Hey Rose is a bright, infectious opener, but elsewhere Little offers darker and more reflective material. [Mar 2020, p.92]

The LP does feel monotonous after a while, the tunnel vision metaphor ultimately extending to the listener's experience. Keep the great frames, Agnes, but next time, try the varifocals. [Mar 2020, p.88]

Spinning Coin have spun new dreams from old. [Mar 2020, p.94]

This is Smoke Fairies' strongest, most urgent album to date. [Apr 2020, p.93]

If Man Alive! treads a post-Ooz water, it's deep enough not to matter. [Apr 2020, p.95]

A raw, often unnerving experience, but it delivers compelling and uplifting catharsis. [Apr 2020, p.94]

Ranaldo and Refree are content to leave holes throughout, letting sounds do the most interesting work, nestling or scraping together. [Apr 2020, p.94]

Fans of self-possessed art-pop are directed here. [Apr 2020, p.91]

Solo he's more ruminative. [Apr 2020, p.91]

Surrender Your Poppy Field's focus delivers GBV's strongest set in years. [Apr 2020, p.88]

Always Tomorrow sounds like a last laugh - elegantly modulated, slightly hollow. [Apr 2020, p.88]

[Singer Hazel Wilde's] words are clear, emphatic and beautifully sung, like a post-rock seer gazing over the landscape. Her bandmates also play their socks off. [Mar 2020, p.91]

While the key of Random Desire is mostly subterranean, when the serpentine build of The Tide breaks, the impact is undeniably soulful and powerful. [Mar 2020, p.88]

Inevitably there's a compilation feel, but Marshall's music brings coherence as it eases goth into the 21st century. [Mar 2020, p.92]

Lakeman is in his element. ... McGann's narration is disappointingly flat and some of the musical settings - like the shanty Sailing Time - are underplayed; but the songs are emotive. [Mar 2020, p.88]

They're five albums in and they keep getting better and better. [Mar 2020, p.91]

She's a great storyteller and her guitar has plenty of country twang. But the sound is of her own making - defined by her huge one-of-a-kind voice. [Mar 2020, p.94]

Hulking beats and a cloudy, black electronic roar set the tone, but powerful sound design is the key. [Feb 2020, p.91]

Ash's cover of Teenage Kicks itself is on the limited-edition 3-CD version, alongside the likes of a cover of Buzzcocks' Everybody's Happy Nowadays, making this the best buy. [Mar 2020, p.101]

The strangely beautiful bounty of Mogadisco reveals more telling detail with each listen. [Feb 2020, p.103]

Masterful vocal mash-ups with London songstress Poppy Ajudha, South African electronic upsetter Nonku Phiri and a wonderfully gravelly Obongjayar help propel this testament to Boyd's illimitable outlook far into the stratosphere. [Mar 2020, p.91]

Its emotional impact is sublime. [Apr 2020, p.96]

The Slow Rush proves the rewards of taking time; Kevin Parker is an artist worthy of yours. [Mar 2020, p.90]

The music nods obviously in the direction of Fela Kuti, Sun Ra, and Bruce Lee. [Mar 2020, p.93]

It's where Elbow and Springsteen intersect. [Mar 2020, p.96]

Hushed, understated psychedelia and Laurel Canyon-influenced LP. [Mar 2020, p.95]

Familiar bittersweet flavours are sensitively tweaked - Looking For You's orchestral surges; Live Learn And Forget's flickering piano - Nada Surf's cathartic heartbursts remain in perfect harmony. [Mar 2020, p.96]

There are sublime moments - International Women Of Leisure, for instance, and Do You Feel, a homage to first ladies of disco songwriting such as Evelyn King and Gwen Guthrie - but other tracks, though taut and tight, become repetitive. [Mar 2020, p.92]

Ford still has a country rasp to her voice, but doesn't over-sing, and her method of expressing emotion is deft rather than melodramatic. she can build up power, too. [Mar 2020, p.87]

Packs intelligence, colour and melody. [Mar 2020, p.93]

It has a home-made, handcrafted feel and an almost impossible intimacy. [Feb 2020, p.91]

