The end result is a triumph; a late-night drive that starts somewhere in '90s Michigan but arrives home, in a gloriously disorientating future. [Aug 2017, p.90]

It has a head, a tail and a massive great beating heart. [Nov 2017, p.92]

Field Music's most ambitious album yet. ... A consummate success. [Feb 2018, p.88]

Throughout, Joan still sounds as bewitched, bothered and bewildered by love, a timeless sensation that transcends digital intervention. [Mar 2018, p.94]

All told, Dead Magic is Hausswolff's finest work to date; a record of remarkable potency and intent. [Apr 2018, p.87]

An edgy outing vividly redolent of downtown Manhattan--as was--this composed studio transition keeps OC's sawn-off edges intact. [Jul 2018, p.94]

Slightly mannered vocals; odd but good. [Sep 2018, p.96]

In Just Lie Down, grief gives way to wrath and post-hardcore freakery. While Soft Stud and Sam, A Dream have more blissful guitar codas that signify a resolution to her woes. [Nov 2018, p.94]

An intense journey from slow harmonic chants to minimal rave euphoria. [Nov 2018, p.91]

Think Jolie Holland, or P.J. Harvey's To Bring You My Love, and prepare to be entranced. [Jan 2019, p.90]

The result is 12 exquisitely dreamlike, personal songs that also work as Krgovich's coming out album. [Nov 2018, p.89]

Defiance, anger and desire fire his second set, a soul-dancefloor hybrid that soars past debut Brave Confusions' meld of influences. [Apr 2019, p.93]

The results have a classical loveliness--track II, particularly--while retaining an air of experimental unpredictability; both players are unafraid of disrupting the reverie with free playing and fractious tones. [Apr 2019, p.94]

Armon-Jones's fiery soloing is intrinsic to the headnoddable whole. [Oct 2019, p.91]

Indie-folk lifers tackle the Prairie Home Companion canon, also bringing their ethereal close harmonies to Kanye West. [Apr 2020, p.96]

Kushal Gaya's vocal hooks bristle with political fury as polyrhythms jostle with George Crowley and Pete Wareham's brass riffs. [May 2020, p.95]

Galvanising, jazzy embrace of call-and-response tradition. [Aug 2020, p.94]

Love Is The King is determined to hold on tight to the good things while keeping a sharp eye on the mirror. [Dec 2020, p.80]

Gorgeous, enveloping music. [Dec 2020, p.80]

Lyrically she still falling in love, but the slow burn of Consequences reveals more nuance with each sitting. [Aug 2021, p.83]

Though-provoking yet full of fun, DePlume's willingness to dig dep has turned up a genuine treasure. [May 2022, p.88]

Branch's inspired improvisations, bold melodic leaps and bluesy burr of a voice buoy over Nazary's inventive, depth-charged beats. [Jul 2022, p.91]

Her torch-song voice is often exposed by spare arrangements - a solemn piano or glowing embers of electric guitar - but songs also burst into euphoric life, like exorcisms. [Jan 2023, p.91]

The album's abstemious drums help the untethered material breathe, and on point contributions include Lisa Hannigan, and fellow voyager Daniel Lanois, whose sombre instrumental opener Prelude To Song primes us for gravitas-laden songs of loss, warning, transformation and stoicism. [Mar 2023, p.92]

Neale is imaginative, but she's steeped in songwriting craft and she knows her way aound a whopping chorus. That's more than enough. [Jun 2023, p.90]

Baxter's third cracking album in a row. [Jul 2023, p.88]

To call it a mature album would be to take away some of the perennially youthful spirit of Mogwai, but it certainly achieves a crafted, discerning grace. However hellish it may have been, a baptism in The Bad Fire has clearly proved to be a renewing experience. [Feb 2025, p.86]

The 13 tracks gallop along, urging listeners and musicians to stand up for what's right and take the fight to the forces of oppression. [Sep 2025, p.86]

While the concept means Parks' violin takes a backseat, it makes for a dizzying, future-facing hybrid of dancefloor sounds. [Dec 2025, p.85]

It's reassuring that Beck Hansen can still pull an original record as substantive and absorbing as this one out of the hat. [Mar 2014, p.86]

Midway, things meander, after Adrianne Lenker's pellucid vocals twists and turns. [Jul 2017, p.96]

