Though McLennan's poetry, hurt and melodic gift is lost, his partner's crafted vignettes are the closest we have to the timeless albums they make together. Inferno stands among them, a few stops down the line, and for Forster, like the rest of us, life turns another page. [Apr 2019, p.84]

Part 1 veers from the abrasive, Stooges-style rock that characterised much of 2015's What Went Down. [Apr 2019, p.86]

Far from punching predictable button, these reconstructed mischief-makers excel when locking electro horns with primal motorik grooves. [Apr 2019, p.94]

A thought-provoking, welcome addition to the cosmic jazz uprising. [Apr 2019, p.94]

This is a slick, polished, self-penned set. ... Sometimes it's hard to tell the frenzied guitar stranglers apart. [Mar 2019, p.96]

Songs fall into two categories: those tracking matters of the heart--Don't You Know could be a forgotten Delfonics single with drummer Aaron Frazer's sweet falsetto taking the lead--and those scolding their home country. These are jolting, especially opener Morning In America, with its Curtis Mayfield and Gil Scott-Heron touches. [Mar 2019, p.96]

Songs feel untethered, then crystallise in Sharon Von Etten-levels of devastation. [Apr 2019, p.96]

At risk of self-indulgence, but arrangements reward patient listening. [Apr 2019, p.96]

The Unthank sisters admirably translate the atmospheric melancholia of the themes, though it's Adrian McNally's piano arrangements that really carry the day. [Apr 2019, p.95]

Victoria's wracked, whispery, smoky rasp exudes her inner suffering. [Apr 2019, p.91]

A precision, Sleater-Kinney-ish rewiring of new wave guitar with cool, no wave delivery. [Apr 2019, p.96]

This successor is strings-free, but goes further still [than 2014's This Is My Hand]. [Apr 2019, p.94]

White Stuff once again feels like the work of avant-garde self-mythologisers inveigling themselves into the Stones' Nellcote basement. But the riffs, cutting a swathe through dense electronic meltdown, are the strongest they've engineered, together or apart, since 1997's Accelerator. and there's a neww, mature pathos to the likes of Suburban Junkie Lady. [Apr 2019, 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]

On This Land, Clark and his guitar stay true to the mission. [Apr 2019, p.92]

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]

Warmer layers are added to sparse, insistent electronics, culminating in Unificado, a nine-minute high-point of fuzz pedal density. [Apr 2019, p.96]

The sound is '80s indie, air and water. [Apr 2019, p.96]

Songs blur into each other, rendering Beat My Distance a series of variations on adopted themes rather than evidence of a singular voice. [Apr 2019, p.93]

From the jaunty beat group undertow counterpointing his melodramatic vocal style on the opening title track, through the almost self-consciously traditional slide guitar and harmonica combination of Devil Got Me, to his most adventurous use of the mouth harp as a bringer of Dionysian frenzy, to the pastoral backwater of the penultimate Sundown--is actually more in keeping with his experimental rock beginnings. [Apr 2019, p.94]

It resets her musical dial by abandoning the borderline Nick Cave-isms of Welcome... to amp up the rock dynamism which first won her attention.[Mar 2019, p.92]

Not for the uncommitted, this is a time capsule to a place where those over-burdened by taste will not want to go. but junk shop superhead/compiler/indie rock Zelig Phil King has reminded us that if we do some things differently in the past, they do other things--thrills, strangeness, escape--the same. [Apr 2019, p.103]

Fine follow-up [to 2016's Lovers & Leavers] ... has a wider range of emotions and some new classics. [Apr 2019, p.91]

Delicate, inventive and deeply, deeply touching. [Mar 2019, p.95]

It's a unique kind of unhappy listening, too toxic on the universal scale to be bled out. But it leaves you galvanised, purged and recharged for the unending war against mediocrity. [Mar 2019, p.90]

She's at peak power on Faraway Look, expressing feminine vulnerability over immaculate Dusty In Memphis arrangements. [Mar 2019, p.95]

With these elegantly devastating songs, she carves put a space, and a class, all of her own. [Mar 2019, p.91]

You certainly feel stimulated, but as with those frenzied, uber-detailed set pieces on modern-day CGI animation movies, there's almost too much to process. [Mar 2019, p.91]

These are out-of-reach glimpses of environmental paradise; hazy, transient, atomised, and, like the technological future they presaged, their expiration in-built. [Mar 2019, p.105]

Hello Happiness is indeed groove heavy, but gives too little for a singer of Chaka's ability to, well, sing - which is a shame, because on the occasions she does find space to stretch out her soaring voice seems to have retained its strength, tone and power. [Mar 2019, p.96]

Webb has an eclectic Thomas Dolby-style approach and he's not totally successful. ... But that doesn't matter because when he hits it, the song rises with glorious abandon. [Mar 2019, p.98]