The resulting fusion suggests nothing less than an Eastern Astral Weeks. [Feb 2020, p.94]

Her debut LP eschews 4/4 rhythms to create a loose-limbed, free-ranging treat. [Feb 2020, p.91]

His macabre tendency has evolved further into a kind of disaster romanticism on his 21st album. [Mar 2020, p.89]

A quintessential "pocket trip" record, then, sculpted and sequenced to perfection. [Jan 2020, p.87]

As sad ballad follows sad ballads towards the close, Old Wow is not as well-paces. Nonetheless it's full of resonant music. [Feb 2020, p.94]

Storm Damage's jazz-trio-do-singer-songwriter-ish arrangements are meticulous in their musicality, but the "personal anguish and political anger" which fired this album make for an intense, if rewarding listen. [Mar 2020, p.92]

Likewise explores empathy's limits and dialogue's importance, Quinlan's densely-packed lyric sheet give anything hackneyed a wide berth. [Feb 2020, p.92]

Her expressive lyrics exude equal-parts watchful intelligence and first-person vulnerability. [Mar 2020, p.96]

A deluxe synth odyssey. [Feb 2020, p.96]

Although his philosophical ponderings may not be that profound, his seize-the-day positivism and innate command of orchestral tension more than compensate. [Feb 2020, p.89]

The album is diverse: lovers rock meets gospel hymnals and Parisian waltz-dirges. [Feb 2020, p.94]

Moby Dick's cast-of-thousands approach actually makes it feel more like a smart, funny musical without a stage. [Mar 2020, p.95]

Studs Nuggets ruckus with broody grooves. [Mar 2020, p.96]

A US singer-songwriter-guitarist who values both tranquil folk purity, rooted in her crystal-clear voice, and '70s classic-rock range, in the same smouldering fashion as Red House Painters and Jeff Buckley. [Mar 2020, p.95]

Doesn't quite hit home. ... Letting loose more might have benefited the flow. [Mar 2020, p.95]

As restless and fidgety as ever. [Feb 2020, p.91]

When it rocks, it rocks hard, and when it slows down--which it does several times--it's grimmer and more emotional. [Feb 2020, p.84]

The good news is that Have We Met shares melodic strengths with his previous high-water marks. [Mar 2020, p.88]

This rolling membership opens the palette considerably. ... The songs that leave the biggest impression, however, are the raucous yet soulful bangers. [Mar 2020, p.89]

More recognisably Air-like despite half its tracks being merely serviceable collaborations. [Feb 2020, p.89]

[Wolf Parade] stand against the day, insisting, "We can begin again." Doing it less with grand declarations than moments of grace. [Mar 2020, p.89]

Not Pet Shop Boys in highest definition, Hotspot still provides a vivid panorama of their world. [Mar 2020, p.86]

Shauf is as musically jaunty as Josh Rouse. [Mar 2020, p.92]

Some career-catchiest tunes and a lively self-production make Sing an absolute triumph in repositioning. [Mar 2020, p.91]

These great songs live on through reinvention; Bonny Light Horseman have done them proud. [Feb 2020, p.87]

Lurid yet skillfully inconclusive music for these precarious times. [Feb 2020, p.88]

Been Around has heart, soul, a voice and tunes to die for, an early highlight of 2020. [Feb 2020, p.90]

Full of warmth, humour and depth. [Feb 2020, p.86]

Forsyth's emotional power is entirely here and now. [Feb 2020, p.88]

These are songs that chime delicately within uncertain world, in the best possible way, neither here nor there. [Feb 2020, p.90]

Dream On is packed with heartbreak, yet has a deft pop instinct too, courtesy of producer Patrik Berger. [Feb 2020, p.94]

Rekindle the guileless spirit of mid-'90s alt rock in The Alarmist's twilit wistfulness; or Moment's surge of power-chord melancholy. [Feb 2020, p.96]

Instead of meeting fire with ire, there's an attempt to provide calm, clarity, a space to contemplate what really matters. [Feb 2020, p.93]