[A] stunning musical response to Lord of the Flies author William Golding's daring novelistic excursion into prehistoric anthropology. [Jul 2013, p.85]

Booker's unique sound is a taste worth acquiring. [Sep 2014, p.91]

The Talkies is a scarifying, perverse noise-rock treat. [Oct 2019, p.85]

Diviner came out of post-band convalescence and a spell of recalibration, yet for all the intense, cocooning introspection in these songs, Thorpe is obviously more than ready to face the world alone. [Jun 2019, p.93]

One of the most inventive, exploratory albums of the year. [Jan 2023, p.90]

Fan The Flames and French African Queen end the CD with real vigour. Confirmed fans will lap it up. [Jun 2016, p.93]

Produced with Dave Fridmann and Joe Chiccarelli, the album benefits from the former's spacey soundscapes and the latter's commercial sensibility. [Sep 2014, p.96]

Never willfully ramshackle or unfocused, Women tread the line between discord and delight with deceptive style. [Sep 2010, p.96]

Ritter has taken his time delivering album number five after stepping back from a period of writer's block. So Runs The World Away suggests every artist should have such problems, Ritter's most freewheeling album flitting between waltzes with Egyptian pharaohs to the tongue-in-cheek murder ballad Folk Bloodbath. [Sep 2010, p.92]

This is potent, frequently explosive stuff. [Sep 2017, p.87]

The Art Of Forgetting swings between joy and darkness with a boldness and coherence that is a marvel. [May 2023, p.84]

Holiday Destination needs to be uncomfortable and it is, a beautifully realised disturbance of any remaining peace. [Sep 2017, p.92]

It feels both strangely timeless and oddly new. [May 2020, p.93]

A left-field jazz date transversing elation and sadness, and electronic weirdness peaking on off-radar standout Gecko Sound. [Aug 2023, p.88]

They conjure contemplative moods (A Cowboy Without Cows; Night Library) without rogue textures, no instrument or showy motif photo-bombing the arrangements. [Jan 2026, p.90]

Its [an eccentric take on the Stones' Wild Horses] unlikely beauty is typical of Taylor's bold approach here. [May 2026, p.85]

Inventive, reactive, but hauntingly untethered, there's no doubt UK Grim comes from a very bad place. [Apr 2023, p.85]

Immersive and entrancing. [Jan 2022, p.90]

There’s little that disappoints here, even after Jack’s parting of ways with Meg to plot a solo course.

Konoyo is subtly emotive, its soundscapes cool and tranquil then swallowed up by blossoms of cryptic drama. [Dec 2018, p.93]

It's on those songs that strike a chord with Elliot personally that he's most convincing. [May 2009, p.103]

The tenth album from the fabulous Sadies is up there with the best. [Mar 2017, p.93]

The resulting sound is high-contrast, with graceful melodic resolutions, slippery pitch-bends and experiments with form. Curios that hit at once, but can also withstand lengthy unravelling. [Mar 2024, p.91]

Live, the band’s urgency and spaciousness transform their fondness for cavernous arena rhythms and antiquated synths from clever re-appropriations into something that teases transcendence. [Dec 2024, p.85]

These are precarious songs, Oberst's voice as fragile as an egg, yet when it comes to songwriting, Bright Eyes remain a safe pair of hands. [Oct 2020, p.84]

Heady, bodily, beautiful stuff. [Jan 2006, p.126]

Civilian [is] coming on like an odd, but most welcome hybrid. [Jun 2011, p.106]

The best solo album of her career. [May 2003, p.90]

Occasionally it feels a little too theatrical--as on Willie O' Winsbury--but its roots are in the right place. [Aug 2017, p.95]

It's a beautifully eclectic one. [Dec 2020, p.97]

The increasingly salty bite of Oberst's lyrics is only sharpened by the homely warmth of Salutations' arrangements. [Apr 2017, p.97]

For anybody already smitten by Bombino or Group Doueh, this is a drop of the hard stuff. [Dec 2013, p.87]

Nonetheless shows the duo pulling themselves up to full songwriting height, not just forging on, but flourishing. [Jun 2024, p.87]

A diverse yet flawless disc. [Sep 2006, p.96]

Much of IM is thrillingly intense, then; a rabbit punch with pop-prog interludes and Devo-like hooks. [Sep 2023, p.88]