Tiersen's lavish melodic gifts resonate loudest without the bangs and whistles. Glass-like repetitions of Templehof and Prad exerting a heartfelt tug.[Mar 2019, p.97]

More tension in the style of Fumbling Prayer's churchy organ and escalating coda might have widened Unfurl's visceral impact, but as music-for-bedroom goes, Ry X is king. [Mar 2018, p.91]

Each song seems like an effort to atomise their grief and frustration, with frequently clarity amid icy electronic noir. [Mar 2019, p.99]

Their sixth album shows them shaping the grim thoughts of The Animals and The Island into poised, potent songs. [Mar 2019, p.96]

Lyrics are lovably askew and songs rarely breach three-minutes. In conclusion: more is still more. [Mar 2019, p.99]

Psychedelic Country Soul puts them right back at the top of a world they helped create. [Mar 2019, p.91]

Throughout, this is a masterclass in pop fun. [Mar 2019, p.98]

An evocative, synesthesic aura halos the second LP from the transatlantic trio. [Jan 2019, p.93]

The pieces here are teeming with small melodic and rhythmic details across a range of textures. [Mar 2019, p.87]

There is room in the world for such quaint records as these, but the world doesn't need another version of the Eagles' Take It Easy. [Mar 2019, p.91]

When the title track and poignant closer This House Has No Living Room, open out into bare-wire nocturnal balladry of limitless emotional beauty, Burslem's single-minded mania is vindicated, and the listener's happiness guaranteed. [Mar 2019, p.98]

A set weighted towards her 2007-to-present day material, mainly modern freedom songs performed with energy and joy. At 79, Mavis's vocal retains its gutsy passion and vitality. [Mar 2019, p.95]

Typically eclectic, off-kilter and irreverent. [Feb 2019, p.90]

Tip of the Sphere's greatest riches, though, lie in McCombs' mystical, questing songcraft. [Mar 2019, p.88]

Rebooted with tender opulence, affectionate awe, and full commitment o a widescreen, almost transcendental experience. [Mar 2019, p.94]

Over and over again, Pratt hovers on the brink of revelation, yet Quiet Signs puts down a code, that, brilliantly, it's not quite possible to break. [Mar 2019, p.89]

True North feels both stoic and positive in outlook. [Mar 2019, p.91]

Rousing sedated melodies under a blanket of distortion. [Mar 2019, p.99]

Lennox has created a record that mixes the hum of his adopted city [Lisbon] with the serenity of its oceanside setting. [Mar 2019, p.97]

Despite the Vegas veneer, there's an underlying punk energy, like a cocktail dress with a tattoo at the neckline, a combined act of tribute and subversion. [Feb 2019, p.84]

Heavy at heart, but eminently hummable, Sunshine Rock is an affecting, uplifting set. [Mar 2019, p.92]

Their traditional strengths remain, chiefly McVeigh's rich vocals and their knack of emphasising a simple hook with a cacophonous, multilayered production. [Mar 2019, p.98]

Anyone turned off by conspiracy theories may shudder, but allow Brown his free-your-mind gnostic-in-designer-streetwear stance and entertainment wins out. [Mar 2019, p.88]

In 2019 terms, then, it's a Village Green Preservation Society for people whose village is on the banks of the (alarmingly diminished) Niger River. [Feb 2019, p.91]

Less minimal folk this time, the title track and Holograms are particularly fulsome. [Mar 2019, p.99]

For all its skill you do miss Neville Staple's aggro, Roddy Radiation's punk-Chuck Berry guitars, and inevitably, Jerry Dammers' singular, maddening vision. [Mar 2019, p.88]

What some might reckon to be Drift Code's one significant weakness--that Webb is not a conventionally beauteous singer--is once more a strength. [Mar 2019, p.86]

Gallipoli, recorded in Berlin and Puglia, is oddly unmoving, lacking range for all its seductive picturesque roaming. [Mar 2019, p.96]

There's a real bleakness here, so 7's motif is the confession that "I will always be alone," while the haunting Lisa Hannigan collaboration, Thousand, confronts Carney's grandmother's dementia. But there's optimism and strength too. [Mar 2019, p.92]

Mollestad Thomassen's adoption of free-flowing soloing brings a sound less claustrophobic than before. Extraordinarily, in doing so, no power is lost. [Feb 2019, p.87]

The results sound authentic, melodic '60s girl-pop, if a bit thin. [Feb 2019, p.93]

Nighttime Birds And Morning Stars doubles back on that trajectory [on 2018's Deeper Woods] and heads left, its eight enveloping essays featuring live 1-and 6-string guitars manipulated and looped into capacious soundscapes, only occasionally topped off by vocal salutes to nature and the mysterious heavens. [Feb 2019, p.87]

Swindle wears his perfectionism lightly: satisfying tastebuds while leaving listeners hungry for more. [Mar 2019, p.98]