If the arrangements and performances are as good as retro-rock gets--with veteran drummer Gene Chrisman and keyboard player Bobby Wood among Auerbach's American Sound Studio band they would hardly be otherwise--the lyrics seldom boast a single sentiment or turn of phrase which isn't threadbare. Otherwise, never a dull moment. [Feb 2020, p.92]

Their fusion of Franklin James Fisher's gospel howl and post-industrial beats has grown into something searing and infernal. [Feb 2020, p.90]

It takes its time luring listeners in. [Feb 2020, p.91]

Like Hope Sandoval, Savior's smoky timbre is cucumber-cool rather than over-emotive. [Feb 2020, p.86]

The Only Ones reassures concerned fans that all is very well in Camp Milk Carton. [Jan 2020, p.90]

A frontier bliss-out. [Dec 2019, p.96]

Fogerty remains a force of nature who matches Mick Jagger and Paul McCartney in his commitment to energising nostalgia, his shows less living jukebox than soul-stirring communion. [Feb 2020, p.86]

These enigmatic narratives work well--the themes can be unearthed at one's leisure, immersed in music that's both poignant and delightful. [Feb 2020, p.88]

In the album's second half, Georgia aims beyond euphoria and thrills with Mellow and Ray Gun's hip-hop shade, Honey Dripping Sky's aching power ballad and Ultimate Sailor's Tangerine Dream-style banks of ambient synths. [Feb 2020, p.92]

While relatively straitlaced on hooky earworms Good Mood and Hexagons, it vanishes into a netherworld of hypnotic minimalism amid Tol Circle's warped Mantovani exotica and the title-track's spaced-out disco frug. [Jan 2020, p.91]

The low-fidelity recordings add a refreshingly unpretentious, non-commercial realism. [Dec 2019, p.102]

Lavishness their deep influences merits. ... Endless Indian summer. [Feb 2020, p.107]

It's Holmes who provides the spark throughout Cypress Grove. [Feb 2020, p.94]

A delectably warm sonic pool that invites frequent plunges. [Feb 2020, p.91]

A rare beacon of quality amid the shoddy posthumous rap parade. [Feb 2020, p.91]

The 2009 live comp shows how testing their sets can be, with long glitchy interludes between colourbursts of song. [Feb 2020, p.96]

U-Bahn's debut satisfies as a hugely enjoyable listen. [Jan 2020, p.87]

Edgy, operatic, driving and frenetic. .. Restful listening, this is not. [Feb 2020, p.89]

Football Money is breezy and concise--10 songs, 28 minutes--but generously ladled with charm. [Feb 2020, p.86]

Free Nationals' blissed-out, woozy slow-jams make for a low-key triumph. [Feb 2020, p.90]

Save a few saggy, meh0ish collaborations mining genres, this sparky yet spiritual blend of bum-rushing hard bangers and deep soul dives further underscores his three-dimensional star quality. [Feb 2020, p.86]

On a par with McCraven's similarly sprawling and revolutionary Universal Beings--and that's no mean feat. [Jan 2020, p.89]

The big sell is a new mix of A Momentary Lapse. [Jan 2019, p.103]

A step up from last year's choogling Livin' The Die: freakier and funnier. [Dec 2019, p.88]

there are shivers galore on this box. [Jan 2020, p.96]

As in life, variety spices this highly entertaining tribute compilation. One for the stocking and beyond. [Jan 2020, p.86

Portrait gives us what the composer feels are the definitive versions of these tracks. It's also an excellent introduction to this most singular of musicians. [Jan 2020, p.88]

A deep, thrilling listen. [Jan 2020, p.88]

Eight long-deleted vinyls 45s and EPs bring back prized gems by The Congos, Linval Thompson and Freddy McKay, the 24-page large-format booklet putting everything into perspective. [Jan 2020, p.104]

A challenging but far from inaccessible work. [Jan 2020, p.91]

Reggae/dub comes no more vital, nor far-sighted, in 2019. [Jan 2020, p.85]

The herbally-enhanced sound he creates is blissfully minimal and knowingly sultry, Galcher Lustwerk's enervated baritone amplifying the somnolent mood. [Jan 2020, p.91]

It takes several listens to mentally sync wit its wonky, lurching rhythms. [Jan 2020, p.91]