There's real beauty here and Silberman marries eventual accessibility with gentle boundary-pushing to create his own, thoughtful world. [May 2021, p.84]

The London singer's stark acoustic covers album works best when furthest removed from the original. [Mar 2021, p.91]

Nelson has not lost any of his breath control and singular phrasing. [May 2021, p.78]

A jarring and gorgeous reminder that our suffering is neither new nor negligible. [May 2021, p.79]

At their most effortlessly eclectic. [May 2021, p.82]

Nourishing batch of beat collages. [May 2021, p.88]

Proof that inventive, envelope-pushing indie rock hasn't disappeared off the map just yet. [Apr 2021, p.83]

A bold work of divine and nourishing textures. [May 2021, p.86]

Owusu is a charismatic anchor throughout this boundary-pushing debut. [Apr 2021, p.85]

Seesawing between pristine songcraft and experimentalism makes for a diverse, satisfying whole. [Apr 2021, p.94]

As the album progresses, a powerful expansion of Del Rey's folkier inclinations. [Apr 2021, p.80]

Topaz conveys a strong undercurrent of social commentary. [Apr 2021, p.82]

Despite the classical milieu, this is very much Metheny music. [Apr 2021, p.87]

While showcasing a further surfeit of talents - Zongo Brigade's K.O.G., Ghanaian singer Pat Thomas, a rap-happy Soweto Kinch - could make Freedom Fables feel like a compilation, a wide streak of jazz connects the dots. [Mar 2021, p.90]

Might be one of the very best, and a neat entry point for new explorers. [Apr 2021, p.85]

It's Lynn's show, and she and the band are on fine form. [Apr 2021, p.81]

Remastered with a disc of rarities and curiously, a screamtastic bootleg-quality 1980 show at Tokyo's Budokan. [Apr 2021, p.97]

The idiosyncrasies of her voice are showcased to full effect in soul showstopper Call Me A Fool, with dramatic rasping and swooping that some might find off-putting, but which undeniably underlines her distinctive character. There's a delicacy too. [Apr 2021, p.80]

Throughout, a recurring Satie-like piano motif floats in and out, soothing the raw emotions. [Apr 2021, p.83]

The Pet Parade is calmer, folkier, and more accommodating to Johnson's pinched nasal tones. [Apr 2021, p.84]

The vocals are spot-on and so is the musicianship. [Apr 2021, p.82]

Adrian Younge's ambitious album splices all-analogue blaxploitation sounds with psychedelia. It's a volatile mix for songs. [Apr 2021, p.83]

Further expands ambient pedal steel's possibilities, adding strings and piano. [Mar 2021, p.91]

Waking The Dreaming Body is both welcoming comfort and a surprising joy. [Apr 2021, p.82]

Each track is a combination of the cosmic and the deliberate. ... What connects these songs is Weaver's unearthly voice. [Apr 2021, p.86]

Strawbs are clearly not intent on coasting. [Apr 2021, p.81]

It seems that self-examination has taken them to bold, new places. [Apr 2021, p.80]

The hair-raising honesty of their younger incarnation might have softened, but their new confidence and control ensure theses songs let a lot of life in. [Apr 2021, p.78]

Indie-pop sung in French and English; Interrailing-inspired The Foreigner is full of Greek, Finnish and Italian. [Apr 2021, p.88]

A many-moods piece for complicated times. [Mar 2021, p.85]

Echo mostly plays safe, but signs of where Sparke can stands alone include Dog Bark Echo's red-desert heat, Everything Everything's jabbered vocal and dissonant piano, and a particularly devastated Bad Dreams. [Apr 2021, p.81]

Invisible Cities feels three dimensional with some animated movement beneath the surface. [Mar 2021, p.89]

In sterling voice throughout. [Apr 2021, p.84]

The album levitates with light and serenity. [Mar 2021, p.88]

This album works best when it gives its ideas and sounds space. [Feb 2021, p.86]

It can be vague on the details, but Baker's songwriting is smart and serious enough to keep Little Oblivions from burning out entirely. [Apr 2021, p.86]

It's Numbers that punches hardest, it's compassionate message about the futility of measuring ourselves against others deftly handled. [Apr 2021, p.86]

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

Confirms her 2019 Rising Star Brit and BBC's Sound Of 2020 awards were no fluke. [Apr 2021, p.83]

These are wonderfully built earworms here, but callow writing sometimes morphs them into mere infections. [Apr 2021, p.82]

Lasting only an economic 33 minutes; on this form, she could pull off a double album. [Apr 2021, p.84]

Recorded remotely, Distractions is febrile and modern but cries out for a through-line. [Mar 2021, p.88]

Wholly drums-free, it takes time to reveal its charms. [Mar 2021, p.85]

Each song is perfectly realised.[Mar 2021, p.90]

Their clearest vocal to date, not from a guest, but from guitarist/mouthpiece Stuart Braithwaite. ... Yet another high water mark in Mogwai's irresistible ride. [Mar 2021, p.83]

Both halves of Legacy + prove the Kuti continuum to be in rude health. [Mar 2021, p.86]

All in all, with its pervading doubts and joyful release, Glowing In The Dark is very much for these times. [Mar 2021, p.86]

Has a first-person directness and grunge-schooled contrasting of melody with clamour. [Feb 2021, p.90]

Tyron unpacks its creator's complex character, flaws bravely to the fore. [Mar 2021, p.88]

The sister have turned that pain and drama into this elegantly nuanced third album. [Mar 2021, p.86]

He's never met a supernatural entity he can't pair with thumping darktronica and stalking rock guitar - weeping Ghost, Vampire's Touch, Skeleton - but it's done with a fabulously cold touch. [Mar 2021, p.89]

