Quietly thrilling pop noir. [May 2015, p.100]

Phil's voice is fierce, Dave is warm and the band masterly. [Oct 2015, p.93]

Richly soulful, heartsore second LP. [Dec 2017, p.96]

Wraith finds those heterogeneous elements [post-punk, industrial Krautrock and Angelo Badalamenti-like soundtrack atmosphere] fusing even more satisfyingly than [2015's Highly Deadly Black Tarantula]. [Mar 2019, p.97]

Since 2010's Old Punch Card, he's added opulent modular synthesis to his armoury, a pursuit that reaches an accessible apotheosis here. [Aug 2020, p.89]

Assembling musicians from the electronica, folk and jazz spheres to frame her disquisitions, she has fashioned a disquieting, gripping artefact. [Aug 2024, p.84]

Well yes, there's that ear-splitting explosion of aural nihilist expressionism, but still it's thrilling and has lost little of the initial impact. [Dec 2008, p.120]

Through it all, Veirs' voice remains intimate but deadpan -- a la Suzanne Vega. [Sep 2005, p.96]

The result is 31 minutes of constantly surprising music, more absorbing and less conventional than anything on their self-titled 2005 debut. [Feb 2007, p.102]

McPherson puts authenticity over self-expression with style. [Apr 2015, p.96]

Peaceful Place slips in a bit of Afrobeat and That’s What I Love echoes Channel Orange-era Frank Ocean, and throughout Bridges’ vocal talents continue to shine. [Dec 2024 p.84]

Earthy, reassuringly calloused country and bluegrass is its currency. [Dec 2007, p.110]

Wonky beats and shimmering twisted tech melodies. [Nov. 2010, p. 109]

The folk comes juxtaposed with industrial creaks and eastern drones, the virtuosity tempered with scrabbling wildness. [Sep 2018, p.96]

Fans of Badu, Solange and Janelle must investigate. [Jan 2019, p.85]

The gently ticking, lightly compressed acoustic instrument arpeggios will be familiar to fans of both songwriters, but it's the pair's half-whispered vocals blend that enchants. [Nov 2021, p.88]

Where the previous LP put them on a higher plane and widened their audience, this broadens the palette and consolidates their status. [Sept. 2011, p. 92]

A fun day out only slightly marred by clinical execution that lacks the emotional tug that lovers of this vintage seek. [May 2008, p.102]

This album underlines she's more than a mere rock'n'roll totem. [Oct 2014, p.91]

Young set up a tour with a fine country band playing at state fairs and rodeos. This set includes live, countrified version of Re-actor, Old Ways, Harvest, even Buffalo Springfield and five previously unreleased songs. [Jul 2011, p.120]

Street Horrrsing is a six-track, 50-minute melange of iridescent synths, psychedelic drone, distorted vocals and tribal rhythm, peaking with the deftly layered counter-melodies and blissed -out propulsion of epic single 'Bright Tomorrow.' [Mar 2008, p.113]

Auguste Arthur's third, and best, set of lonesome-pine Americana. [Jun 2012, p.100]

An extraordinary album. [Aug 2002, p.95]

For those new to Sylvian's work or for those who tuned out after Tin Drum, this welcome career cherry-picker serves as a perfect portal to discover some of the most haunting and beautiful music of the last two decades.

Dangerous, magical, and gleefully noisy. [Dec 2003, p.113]

A disorienting work somewhere between Scott Walker, Joy Division and Matmos. [May 2004, p.105]

If the album has a weak point, it's a sense of congestion. [Mar 2003, p.110]

A more effective synergy arrives as the musicians rein in the melodrama, proffering a subtler, shimmering folk rock canvas for Chesnutt's emotional daubings. [Nov 2009, p.91]

Austin's "newgrass" prodigy moves ever onwards. [July 2011, p. 108]

This follow-up retains the enthusiasm and innocence of [its 2010 release] Dansette Dansette. [Oct 2012m p.87

Signs & Signifiers is an utterly irresistible, slicked-back triumph. [Jun 2012, p.82]

This set is sharper and fatter [than its debut].