Nothing suggests that Parton has lost her touch as a writer. [Aug 2014, p.94]

The results, like a digestible Oneohtrix Point Never, are gloriously sweet natured. [Sep 2016, p.93]

A brave, stand-alone release that lays her talent bare, it's a beautiful unreal entrancement you'll find hard to stop listening to again and again. [Dec 2023, p.91]

Their latest album offers all the anti-matter salve for the irritations of modern culture that admirers expect. [May 2010, p. 92]

It's lovely stuff throughout. [Apr 2015, p.87]

You'll need to attune yourself to the unique musical argot that Lopatin has created on R Plus Seven, but once achieved an album of intrigue and beauty is revealed. [Nov 2013, p.89]

What you may lose in rock'n'roll kicks you gain in poignancy and poetry. [Mar 2013, p.86]

Imperial Wax Solvent is a swift two-finger rejoinder [to middle aged mellowing]. [June 2008, p.112]

A major work. [Jan 2013, p.92]

Not so much the future of hip hop as a giant leap sideways. [Aug 2014, p.86]

When it ends it leaves a weird absence that can only be filled by playing the thing again from the start. [Dec 2014, p.90]

Locally focused yet state-of-the-nation, in their inventiveness and force such songs as Working Poor, Lost In A Crowd and The Worst defy pessimism, good art in bad times. [Aug 2016, p.92]

The backgrounds are rich, warm and authentic sounding, but the real power lies the potent, passionate vocal trinity. [Jul 2017, p.87]

Intimate, timeless music. [Jul 2017, p.92]

Heavy matter, but eminently danceable, too, thanks to some glorious playing and an adherence to the spirit of Kuti. [Oct 2017, p.95]

Musical touches such as Stephen Large's baroque harpsichord solo on Patchouli and the little three0note 'now boarding' motif that opens Departure lounge cement the sens e of an act that know exactly how to proceed. [Nov 2017, p.94]

Slowly Paradise are slow love songs, but slow love songs that, thanks to Chenaux's playing, suggest an impermanence at the heart of all romance, a chaos at life's core. [Jun 2018, p.93]

Within the framework of 10 solid soul arrangements, the benefits of constancy in love brings a hearty restorative to the downtrodden spirit. [May 2019, p.92]

Judicious use of pedal-steel, fiddle, Southern horns and strings brings subtle power, with McKagan just occasionally lending shades of Mott The Hoople to proceedings, and singing with an admirable new confidence and conviction. [Jun 2019, p.90]

One Step Behind shifts the goalposts, compromising a 32-minute title track and the eight-minute Heart And Soul, an elegant, soulful comedown in the mould of Music From Big Pink. [Nov 2019, p.94]

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

His own music finally snaps into focus: gone, the scrappy garage/glam, in favour of sophisticated singer-songwriterly pop constructed around acoustic guitar, strings, extravagantly multi-tracked vocal harmonies and consistent tunes. [Mar 2023, p.86]

The Evidence and Hear The Children Sing are probably lodged in Talya Salsburg and Poppy Oldham’s subconsciouses for life now. Give this beautiful record of uncanny domesticity a few listens, and they may well take up residence in yours, too.

Vital and vibrant. [Jan 2025, p.88]

As with all Necks recordings, it's essentially one long piece of music, a slowly unravelling fabric that continues to delight, surprise and beguile but never repeat. [Nov 2025, p.88]

With production cash lavished on them, the songs lustre anew. [Dec 2025, p.84]

Showcases Prewitt as an original melodic writer and arranger. [Feb 2005, p.99]

Forged from 60 hours of improvisation, the excellent follow-up to 2019’s Laughing Matter is tightly crafted without being too stable, the band throwing their melodic rope bridges over wide dark spaces on JJ’s woozy exotica lullaby or Lifeboat’s ominous electro-folk. [Sep 2024, p.84]

[The album] is suitably haunted and becalmed. [Mar 2013, p.98]

Valerie call this "organic moonshine roots music"--it's the perfect phrase to sum up her glorious sound. [Jul 2013, p.88]

[MC Taylor's] voice is a gorgeous, low-slung burr, his melodies are fireside-warm, his restless imagination follows the lineage of Southern literary giant Eudora Welty and the collective chops, overseen by long-time studio accomplice Scott Hirsch, are impeccable. [Oct 2014, p.92]

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