The gigantic lokombe (slit drum) and buzz drums no longer shock in the way they used to, although the synths suggest one route forward, and the guitars and harmonies look to South Africa for inspiration. [Jul 2021, p.88]

VWETO III occasionally struggles to transcend its origins as a collection of essentially unfinished pieces. ... More often, however, her lop-sided rhythms, offbeat electronics and uncanny sense of mood are compelling in their own right. [Jul 2021, p.82]

Clara is neither ostentatiously glitchy, nor overburdened by its conceptual heft. [Jul 2021, p.87]

Tge Waves Pt 1's ebb-and-flow is closer to Phillip Glass's pulsing minimalism than anything calming or restorative. [Jul 2021, p.87]

The music swings again, even if Currie's damning viewpoint hasn't lightened. [Jun 2021, p.87]

The frankness of yore remains intact, but his focus has shifted, and the intimacy that once sometimes made Barlow's solo work a white knuckle ride now amplifies the tranquility of these strums. [Jul 2021, p.81]

Deep into side two You Hear Georgia starts to drag a little as they ditch the choogle and attempt to foray into the cosmic Americana territory of My Morning Jacket. [Jul 2021, p.82]

For all its lofty subject matter, Lost In The Cedar Wood is the raucous sound of modern-day sea shanties. [Jul 2021, p.82]

Cavalcade harbours considerable thrills for those up to its challenges. [Jun 2021, p.83]

The music - a little Lumineers, a little Fleet Foxes - stands up for itself. [Jul 2021, p.88]

For all the grown-up entanglements and era-specific worries, it's championship-winning stuff. [Jul 2021, p.85]

Over time and repeated plays, Showtunes weaves its magic, maintaining its mysterious atmosphere throughout, along with a welcome sense of stillness amid life's ongoing dramas. [Jun 2021, p.81]

Clark and Squarepusher's more radical deconstructions expose deeper enigmas at play in GGP's source material. [Jul 2021, p.90]

What we get more of are melodies that stick. [Jul 2021, p.87]

Rhys excels at holding anxiety and unease up to the light without becoming harsh; Seeking New Gods keeps that balance beautifully. [Jun 2021, p.83]

Make Me Feel Alright is a joyous call and response; Souled Out On You a heartbreaker with deep feeling; Country Child, meanwhile, is pure Hill Country hypnotic boogie. [Jun 2021, p.89]

From the gentle breeze of the Tala Tannam to the howling gale of lead single Chismiten, the little clumps of ambient sound - village chatter, footsteps, maybe a cockerel - hold their ground against every new gust of virtuoso fretwork. [Jul 2021, p.89]

It's packed tight with wayward ideas. [Jul 2021, p.89]

Summoning up the warm, intimate glow of a special day located somewhere in the past or up ahead in our unknown future. [Jul 2021, p.85]

The simultaneous warm/cold currents, recalling Broadcast, are reflected in Ramani's word. [Jul 2021, p.84]

Seventy-five non-stop minutes of high-end squawk and groove. [Jun 2021, p.83]

His 20th album has production that sounds home-made, as if he's singing besides you on the sofa while the bass player, drummer and peep-y keyboard player are playing in the empty attic upstairs. [Jun 2021, p.87]

Overall, The Chills' seventh album is about Phillipps drawing a line between now and what was seen on screen, gathering strength and moving forward. [Jun 2021, p.82]

This act of restoration convinces as a good Tony Joe White album that could have been plucked from anywhere during his career. [Jun 2021, p.80]

A little strange, a little strained, Mercy still rings with its own truth. [Jun 2021, p.88]

Barry also produces with an ear to the sonics of yesteryear. ... But some of the vocal sections aren't as strong. [Jun 2021, p.87]

A melancholic air pervades Mist's untutored playing and soul-searching raps. [Jun 2021, p.90]

It's sonically deeper and more emotionally engaging, from start to finish, than any previous SOK release. [Jun 2021, p.83]

The Ohio duo's mastery of the unmathematical Hill Country style oozes here from every groove. [Jun 2021, p.87]

Lavish enough for fans of Amon Duul II's headshop tribal rituals. [Jun 2021, p.90]

The 12-tracker doesn't feel as "big" as 2020's funky On Sunset, nor as even as the woody True Meanings, but the array of styles means no one will walk away untouched. [Jun 2021, p.88]

