We get to bask in the calm in the eye of Young's wilful hurricane without suffering the trail of destruction that followed it. An intensely enjoyable experience it is, too. [Feb 2019, p.99]

This likable debut peaks on Everything Apart's breezy kosmische shuffle, and Lennon-ish I'll Be Alright, but its airiness doesn't always work. [Feb 2019, p.93]

Throughout, a twinkly otherworldliness is counterbalanced by rhythmic excursions evoking the passage between one liminal world and another. [Feb 2019, p.92]

Tropical Fuck Storm's wonky rock discordance is not quite as provocative as they perhaps think. Nevertheless, there's still plenty to be enjoyed here. [Feb 2019, p.90]

Certainly, the music here is very often brilliant. ... .Paak's tendency for juvenile and preening bad-boy bluster is a recurring weakness. [Feb 2019, p.84]

FM! initially feels slighter, not least because of a brisk 22-minute duration. The breeziness is deceptive, though, as Staples and producer Kenny Beats construct a minimalist update of G-funk where the jams are always freighted with an awareness of potential violence. [Feb 2019, p;.84]

With an airy yet intimate mix from longtime engineer Bob Clearmountain, this 2-CD/4-LP package carries the requisite audio heft to compensate those who couldn't see Springsteen On Broadway in its natural habitat. [Feb 2019, p.82]

His best yet, a mix of reimagined trad pieces, diverse covers and elegantly rowdy new jams. [Nov 2018, p.89]

A near two-hour spiritual masterclass, recorded live at London's Church of Sound, that simultaneously enhances, enriches and expands. [Dec 2018, p.89]

The result is an album of eminently listenable sonic frontierism, and Butler's most accessible work in years. [Dec 2018, p.89]

It's an irresistibly modern mix. [Dec 2018, p.89]

A strong melodic streak can reach those Husker Du pleasure-pain receptors, but equally often they're quirky to the point of throwaway. [Jan 2019, p.93]

Trouble Anyway is a much more fleshed-out, even lush proposition [than her 2016 debut, Out Of Love]. [Jan 2019, p.90]

The result is another madcap sonic escapade. [Dec 2018, p.87]

Strong, tub-thumping songwriters fall prey to Nashville cliche. [Dec 2018, p.94]

Across the ensuing 85 minutes there are sufficient six-string pyrotechnics, pop hooks and lyrical urgencies to shame an artist a third his age. [Jan 2019, p.88]

Amor's main reference point is arguably Arthur Russell, though there's little of his joie de vivre--unless you count the cowbell on Heaven Among The Days--and more the cold fire of Martin Hannett-era A Certain Ratio. [Jan 2019, p.89]

It's easy groove doesn't suggest exhaustion, just peace of mind. [Jan 2019, p.84]

The deadpan vocals of Camila De Laborde means that The Knife comparisons are difficult to shake, but they mirror the bold, ethereal quality of the music. [Jan 2019, p.89]

Spare, simple, languid, often Ens lacks, ironically, is a wildness. In the end, it's just a little too tame. [Jan 2019, p.85]

The results are as wildly evocative as anything by Steve Reich or Terry Riley, but thunderously affecting on their own terms. [Jan 2019, p.85]

Stylistically, the album juxtaposes grungy art rock with punk-jazz, electronica, and hip-hop, though it's McCaslin's tenor sax and aesthetic vision that imbues Blow. with a sense of unity and coherence. [Nov 2018, p.95]

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

A lively set that's way above par. [Jan 2019, p.92]

The songs are gorgeous, lyrical, chimerical, the arrangements weighty, complex and cool. [Jan 2019, p.89]

Clapton's guitar still sings, howls and weeps, but this is for the staunchest God-heads only. [Jan 2019, p.90]

Chilled psych-folk from a surreal world. [Jan 2019, p.92]

Note Eaglehurst/The Palace, an ecstatic workout that mythologises a shared house of Brit jazz tyros as an inspiringly sacred space. [Dec 2018, p.92]

Joplin's long, devastating plea for salvation once mirrored the big story--that the surprise star of '68 had outgrown her rough diamonds. The 30 tracks here, several in multiple versions, don't necessarily change that. But wart'n'all, Big Brother were the best foil Janus had. [Jan 2018, p.101]

On Reflection swirls, flutters and swoops like leaves on the breeze. [Jan 2018, p.89]

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

The 2018 Beggars Banquet is classy slim-line history: clean, heavy vinyl with restored artwork (but no linernotes); a 12-inch platter with a mono mix of Sympathy; and a flexi-disc, originally included in the 1968 Japanese pressing of the LP. ... Sometimes, even in rock archaeology, the final result is all that matters. [Jan 2019, p.96]

