Yet even at its most downbeat and damaged, this music gleams with a steely determination to be heard. [May 2020, p.87]

The everything-but-the-kitchen-sink sonics are matched by an unrelenting emotional honesty. [Jul 2020, p.85]

A future late-night classic. [Jul 2020, p.80]

While a palpable sense of mournfulness lingers throughout Mia Gargaret, there's a degree of catharsis attached to it too. [Aug 2020, p.89]

Joyful and full of subtle vigour, it's the perfect headphone-heard walking companion when you don't want lyrics crowding your thoughts. [Jul 2020, p.85]

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

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

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]

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]

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]

All coalesces, near-inexplicably, as yet another excellent album. [Aug 2021, p.80]

Not quite up to par with the last three indie label releases, but he set the bar high. [Oct 2021, p.93]

This is a record of delicately sculped nuages, all wispily sung by guitarist/keyboard-player Wata. [Mar 2022, p.80]

Her songs sound simultaneously safe and familiar, yet strange and unknowable. [Feb 2022, p.89]

The sisters soar even higher here. [Feb 2022, p.91]

It just sounds so good. Warm and natural. And Earle's voice has rarely sounded better. [Aug 2022, p.91]

Its largely brooding, contemplative mood raising ghosts and evoking bruised skies. [Mar 2023, p.92]

It's a seduction in halves. [May 2023, p.93]

An excursion into invention, forsaking preparation for nuggets of inspiration and a degree of rootless wander. [May 2023, p.89]

Overall, one mighty, magnificent trip. [Nov 2023, p.84]

Fabulously serious work. [May 2024, p.91]

The huge exhilaration of Hawk's previous two albums has largely been replaced by more troubled moods - and more stylistic variety - but bravura lyrics remain. [Sep 2024, p.86]

There are still instances of thrilling freneticism; a Scandinavian Deerhoof. But this LP is often more cleanly directional – less angular and full of unexpected calm, as with the sweet vocal/ guitar chimes on Bell. [Sep 2024, p.89]

Shows he hasn’t lost the knack for marrying accessible melodies with vivid storytelling, wry humour and subversive lyrics. [Nov 2024, p.85]

Five solo LPs in, The Mighty Several vouches for his continued worth, fostering unity and empathy in divided times. [Nov 2024, p.88]

There’s some very fine rock songs (Sally Was A Cop revisits the “Oh-oh-oh” singalong on Willie Mays Is Up At Bat from Temple Beautiful) and excellent ballads, from Americana closer It’s A Good Day To Be Alive to truly beautiful Red Sky Night. [Nov 2024, p.89]

Ominous drones, clanking banjos, filthy weather: a winning combo. [Feb 2025, p.87]

Modern Genius is a warm breeze after the hit-and-miss Afrofuturist sax/drum experiments of 2022's Ibeji. [Feb 2025, p.89]

Moves in a similarly contemplative and conversational vein to 2020's To Cy & Lee: Instrumentals Vol. 1, gently but assiduously pushing the boundaries. [Apr 2025, p.86]

A lovely, evocative album on which Stratton's measured approach barely masks underlying tensions. [Apr 2025, p.80]

A gloriously measured and understated take on blues standards. [Mar 2025, p.84]

A walk on the wild side, it turns out, that's unleashed a freewheeling new strength. [May 2025, p.92]

Akpro's narcotic melodies grip tight as dubby bass lines (played by Akpro) probe alongside loping beats, flickering embers of guitar, saxophone haze and the singer's sultry delivery. [Jul 2025, p.80]

Luster is less dreamy than blurry, as if her subconscious is piloting this deep-trawling ambient indie with breathy vocals submerged in waves of drone and fuzz. [Jul 2025, p.86]

This Material Moment is a reassuringly complicated fusion of Bjork and Richard Dawson with intense mid-'70s Virgin records vibes. [Aug 2025, p.80]

A likeable collection of songs about family and companionship. .... The happy point where Belle And Sebastian meets Stephen Sondheim. [Nov 2025, p.88]