The young seven-piece have since progressed at warp-speed, here passing the full-length test with confidence. [Mar 2021, p.90]

Linderman's triumph is more sophisticated than a simple contrast. The Ravishing music is studded with jazz details - the impressionistic gusts of saxophone and flute; Linderman's own clangorous guitar overdubs - that add a neurotic edge to the proceedings. The words, meanwhile, luxuriate in the prettiness of our world. [Mar 2021, p.80]

Collection of angular electro, cavernous soundscapes and delightfully off-kilter rhythms from Depeche Mode's creative hub. [Mar 2021, p.89]

Juliana Giraffe's elastic phrasing on Doctor Says or Wednesday Baby's Carpenters lilt is key to the LA duo's second. [Feb 2021, p.90]

Feels out of reach, as if shrouded in gauze. ... This may coalesce in a live setting. [Mar 2021, p.85]

2015's Tape Hiss, Rats On Rafts were as unrelenting. Now they've added impenetrability to the armoury. [Mar 2021, p.86]

It's a compulsive listen. [Feb 2021, p.85]

Dissonant yet heavenly, Gas Lit is an album that seethes, soothes, liberates and bewitches in equal measures. [Mar 2021, p.83]

Baroque pop at its most exhilarating. [Mar 2021, p.89]

Songs build from hypnotic bass grooves and spindly guitar lines, Lottie Pendlebury's nonchalant vocals intertwined with circular countermelodies that pull you into their undertow. Lyrically deft and witty. [Mar 2021, p.82]

Thunderstorm Warnings doesn't put a foot wrong, delivering the big music with heart instead of bluster. [Mar 2021, p.90]

Medicine At Midnight is strangely impersonal, with little to declare beyond its maker skill at the form. The lyrics, meanwhile, are often undercooked. [Mar 2021, p.82]

Comes with the smart lightness of touch that's the Vampire Weekend birthright. [Mar 2021, p.89]

The Future Bites is a great grown-up pop record - knowing and self-aware, but never too much for its own good. [Feb 2021, p.83]

Yorkston is one of our finest talents, still stretching out. [Feb 2021, p.82]

Home is as challenging as it is comforting. [Mar 2021, p.85]

Murray's voice is a beautiful, dreamy magnet for Hughes's backdrops, which without losing their twang take all sorts of tangents. [Feb 2021, p.85]

Cooler Returns proves Kiwi Jr have the skills to match their smarts. [Feb 2021, p.86]

They were recorded in different session over 16 years, though feel right at home with each other. [Feb 2021, p.85]

There's not a bad song here but, more to the point, Fogerty Sr's voice and guitar sound as potent and commanding as ever. [Jan 2021, p.88]

Welfare Jazz finds them dropping through the gears and settling on a sound that often resembles the frazzled nocturnal grooves magicked up during Josh Homme's Desert Sessions. [Mar 2021, p.90]

Packs ear-worms and dulcet vocal harmonies galore. [Mar 2021, p.86]

A truly fine album. [Mar 2021, p.84]

Defiantly mainstream. Still, it's certainly not weedy, relying on big Nashville arrangements filled with swelling strings and modulated Hammond organ. [Mar 2021, p.82]

This is music for smarter dancefloors. [Mar 2021, p.89]

It mostly works but can be breathless. [Dec 2020, p.82]

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]

While Khruangbin's own cover of Kool & The Gang's Summer Madness is a technical knock-out, the two-punch combination of Maxwell Udoh's inaptly titled Nigerian disco landmark I Like It (Don't Stop) and David Marez's florid Ensename is distinctly below the belt. [Jan 2021, p.100]

A useful and thoroughly entertaining precis of one of the great 21st century rock projects. [Jan 2021, p.101]

Slow, stark tracks like Kick-Around Johnny sound like a spun-out, confessional Lou Reed, and there's epiphany too: I Came To Tell You In Plain English (I'm Leaving You) is casually devastating. [Jan 2021, p.90]

A suite of songs involving a character returning from a near-death experience, it works just as well without the plot. Still, there are twists and turns aplenty. [Jan 2021, p.91]

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]

Drunk Tank Pink is the sound of a band pushing themselves to discover new sonic and emotional terrain. [Feb 2021, p.82]

Music this soulful should need no introduction. [Feb 2021, p.88]

Unique and hugely addictive. [Apr 2020, p.95]

The sprawl of her vision is impressive; the mystic excellence of its execution suggests she should make a habit of such recordings. [Sep 2020, p.88]

A pair of Bartz originals are frenetically reworked, while the veteran's scything sax on new Harlem To Haarlem steals the show. [Jul 2020, p.88]

A playful digital makeover for some vintage noir vibes. [Oct 2020, p.94]

In all, an unexpected and all-encompassing feast. [Feb 2021, p.98]

This never feels thrown-together, which is some achievement. Instead, the album feels like one to spend ample amounts of time with as you travel its far-flung corners as it reaches for the stars. [Feb 2021, p.84]

It's exactly what you'd expect, but in a good way. [Feb 2021, p.83]

Here he sings, using multiple guitar tunings for the complex arrangements, and his voice is variously a warm croon, sometimes darker but mostly pure and tender. [Feb 2021, p.82]

As distinctively fabulous as anything they have released in nearly 40 years. [Jan 2021, p.85]

The LP is a little crammed. [Nov 2020, p.82]

A synth-heavy, sci-fi opus that hits its celestial climax on 10-minute standout Space Oddity. [Dec 2020, p.89]

It's McCraven's gift to integrate radical individuals into his inclusive sound design; exuberant groupthink in action. [Nov 2020, p.84]

Mazurek's rare talent for sculpting and reshaping space remains blissfully intact. [Dec 2020, p.85]