This lavish 36-track celebration doesn't settle for just reheating the best bits, cheerily omitting anything from Kamasi Washington's jazz clarion call The Epic, while proffering 22 new tracks that flaunt its roster's strength in depth. [Jan 2019, p.105]

The single-disc edition offers a streamlined look at Cornell's career, cherry-picking some of his finest moments and complementing them with rarities. ... For a totalising retrospective, the 7-LP, 4-CD, 1-DVD box set is essential. [Jan 2019, p.104]

It's not tidy, but fittingly for such unabashed pop maximalists, there's a lot to love here. [Jan 2019, p.84]

It's a journey beyond self-consciousness and towards mature vulnerability, to an evolved idea of what is musically pure. [Jan 2019, p.82]

It reframes familiar, comforting songs of joy, innocence and goatherds within pitiless orch-industrial rock and suspicious pop softness, rediscovering the original's Nazi-assailed gravity and reflecting on a divided Korean peninsula and the international power relations beyond. [Jan 2019, p.84]

Gently atmospheric rather than a disrupter of mood. [Jan 2019, p.86]

Gallo's eccentricity is bound to irritate at least as many as it charms. [Jan 2019, p.91]

He sublimates his playing to the whole throughout, his swerving tones and arching lines ducking and diving through cracks in the strings. [Jan 2019, p.88]

Their improvisational roots are still evident, but the bursts of outsider pop shining through proves they have plenty more to dig up. [Jan 2019, p.89]

The best record of her life. [Jan 2019, p.85]

Tremulous covers from the '60s, '70s, US Westerns and beyond. [Jan 2018, p.93]

Some of the catchiest Deadbeats tunes to date. [Jan 2019, p.92]

Foster's is an oddly moving, crepuscular and dream-like world to get happily lost in. [Jan 2018, p.91

Vessel creates a sense of immersion and collapsing boundaries. [Jan 2018, p.89]

Thresholder is the sound of celestial awe striking, albeit sometimes opaquely. [Jan 2019, p.89]

The 13 songs, mostly slow to midtempo with some very fine lyrics, sound pensive and personal. [Jan 2018, p.86]

This is a band who need to shrink back a little, switch off the emotional wind-machine, and work out how to make the personal less impersonal. [Jan 2019, p.86]

The Lillywhite Sessions doesn't just open another window into Walker's mind, it points out a door to a place beyond. Not everyone will want to go too far through it, but it's an alluring gateway. [Jan 2019, p.86]

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

There's no arguing with the brilliance if New Partner or I See A Darkness, though the sweetness of Oldham's mature voice and the impressionistic arrangements tend to detract from their ominous gravity. [Jan 2019, p.84]

Understandably, the 76-year-old's voice has lost some if its technical precision, but the backdrops have light touch and when she growls Don't Lie To Me's motif, "How do you sleep?" or evokes "thunderclouds of alibis" on the imperious The Rain Will Fall, she oozes despair and fury. [Jan 2019, p.84]

It's Shabason's sax that endures; pensive and humane, even when assailed by glitches. [Dec 2018, p.92]

A new buoyancy runs through the album from the sprightly, Eno-esque Italy to the waltz-time drama of Surrounded, and Heal, where the voice of her daughter features. Nonetheless, murk is not far below the surface--in Creep, blossoms are rotting. [Dec 2018, p.92]

The pace down Mark Knopfler's latest road is steady and unruffled, like a 72-minute walk around a familiar locale--reassuring but rather lacking in excitement. [Dec 2018, p.87]

If any art is currently encapsulating the sense of "wrongness" abroad in our land, this is it. [Dec 2018, p.82]

By the closing traditional, Fair Annie (Child Ballad 62), much of the atmospheric murk has lifted, revealing a radiant kinship with the like of Trees, similarly uncanny folk-rock alchemists from the cusp of the 1970s. [Dec 2018, p.88]

B.E.D.'s nine-tracks barely top 20 minutes, but it's terrific while it lasts. [Dec 2018, p.87]

The gold standard rock double LP, Ladyland now boasts 12 solo demos, eight studio outtakes (notably the stunning Angel Caterina, alias 1983), plus a September '68 Hollywood Bowl show. [Dec 2018, p.104]

Ambitious, complex, raging and poetic. a testament to the possibilities of thrash. [Dec 2018, p.103]

While much here errs toward vanilla and cheese, delectably idiosyncratic morsels are also on the menu. [Dec 2018, p.100]

Corgan's ear for pop-hooks is keen throughout, but save for Knights Of Malta, with its piano, strings and backwards lead guitars, the music on Shiny And Oh So Bright... seems a tad under-imagined for its portentous title. [Dec 2018, p.84]