It's masterful stuff: a full conceptual realisation, filled with great melodies, deep grooves, colourful characterisations and sonic detail that reveals itself over repeated plays. ... A keeper for the decades to come. [Jun 2021, p.84]

The song titles alone tell the story: The Long Con; Stop Bitching, Do Something; Big Lie; What Are You On Facebook? Plus 24 (24!) more tracks that take a swipe at a modern world controlled by conspiratorial forces. ... Even the music is largely route-one. [Jun 2021, p.87]

He's less scattergun and easier to pin down. More crucially, Graham's songwriting has blossomed. [Jun 2021, p.85]

NOW is a pretty intense 31 minutes. But while Locks and co's intent is radical, it's never forbidding. Instead, a punchy accessibility informs even their wildest excursions. [Jun 2021, p.88]

The sentiments charm and Cuomo's nose for a tune endures, but the drive-time metal supremacy of Def Leppard and Mutt Lange is never under serious threat. [Jun 2021, p.84]

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]

Strip off the rock'n'roll trappings of Spiritualized circa Pure Phase, or tune in to Terry Riley at his most horizontal, and you are close to the immersive pleasure here. [Jun 2021, p.85]

Producer Dan Carey brings cohesion to the multiplicity. ... An absolute tonic.[Jun 2021, p.86]

These tracks feel more like intimate conversations, with Allen's boundless curiosity shining through. [Jun 2021, p.82]

Sixty Summers is a record of imagination and scope. [May 2021, p.87]

Funky as early-80s Judas Priest, the title track and Trouble's Coming will become era classics in lat-out over-amplified party music. [May 2021, p.82]

Matt Sweeney's commitment to supply Bonnie "Prince" Billy with "guitar parts that hold his voice like a chalice holds wine" is fully delivered upon here. [May 2021, p.76]

Rare, Forever's prevailing mood is sensuous and luxurious. [May 2021, p.88]

When Bills, Aches & Blues works -and it nearly always does - it's more complex, though, pulling together the threads of an enduring artistic legacy to intriguing effect. [Jun 2021, p.85]

Rose's songwriting revels in its directness. [Jun 2021, p.90]

Suggesting the sextet have now found their niche. [Jun 2021, p.89]

There's precious little subtlety, but plenty of brutish hooks. [Jun 2021, p.88]

Another excellent installment. [Jun 2021, p.87]

At odds with the folk-pop quirk of her 2012 debut Yours Truly, Cellophane Nose and the angular, raw and rocky approach of albums two and three. [Jun 2021, p.85]

This remains far from forbidding music, with an orchestrated heft that's as close to Ennio Morricone as it is Glenn Branca. [Jun 2021, p.83]

A searching, typically heart-warming record about middle-aged men somewhat adrift, yet ultimately anchored to people and place, Endless Arcade testifies to the Fannies' endurance. [Jun 2021, p.82]

This is music that seems to inhale and exhale around Faithfull, making space for wonder to unfurl without crassly signposting it. [May 2021, p.86]

Timeless. [Jun 2021, p.89]

It's the melodic strength of its 15 "proper" songs that's the real mindblower. [May 2021, p.81]

Fire It Up is a slow burner. [May 2021, p.80]

May is less successful on the rockers - not so much through lack of "oomph" or authenticity, but because the songs aren't great. ... Way more subtle, convincing, and apparently deeply felt are the tumbling country soul of Different Kinds Of Love and the lovely Dusty In Memphis vibes of Diamonds. [May 2021, p.80]

The Who Sell Out still remains fresh 53 years after its original release, and is thus worthy of this lavish and careful archive treatment. [Jun 2021, p.97]

Samurai is a cheesy teen ballad similar to those written by David lynch and Angelo Badlamenti, where Vega gives us bulletins on the Magi and unsolved murders. It's typically unsettling and helps give the album some welcome structure. [May 2021, p.87]

With its portentous pulse and skirls of feedback BN9Drone, sounds like nothing less than a call to mobilise. [May 2021, p.87]

This lively Welshman isn't rolling over just yet. [May 2021, p.78]

Having grown in style and confidence with each album and displayed a flair for charting life's ever-changing weather patterns, here they do so with real, deeply-lived insight and dazzling pop expertise. [May 2021, p.82]

Vibes, instrumental and psychic, are crucial to Angeles' reverberant keys or redemptive LP coda, Pigs. [Apr 2021, p.88]

An unaffected and experimental, homely yet transcendent set. [May 2021, p.86]