Its wintery charms and enervated intrigue are hard to deny. [Feb 2019, p.90]

The band's sixth album, while still oddly uneven, features some of their finest work to date. [Mar 2019, p.92]

Less electronic in feel than its predecessor, this is music on a truly human scale in terms of its inspiration, delivery and undeniable emotional punch. [Mar 2019, p.97]

Much like Dirty Projectors, it takes an adventurous soul to absorb much of this. [Mar 2019, p.93]

By combining the searing intimacy of a boombox-constructed mixtape with progressive and delirious bars, Earl's third album offers a rare kind of insight, sagacious from a 24-year-old. [Mar 2019, p.80]

A progression in Blake's music, his melodies less elusive, his productions less ethereal. [Mar 2019, p.88]

Mostly, it feels like a marriage of Weezer and Superchunk, amid all-pervasive fuzz-pedal abuse. [Feb 2019, p.88]

An electro-edged nerviness also surfaces but, overall, the fresh stylistic excursions result in an album which, fittingly considering its backstory, does not quite hang together. [Feb 2019, p.91]

Ducking and diving between ivories and six-string, his reedy-voice makes for a Syd Barrett attempting Todd Rundgren's Something/Anything? record, full of compulsive tunes, but ever off-centre. [Feb 2019, p.91]

While a smidgen of originality wouldn't go amiss, there's plenty to compensate for it in the way of exuberance and humour. [Feb 2019, p.88]

Goes West feels invigoratingly sunny. [Feb 2019, p.84]

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

This album has everything and it works. [Feb 2019, p.89]

An album rich in melancholia, softened with orchestral arrangements and enriched by female voices, at turns wistful, as others paranoid. [Feb 2019, p.89]

He and his band sound focused and spry over eight beautifully arranged songs produced by Jackson and Pat Dillett. [Feb 2019, p.90]

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]

Myth Of A Man doesn't feel like the whole story yet, but it's getting there. [Feb 2019, p.92]

There's still a lot of soul-searching at mournful tempos, but reconnecting to his roots has made for a fine set of songs. [Feb 2019, p.93]

Straightforward but elliptical; direct but enduringly rich; the unseen, in between. [Feb 2019, p.86]

Their initial torrid confluence of My Bloody Valentine and Joy Division here shapeshifts more towards "synth-assisted stadium nu-gaze," with odd Kraut-y hints of early Simple Minds, and frequent echoes of their new found patron: fune-real The Arbor is pure Disintegration, while shimmering Keep It All To Yourself has Kiss Me! Kiss Me! Kiss Me!'s hi-tech dazzle. [Feb 2019, p.88]

She's an adept songwriter and lyricist, but the album's immutable modern poo production can start to pale. [Feb 2019, p.93]

Remind Me Tomorrow feels full to the brim, flooded to the top with experimental colour and texture, drones and drums and synthesizers. [Feb 2019, p.85]

The whole thing is deeply marketable--but there's an authenticity in Rogers that needs more space to breathe. [Feb 2019, p.92]

More blood on the tracks might have upped the ante, but as it stands Tomb is still a gorgeous wallow, with producer Doveman's minimalist touches left to indicate cracks in the facade. [Feb 2019, p.84]

Their voices have contrasting timbres and they produce some gorgeous harmonies throughout. [Feb 2019, p.87]

[Tallies] inject sufficient Sunday/Cocteaus-ish vocal and melodic bounce to soften even the most calcified indie heart. [Feb 2019, p.93]

Boone's rich, Rickie Lee Jones-meets-Chrissie Hynde voice is the careworn bedrock upon which these bruised, dynamics-rich songs depend. [Feb 2019, p.92]

An equally intriguing mix of airy, modern indie pop, gauzy, gothic epic and plaintive folk-picking. [Feb 2019, p.93]

Why Hasn't Everything Already Disappeared? is more exploratory than Fading Frontier, but there's a minimalism that helps its stark ideas and sad-eyes melodies shine through. [Feb 2019, p.88]

Hubbert's ornate acoustic fingerpicking and flamenco flourishes are an ideal foil for Moffat's un-showy storytelling skills. [Jan 2019, p.92]

A potent psychedelic wash blurs the edges of these 10 tracks from trippy chimes to crackling static experimentation. [Feb 2019, p.93]

Focused, melancholy, modern ghost blues, these 10 rough-hued duets move from jeremiad to elegy, from love ballad to lament to scream. [Jan 2019, p.91]

Blend anarcho-punk speed rush with the paranoid crash of industrial rock--ticking programmed drums, frantic guitars, creepy crawl vocals. [Feb 2019, p.93]

She stands sonically naked, palettes limited and claustrophobic in their unrelenting mono-focus, in this fascinating but demanding debut. [Feb 2019, p.91]