This baker's dozen mostly adheres to the Hardin principal: shorn arrangements, nuanced vocals, emotions on a short leash. [Feb 2013, p.96]

The Electric Word now reveals the Reverend brothers Gean and Tommie West's vocal gospel-soul power utterly undiminished by time. [Apr 2013, p.96]

This is a rarity--an album designed to be listened to as a piece. [May 2013, p.84]

Somewhere between the Moonlight Sonata-inspired title track and the desolate L'Enfer Et Le Paradis, Hardy will make you forget Tous Les Garcons Et Les Filles was ever considered her finest song. [May 2013, p.84]

Juana Molina once again proves her ability to gently beguile with a warmth and ingenuity that reaches way past language and genre boundaries. [Dec 2013, p.87]

Her band is spare and empathetic, and she's a smart enough writer to avoid mawkishness and dramatics. Which just makes it grab you harder. [Aug 2014, p.93]

File next to the Super Furries' Mwng as a landmark album for Welsh-language pop. [Jul 2014, p.93]

An Earth reborn, then. [Oct 2014, p.90]

It's the heartfelt lyrics, however, that will keep you coming back to this album time and time again. [Oct 2014, p.92]

A typically finely crafted slice of emotionally raw storytelling with an absolute peach if a guitar solo. [Aug 2015, p.93]

Bar the grating closer, it's their most beautiful yet. [Apr 2016, p.89]

The former High Llama may be low, but this is no menopausal weepy. [Apr 2016, p.96]

There are 14 songs here, without chaff. [Jan 2017, p.94]

Little Fictions is more upbeat in tempo and outlook an sounds like a band given a jolting shot of B12. [Mar 2017, p.88]

Woodwind, thumb piano, ocarina and analogue synths uncannily evokes the funny, sad fairytale world of Sniff, Toft, Moominpappa and gang. [Apr 2017, p.93]

This excellent new record encapsulates Pine's eclecticism with its amalgam of cool jazz and sultry R&B flavours. [Nov 2017, p.101]

Vanished Gardens is ultimately an uplifting and deeply satisfying record, due mostly to Lloyd's ethereal saxophone, which complements Williams beautifully. [Aug 2018, p.95]

Future Ruins achieves everything an admirer could ask of the reunited band's new album. [Feb 2019, p.84]

The album is saturated with heartbreak and bad decisions, perfectly decked in country-politan arrangements. [May 2019, p.87]

While dark moments abound, Bad Wiring is also thick with the evergreen anti-folkie's charm. [Jan 2020, p.92]

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

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

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

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

If Sideways To New Italy is a reckoning, Rolling Blackouts Coastal Fever's balance sheet is entirely in the black. [Jul 2020, p.79]

This is jazz in its loosest, least bridled sense, blurred to shimmering, impressionistic effect. [Aug 2020, p.91]

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

Song Of Co-Aklan definitively affirms Coughlan's place amid Ireland's poetic pantheon. [Apr 2021, p.80]

McLaughlin's inner creative fire is till burning brightly on Liberation Time. [Sep 2021, p.78]

May prove to be one of the most beautiful, tangentially produced artefacts of our strange and uncertain times. [Dec 2021, p.82]

Built around minimalist synth sequences that are slow-building and tense, with agitated pin-prick rhythms and pulsing stabs evoking a vastness of space and associated emotional states. [Jan 2022, p.87]

Its class is unmistakable, surpassing even the low-slung gait of 1995's previous career milestone Smokers delight. [Dec 2021, p.89]

For all Wild Loneliness's concerns about our ailing world, it's unmistakably a tonic. It's also a life-affirming thank-you note for what we have left. [Apr 2022, p.87]

His own poetic, empathetic songs have a knack of turning modern ills into careworn country classicism. [May 2022, p.96]

His singing, always restrained, is so low-key that it risks losing the listener's attention, but the playing supplies the feeling. [Aug 2022, p.95]

The star is Derek Trucks' sweeping washes of whooshes that wrap the five tunes in a warm blanket, 12-minute ender Pasaquan showcasing his stinging, dexterous, raga-blues brilliance. [Aug 2022, p.95]

