space-time continuum, where powerful pearls of wisdom about memory, the future and black justice pierce the sonic murk. [Oct 2021, p.90]

It's an uncannily beautiful listening experience. [Oct 2021, p.92]

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

Critically, Dark Matters evokes, rather than merely simulates, the band's hallmark quirk and strangeness, lending integrity to the ongoing endeavour. [Oct 2021, p.97]

A great summer indie pop album. [Oct 2021, p.99]

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

I've Been Trying to Tell You works wonderfully on many levels. Those harsh first impressions give way to something altogether more beautiful. [Oct 2021, p.94]

It's almost too strenuous in its attempts to top its predecessors, 20212's Big Inner and 2015's Fresh Blood, but once inside White's all-enveloping world, there's no space to worry too much. [Oct 2021, p.98]

The other 48 selections feel forced or too like karaoke homework. [Oct 2021, p.92]

An improvement on 2020's lightweight Pt. 1. [Oct 2021, p.99]

While personal and sexual politics were always implicit within Taylor's bovver girl workouts, her words have grown tougher and sharper. [Oct 2021, p.89]

The information exchange attains a near perfect equilibrium between sanctified melody and distress signals. [Oct 2021, p.91]

McLaughlin's inner creative fire is till burning brightly on Liberation Time. [Sep 2021, p.78]

An expansive, summery jazz-funk crossover that lives and dies on its monster grooves. [Aug 2021, p.85]

The Beach Boys vault, though, is full of Dennis tracks, and Feel Flows makes a great showcase for that Wilson's unlikely gifts, and the inconsistent strategies that bedevilled the band. [Sep 2021, p.90]

It's essentially a particularly dark MSP bravely attempting to go a bit ABBA, failing miserably but in the process creating a skewed but alluring new pop persona. ... A hit. [Oct 2021, p.97]

The playing is dappled, unostentatious, the mood often disarmingly pretty. [Jul 2021, p.85]

More moments of delicate beauty than before. [Aug 2021, p.90]

Music that is dizzying beautiful, but never precious. [Oct 2021, p.88]

City Pressure, the military-industrial complex, social injustice, ganja and plague/lockdown frustration are soundtracked by city-sized industrial noise and merciless rhythm. [Oct 2021, p.88]

The Old Fabled River deals only in wistful enchantment, with four, typically bardic, otherworldly Roberts originals augmented by traditional ballads and a brace of Norwegian hymnals, achingly emoted by saxophonist Marthe Lea. [Aug 2021, p.88]

These songs aren't quite the blast of fresh air needed after months of dreaming about new horizons, but as you'd expect from Damon And Naomi, they're a beautifully curated analogue. [Oct 2021, p.96]

Jackson is in magnificent voice throughout. [Oct 2021, p.88]

See-saws between manic joy and depressive darkness but never loses its sense of wit, grace or noise-dipped tunefulness. [Oct 2021, p.96]

The result is a warmly autumnal, subtly adventurous set. [Oct 2021, p.90]

When Robert Smith guests on the strident How Not to Drown it's a perfect retro storm. Yet the opening Asking For A Friend has a very 2021 clatter, while Violent Delights evokes a sugar-free Ellie Goulding. [Oct 2021, p.98]

The only unsatisfactory element of The Ballad of Dood & Juanita is that it's too short. [Oct 2021, p.92]

Wainwright's fifth LP has artistry galore. [Sep 2021, p.78]

In the main, conjure strange, eerie atmospheres filled with ghostly spirits like those inhabiting the recordings of Del Shannon and Joe Meek. [Oct 2021, p.95]

Not quite up to par with the last three indie label releases, but he set the bar high. [Oct 2021, p.93]

Achieved what they wanted: Mariah Carey scaling dramatic peaks on Somewhat loved (There You Go Breakin' My Heart); Babyface recrowned the king of quiet storm on He Don't Know Nothin' Bout It, and Usher, the love doctor, all breathy and hot on Do It Yourself. [Oct 2021, p.95]

Their enthusiasm for the project is palpable and if their joyful noise turns just one listener onto the original, it's job done. [Sep 2021, p.82]

The free-est, fun-est, most psychedelic Villagers record so far. [Sep 2021, p.76]

More cohesive and less Britpop than 2018's Brickbat. More trenchant too. [Aug 2021, p.87]

Highly polished, rootsy but gentle rocking with some big hooks, even if the quality wavers a little over 15 tracks. [Sep 2021, p.88]

Bristling with hooks, this thoroughly enjoyable set deserves to be spilling out of open windows wherever it's summer. [Sep 2021, p.81]

Shine[s] a light on forgotten corners of the influential '70s label's past. [Jun 2021, p.94]

Sinner Get Ready spotlights the itinerant Californian's magnetic vocals by removing harsh textures, reflecting her move to rural Pennsylvania with a majestic palette of choral polyphony, crashing percussion and traditional porch and church sounds. [Sep 2021, p.86]

With its 10 tracks and 24-minute running time, this unexpected sequel--its sleeve nodding playfully to Dr Dre's 2001-might look like a small-scale musical property, but once inside, it's a mansion. [Sep 2021, p.84]

More cohesive, languid and countrified [than Floaters and October Song]. [Sep 2021, p.83]

Delivering a deliciously unsettling and artful listening experience. [Sep 2021, p.83]

While Heart-Shaped Scars might not be the first flowering of such wistful folk mysteries, it still brings in a good harvest. [Sep 2021, p.80]

A lofty ambition [songs to heal some souls], perhaps, but one this resonant and deeply pleasurable album achieves with grace and groove. [Aug 2021, p.78]

There is plenty going on: doomy folk blues; sparse Woody Guthrie-esque folk; slow, sad Sweet Refrain and The Levee On Down. There's also passionate, pissed-off, rousing country rock. [Sep 2021, p.85]

Their unique gift for sounding at once thoroughly unhinged and ferociously in control is intact. [Aug 2021, p.80]

Thirstier comes on like a bold, heady catharsis. [Sep 2021, p.86]

Native Sons adds a local twist as Los Lobos roll back--with new, inventive detail--through their LA roots and influences, binding the Chicano branch of '60s rock and California from the other side of town. [Sep 2021, p.78]

Animal admirably slips standard musical taxonomy to take on a life of it own. [Aug 2021, p.83]

An enthralling step on her musical journey. [Aug 2021, p.83]

This is Sign 'O' The Times territory. ... When Prince wanders from the funk path the results are more mixed. ... Yet there's strength in Welcome 2 America's commitment to the idea of the Classic Prince Album. [Sep 2021, p.93]

A joy to behold. [Sep 2021, p.81]

There are some anthemic rockers--the '70s Stones-esque Until Justice Is Real is good, the strident backing vocals not so much--but most of the album's highlights are the midtempo or slower songs. [Sep 2021, p.84]

Spiral slowly reveals a core mood, triangulated between Talk Talk, Radiohead and Pink Floyd models of taut, blissful, trance-inducing rock, but often beat-driven. [Sep 2021, p.86]

Amid the chaos, some rare calm and solace from Emmylou Harris's favourite rhythm guitarist. [Sep 2021, p.78]

Audaciously, it all coheres. The vision is precise and the execution meticulous. The album's 14 songs are tightly arranged and energetically delivered. [Sep 2021, p.81]

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

It is Crosby's stubbornly enduring voice--the will to live and create in that gift after he came so close to throwing it away--that binds the wonder and mission on For Free. [Aug 2021, p.81]