The pair's musical chemistry is a potent one. [May 2021, p.78]

Hours of fun at your lockdown kitchen disco. [May 2021, p.97]

He and his bandmates have grasped the flaming torch of '70s hard-rock pomp - but how to make it their own? [May 2021, p.82]

This is affectingly intimate. [May 2021, p.83]

Eccentric yet accessible avant-electronica. [May 2021, p.88]

They do an excellent if eccentric job of evoking the pixelated ineffability of, well, existence itself. [Apr 2021, p.86]

The strengths of Loved Ones remain. ... But [Under The Skin's] relentless musical invention takes it beyond self-indulgence. [May 2021, p.86]

It's colourful and imaginative while exerting a familiar pull. [May 2021, p.84]

The opener, Demba Kunda, suggests a straight-forward instrumental set; but French singer Camille's hymn around the sound of the word "kora" is transcendent; Piers Faccini's vocals take you one step higher; and there's a slightly hoarse-sounding Salif Keita thrown in as a bonus. [May 2021, p.85]

Something for everyone on an album that should be a huge crossover hit. [Apr 2021, p.84]

Retains an elegant spirituality. [Mar 2021, p.89]

A collection of tunes with groove at its synthetic heart. [Apr 2021, p.83]

This worthy and humane sequel lacks only the original's pioneering force. [May 2021, p.85]

Under~Between moves with a whisper from avant-garde chamber works to beguiling voice exercises and delicate percussion pieces, as if Hunt were creating ambient chamber scores for utopian landscapes, where birds chatter like computers, and passing cars sound like small sad jazz trios. [Apr 2021, p.85]

In Another World cleaves to the telegraphed, lighter-aloft choruses that make Cleveland and other places rock, a palpable Beatles influence pervading Quit Waking Me Up and So It Goes. [May 2021, p.81]

It flits between rigorous, tricksy composition and kinetic improv. [May 2021, p.78]

The warmth of the recording and the excellence of the singer and the songs, this is up there with Massey Hall - just five songs shorter. [May 2021, p.96]

Smith is occasionally stodgy, but when he's good, he cuts to the heart. [Apr 2021, p.84]

An edifying spin baited for hardcore fans with an unreleased acoustic Strummer strum through Junco Partner and two live Mescaleros Clash covers. [May 2021, p.95]

Comic, sinister, suddenly moving, it feels like real-time psychological excavation, digging for truth. [May 2021, p.84]

[Her] supple vocal sounds are partly obscured here by loops and electronics or resonant layers of Eno'd guitars. [May 2021, p.88]

Hval's folkish vocals and poetic framing deliciously counterpoint a fusillade of muscular beats and Volden's jabbing guitar. [May 2021, p.87]

Song Of Co-Aklan definitively affirms Coughlan's place amid Ireland's poetic pantheon. [Apr 2021, p.80]

Foster[s] a reflective, bonfire-on-the-beach spirit. [May 2021, p.88]

It's another sonically sumptuous milestone for the Northern Irish composer/producer. [May 2021, p.87]

The standout is a take on Nothing Compares 2 U, Prince's adroit vocal melody a showcase for Cornell's affectionate, bluesier reading. Elsewhere, Harry Nilsson's Jump Into The Fire is toughened-up and much abridged. [Apr 2021, p.80]

These are big themes that provoke corresponding emotions. [May 2021, p.87]

He delivers another strange and beautiful record, retooling is soporific folk sound with synths and experimental soundscapes. [Apr 2021, p.81]

The 10 tracks rise and fall through burbling electronics and explorative jazz. [Apr 2021, p.88]

Haunted and intimate, Balfe's deep brogue ultimately salvages hope from the wreckage. [May 2021, p.83]

Occasionally, the lyrics veer into fuzzy abstraction, but the music never does. [May 2021, p.82]

By opening up melodically as well as rhythmically, Garbus and Brenner better reveal the big heart at the centre of Tune-Yards. [May 2021, p.87]

The first half rifles through their familiar bag of production tricks. .. The weirder and more diverse second side is where stuff gets interesting. [May 2021, p.81]

It's a subtly sophisticated piece, but it also creates space for Sanders to showcase his tender, measured, lyrical phrasing, abstracted scatting and, 34 minutes into this 46-minute marvel a brief sputtering blast of free saxophone energy that proves, at 80, his fire remains potent. [May 2021, p.87]