The sound of an artist surfacing from his dank hypogean world and embracing a new warmth. [Aug 2022, p.89]

Allen turned 98 this year, yet the fire still burns brightly - his otherworldly creations keeping faith with his Afrofuturist mentor's grand design. [Nov 2022, p.91]

Palomino is a wholly convincing bid for wider recognition. [Dec 2022, p.84]

This jazz grandee has nothing to prove, but his quest for a deeper understanding of the human spirit is encapsulated by Sacred Thread. [Dec 2022, p.87]

King Of A Land is an elegant, warmly orchestrated work. [Jul 2023, p.89]

They've just turned their hazy daze up to 11. [Sep 2023, p.89]

Georgas's blend of vintage new wave with quirky ethereality includes touching haikus and lullabies, but it's the pissed-off frankness that wins out. .... Gorgeously cathartic. [Oct 2023, p.81]

The necessary and sustaining art-yin to their live knees-ups’ yang, with Theatre Of The Absurd… Madness have made an album that is among their absolute best. [Jan 2024, p.90]

The former Bedales pupil's steely vocals and ear for a big melody amidst the intricacy offer a unifying and satisfying undertow. [Feb 2024, p.88]

They're more straightforward than they've ever been. .... They're not slackening. [May 2024, p.86]

Yet for all the luxuriant, Gong-like dreaminess of I Surrender or Imagine An Orchestra, sudden beats and vocal hooks make Delight more unpredictable odyssey than easy float downstream. [May 2024, p.89]

It's a rare delight to hear a band so accomplished take what it does so seriously without taking itself that way. [Jul 2024, p.87]

Here, the 36 unreleased tracks (albeit including alternate or instrumental versions of the LP cuts) highlight the outside influences that each brought to the table. [Sep 2024, p.96]

Through it all, Metheny’s sole medium is a guitar built by luthier extraordinaire Linda Manzer. Thanks to his cloistered affair with the instrument, everybody wins. [Aug 2024, p.89]

Ever unpredictable and inspired, >>>> is anything but run-of-the-mill. [Aug 2024, p.81]

BASIC speak their own language, but it’s not long before their signs and signals unfold into a fascinating new conversation. [Oct 2024, p.82]

It's a nuanced, multi-layered insight into Raczynski's increasingly becalmed world. [Jan 2025, p.87]

An often beautiful, occasionally intimidating 48-minute environment piece. [Mar 2025, p.86]

Storytime and Greensward Days showcase Andy Strickland's thoughtful guitar work, Dr Clarke essays a home counties kind of Pebbles psychedelia while Ten Years celebrates the quiet joys of 60-something man chat. [Apr 2025, p.78]

Arctic Moon does not have the glowering intensity of the band's earliest work, but fans of 1986's Strange Times will appreciate its subtleties. [Oct 2025, p.90]

Skinner and band navigate uncharted waters with sass and skill. [Dec 2025, p.82]

Otherworldly as it is ineffably uplifting. [Jan 2026, p.82]

Casually devastating. [Mar 2026, p.86]

On fire indeed. [May 2026, p.89]

Muscular, melodic... this is the best outing yet from the Etheridge-Travis Soft Machine. [May 2026, p.90]

Condon has a tendency to over-emote vocally, but even at its most melodramatic this music's rhapsodic swirl is undeniable. [Nov 2007, p.104]

Triplicate lacks the revelatory impact of Shadows In The Night. And you always wish there was more light, inside these pocket-size arrangements. ... But this kind of immersion--in folk, blues or Sinatra--has always been serious business and rejuvenation to him: looking for answers and a way forward in a pasture of plenty. [May 2017, p.90]

Landing On A Hundred is a strong comeback that hopefully won't be followed by another decade of silence. [Dec 2012, p.84]

If you like Serge's music, or Jane Birkin's, their daughter's latest is a laudable addition to the canon. [Dec 2017, p.89]

It's Green's pitch-perfect delivery, his ability to switch from sublimely giddy pop joy to earnest moments of heartache and convince utterly in both instances, that make The Lady Killer a treasure. [Jan. 2011, p. 96]