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]

Limber, spacey music, pitched somewhere between jazz, funk and ambience, in the company of an innovative new class of sessioners. [May 2021, p.87]

The music still mainly tilts around their Coil-Anohni Axis. ... As always with Xiu Xiu, though, it's a lot, two heads just as intense as one. [May 2021, p.85]

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]