Buchanan's Voice is the star, but his songs rarely let him down. [Mar 2026, p.86]

Their third LP proper was still their best, most filler-free creation. .... Reminds us how much The Lovin' Spoonful mattered, and why Neil Young fantasied about joining them. [Jun 2026, p.94]

WIXIW's pop is still complex and affecting and of beguiling substance. [Aug 2012, p.91]

Yawn is a sublime show of songwriting strength. [Dec 2018, p.86]

Not a bad track here, but extra points to The Youngbloods' Get Together and excellent Woody Guthrie's Deportee. [Aug 2018, p.93]

It's a beautiful soundscape to get thoroughly lost in. [Apr 2025, p.87]

Sensuous and calm, yet cut through with deep strumming guitar and a rolling lilt, it has a folk rock drift that's less ribald, less edgy than the theatrical spark of 2021's A Common Turn and in|FLUX (2023). [Mar 2025, p.90]

At times the effect is sinister, at others soothing and hypnotic, like fog-borne siren songs, or the ghosts of liturgical choirs caught high in the cathedral vault. [Oct 2020, p.91]

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

These self-penned songs feel so timelessly authentic they might have been dredged from the deep well of traditional British Isles song from which Roberts regularly sips. [Feb 2015, p.95]

A timely reminder of how speculative and exciting American alternative rock was before it discovered Duran Duran and money. [Nov 2005, p.100]

While there are hints at the bleak vibrations that defined his previous solo work, the John Squire-ish groove of The End and beatific title track stand out as stunning comebacks from this folk euphoria original. [Feb 2019, p.90]

-io doesn't try to ingratiate or console. Instead, Fohr ambitiously attempts to strip back protective coatings and cocoons, to show what happens when distractions peel away and the inevitable pushes through. [Nov 2021, p.90]

With electronic ace Ben frost's eerily beautiful final chapter is the perfect soundtrack for a dinner party to which only Ed Gein, Jack London and Catherine The Great are invited. [May 2013, p.94]

Unlike some other nu-folkies, this feels organic and unforced; one reason why her albums, and this in particular, have such resonance. [Jan 2010, p.92]

Here Kirby lets the sad beauty of his source - Schubert's Winterreise - bleed through, as if summoning up the solitary ghosts of the German composer's most desolate work. [Apr 2012, p.91]

[Miles Whittaker and Andy Stott] summon Northern Industrial music's ancient frequencies to produce a dense hypogeal noise. [Jul 2014, p.96]

Bonfires is an honourable epitaph. [Feb 2010, p. 100]

A loose lyrical thread (mental instability), an unrestrained creativity and an enviable sense of musical freedom are the only things holding it together. [Jun 2006, p.104]

The focused, meander-free Ocean To Ocean is big on uplift, balm and musical adventure. [Dec 2021, p.84]

A record that sounds like absolutely no one else on the planet. [May 2007, p.102]

A messy, eccentric triumph. [Aug 2006, p.98]

The best thing he's done since [Hard Road to Travel]. [Jul 2012, p.88]

On the surface, Beware The Fetish is like My Bloody Valentine or Metal Machine Music, as unbowed or compromised by trying to give the people what they want. Yet at its heart is a burning desire to make fantastic pop music. [Aug 2014, p.88]

Elaborate, sometimes sneakily poignant tunes. [Aug 2018, p.93]

It's hard not to wonder whether Aksnes has been crowded-out on her own album [Mar 2022, p.83]

All in all, it's lovely, uplifting stuff. [Aug 2022, p.87]

A meticulous and bold piece of sound art, but one which is rooted in a plaintive local, human response to global catastrophe. [Mar 2023, p.91]

For a collection with an eye on the setting sun and the slow decline, it's a fine late flowering. [May 2015, p.91]

Heavier, weirder and bleaker than anything they've released, Distance Inbetween is weighty but never hard work. [Apr 2016, p.84]