Martin's remix feels like the closest anyone can get to sharing the headspace of the people who made the music. The detail is staggering. [Dec 2018, p.98]

Though humour abounds, there's also some serious musicianship on display, both from the mercurial Goldblum and his excellent band. [Dec 2018, p.90]

This Giorgio Moroder-soundtracking-Black Mirror approach isn't always successful. ... The slick AOR of Something Human suggests their decision to move away from riff-rock isn't wholly misjudged. [Dec 2018, p.84]

Even at 52, this Dinosaur senior is a miracle of ongoing evolution. [Dec 2018, p.88]

Moon-June-balloon lyricism can let him down, but when he;s good (see Smiths-ish portrait song John) he's great. [Dec 2018, p.94]

Daft and serious, catchy and strange. [Dec 2018, p.93]

It's no surprise that there isn't the immediate drive of 2011 Daptone debut No Time For Dreaming, it the energy and cohesion of follow-ups Victim Of Love (2013) and Changes (2016). But Black Velvet's appeal grows. [Dec 2018. p.85]

Spencer build this world of thrift-store influences and acid wit, and he sounds happy there. [Dec 2018, p.88]

These are exquisitely sad songs of spare belongings and reduced circumstance, about men who fail, and the women who stay with them. [Dec 2018, p.91]

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

No Tourists may be an open-topped bus ride around a familiar sonic landscape, but it's also a lot of fun. [Dec 2018, p.84]

Solemn, aesthetically rigorous environment this music occupies. [Dec 2018, p.93]

Where the comic thesp rabbitholes back to 1980s telly music, with sincere, library-esque 'ommages. [Dec 2018, p.94]

Warrants deep exploration. [Nov 2018, p.95]

If you need reminding, it demonstrates what a good singer she is. [Dec 2018, p.90]

Filmic instrumentals ranging in mood from Badalamenti oddness to bright piano etudes and reflective gloom. [Nov 2018, p.96]

While there's a surprisingly low glam quotient, Fudge Sandwich finds odd harmonies between funk and anarcho-punk, plus more predictable psych. [Dec 2018, p.84]

It's an album that is, by turns, melancholy and unsettling, tragic and nightmarish, unfolding with a creeping narrative dread. [Dec 2018, p.93]

The Londoner's high soul voice shines through on astral-themed second album. . [Dec 2018, p.94]

It's all so sad, and surrounded by 80-plus minutes of restless, questing uncertainty. [Nov 2018, p.90]

Here If You Listen is never less than gorgeously meditative, and in its cloudy, impressionistic swell bobs flotsam of unusual beauty. [Dec 2018, p.88]

Amid the jams and Vietnamese trim, neat ideas coalesce. [Dec 2018, p.94]

R.E.M. At The BBC is not definitive history, but as a corrective to the idea that the post-Monster years were just R.E.M.'s long sweep into elder statesmanhood, it presents a fine alternative one. [Dec 2018, p.101]

Allways showcase a band reconfigured as a kind of hippy Meters. It's an unlikely transformation, but an appealing one. [Dec 2018, p.93]

There's undoubted musicianship on display but killer tunes are rarer. [Dec 2018, p.87]

Raw and revealing though still rather opaque. [Dec 2018, p.94]

A reverberant, high-octane treatise on the transcendent power of love and loud music. [Dec 2018, p.94]

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

Production-wise it's the compressed, tidy sound du jour that flattens out dynamics; it would be interesting to hear them recorded on some funky old analogue gear, to add a bit more grit. [Dec 2018, p.92]

Her laconic, absurdist humour gently inflects each track, even when she is singing about intense paranoia and loss. [Dec 2018, p.90]

Rodgers' fealty to rhythm is still unquestionable from opener Till The World Falls through the emphatic beats that drive Boogie All Night and single Sober, which are clearly less subtle than "old" Chic. [Dec 2018, p.90]

The Hex expands brilliantly in a musical vision that had lain mostly dormant. [Dec 2018, p.90]

This second album builds on [2017's Feed The Rats'] sure foundation, the tracks now numbering six and dialling down the long-form indulgence in favour of more tightly focused song structures that sacrifice nothing in intensity. [Dec 2018, p.88]

It's rather an unsuccessful mish-mash, especially given the aggressive diversity of the guest stars. ... But the weakest link is Morello's hyperactive and ultimately distracting tic towards Skrillex-esque techno bursts, bleeps and squelches, which ensure The Atlas Underground will age worse than MAGA hats. [Dec 2018, p.84]

A Wonderful Beast occasionally revisits that street-walkin' vibe (When The Weekend Comes Around), but otherwise rises above genre to present this foghorn-voiced alt icon as quality songsmith, amid unprecedentedly high-spec playing and arrangements. [Nov 2018, p.94]