Self-producing for the first time, Jurado's colour palette retains occasional ornamentation, including orchestration, Wurlitzers and a choir, but his immaculate velvet baritone is more often set in the starker relief of voice/guitar basics. [Jul 2018, p.93]

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

It moves sedately and seductively, a brooding mass of reverb, drone and throb, all counter-pointed by Trappes' gossamer-light vocals. [Jul 2021, p.87]

The danger with this kind of project is sounding like a '70s revue, but Rouse avoids that with his intimate vocal style and quirky songwriting. [Sep 2003, p.104]

A dozen simple, beautiful dirges. [May 2003, p.108]

Here, backed only by guitar or piano, she inhabits other singers' material (including Smog's "Red Apples") with a fierce conviction that's often startling.

This second is more sophisticated [than 2018 debut Sistahs]; distorted guitars still feedback and synths jar, but there is also mellotron, violin and Omnichord bringing subtlety and depth. [Dec 2022, p.91]

There's a fine story-telling country song (No One Knows Us); a dramatic rocker (Church & State) - and songs whose piano and multiple harmonies feel like church (You Without Me; Joni). But it never sounds less than gorgeous. [Dec 2025, p.78]

This is unashamedly traditional: committed, personal and really quite perfect. [May 2014, p.91]

His gentle mantric vocals and concise, evocative lyrics drift through layers of treated instrumentation and ambient electronica. [Apr 2008, p.112]

The sixth Dublin-based Mexican metalheads is an awesome thing in which every trick in the jard-rock manual is applied to the duo's Latin rhythms and acoustic wizardry. [Oct 2009, p.107]

Live drums and guitars give it a feeling of anarchic playfulness. [Aug 2005, p.101]

A wonderful album. [Jan 2016, p.93]

The resulting work is an entrancing inner space voyage through shapeshifter drones and radiant electronic nebulae. [Feb 2017, p.96]

It's hard world for little things, pigeon or human: these songs fight to ease the way. [Jul 2023, p.88]

Strip away the noise and you'll realize that the charm of Yuck is rooted in fundamentals of great songwriting. [March 2011, p. 108]

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

It's themes may be familiar, but its fine, dazzlingly outlandish music is fresh and utterly fearless. [Nov 2009, p.88]

Damaged souls taking bitter stock of what they've become. It's all here in this raw, reflective clutch, with the taste of midlife crisis on its tongue. [Apr 2016, p.92]

These tracks chose to morph and mutate rather than petrify in any sense. [Jul 2016, p.92]

Aided by Gabrielle Drake's spoken word and arrangements that vary between bare, the lyrical and the dreamy, it makes for a most moving collection. [Jul 2017, p.92]

Bristling with hooks, this thoroughly enjoyable set deserves to be spilling out of open windows wherever it's summer. [Sep 2021, p.81]

Council Skies is very much a creative success. It's the sound of Noel Gallagher pushing onwards, while once again playing to his strengths. [Jul 2023, p.85]

Evoking the ramshackle psychedelia of Gorky's Zygotic Mynci, Cryk nonetheless shows Le Bon following her own path. [May 2012, p.88]

Spread over a whole CD, there is some worryingly featureless stuff. [Apr 2004, p.102]

His supersonic flow frequently dazzles, yet he remains intelligible and intelligent throughout. [Mar 2006, p.106]

An unadorned diamond in the rough, and his best record. [Mar 2014, p.94]

Ghost Culture;s pungent, treacly melodies and fidgety, complex syncopation are a robust blend. [Mar 2015, p.97]

Heart Song dips deeper into drama, with additional electric guitar and heavier drums adding chiaroscuro to her patented slowburn. [Dec 2016, p.89]

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

This third outing developed a gnarly carpe diem edge. [Mar 2017, p.94]

These 11 songs never let the beats-per-minute lag, and this--coupled with the easy abundance of melody with which our host continues to leaven his left-field power pop--makes for some deliciously easy listening. [Oct 2017, p.91]