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]

Ever constructed around our hero's robust tenor and rattling acoustic, then adorned with A-grade orchestration, it inescapably evokes Urban Hymns. [Nov 2018, p.93]

The rage and weight of 2014's Blank Project has lifted but the explorations of life at every level--refugees in Calais; exhausted living under patriarchy; missing your parents--continue. [Nov 2018, p.89]

Twelve of the songs here are vintage, unheeded warnings plucked from Ono's catalogue. The finale is Imagine--which now rightly bears a Yoko co-credit. All is transformed by the sparse new arrangements, mostly piano-led with strings, which bring the horrors--and occasionally the hope--closer to home. [Nov 2018, p.94]

It never feels as though her best work is behind her. [Nov 2018, p.96]

The box set's main selling point is the inclusion of a completely different version of Never Let Me Down, recorded posthumously. [Nov 2018, p.100]

The main attraction of this six-disc box set reissue is a new ground-up stereo mix of Imagine by Paul Hicks at Abbey Road. These new mixes are clearer and more controlled, though respectful (maybe overly so). [Nov 2018, p.103]

There are times on Bunny when Dear doesn't stray far from the hypnotic, hedonistic mood that underpins his dancefloor moniker, Audion. ... But Bunny really shows its teeth on Can You Rush Them. A smouldering, malevolent breakbeat stomp, its exhortation to "take back the streets" hints at America's political turmoil. [Nov 2018, p.86]

At times, its lumbering gait palls somewhat, but This World's rousing yacht rock twinkle proves that Kalevi has some aces hidden up his sleeve. [Nov 2018, p.91]

The wall-to-wall cyber-vox distract from his bountiful gifts. [Oct 2018, p.92]

Kurt Vile's slacker star continues to rise on Bottle It In. [Nov 2018, p.89]

Its breezy charm belies clever compositions and the odd jagged stylistic shift, but at 58 minutes feels overlong. [Nov 2018, p.96]

Love Is Magic is Grant entertainingly magnified, but the emotional returns comes slightly diminished. [Nov 2018, p.93]

When he's good (Con Conn Was Impatient, B'n'D) he's sublime. [Nov 2018, p.96]

Look Now bounces with unforced, uncluttered and cleverly fleshed vivacity, every song a cherishable gem. [Nov 2018, p.86]

This latest peculiar twist in the Bunnymen saga affirms the songs resilience, as well as the virtue of bravery. When the new versions mimic their predecessors, the project feels redundant. [Nov 2018, p.93]

The "dark sunshine" sound Hersh says she's courting is sometimes a little alienating but there are some fine melodies beneath the rubble. [Nov 2018, p.86]

Psych instincts and gas-weight vibes avoid modern psych's retro slavishness, but its lightweight sound can feel insubstantial. [Nov 2018, p.96]

An intense journey from slow harmonic chants to minimal rave euphoria. [Nov 2018, p.91]

MacIntyre's creativity is clearly in full flower. [Nov 2018, p.90]

It could all be too cute for its own good but some inspired darker moments elevate the whole to the level of a Raymond Carver short story collection set to music by Joan Of Arc-era OMD. [Nov 2018, p.90]

This album is a beauty. [Nov 2018, p.93]

The trio's vocal harmonies have lost none of their warm-blooded magic. [Nov 2018, p.96]

With no grounding bass, the groove is understated on a 13-minute title track that imperceptibly limbers from low-end oscillations and primitive pitter-patter into a billowing, blazing free jazz-prog odyssey in its own distinct dimension. Szun Waves sweep you into it. [Nov 2018, p.95]

In Just Lie Down, grief gives way to wrath and post-hardcore freakery. While Soft Stud and Sam, A Dream have more blissful guitar codas that signify a resolution to her woes. [Nov 2018, p.94]

On their third album Beak> still feels like a wonky and productive hobby for Geoff Barrow of Portishead with his mates Will Young and Billy Fuller; it's serious but it also sounds like a lot of fun. [Nov 2018, p.94]

Willie makes a hell of a job reshaping an array of Sinatra classics. [Nov 2018, p.93]

Beneath the bells and whistles, there's gold as well schlock. [Nov 2018, p.93]

European Heartbreak feels wonderfully whole, bound together by De Graaf's sweetly inscrutable voice and the unshowy, languid complexity of her songs. [Nov 2018, p.92]

It will either intoxicate or weigh down on you, or both, simultaneously. [Nov 2018, p.91]

Gave In Rest is melancholy yet beautiful, slow spectral low-end devotional music: creating a complete world that calls for total immersion. [Nov 2018, p.91]

While there's a sense that Jungle lack the invention of Young Fathers, whose vocals they echo, or Thundercat, whose disaffection they share, For Ever's Sunset Strip soap opera is always compelling. [Nov 2018, p.91]

This delicate, intricate web of sounds asks you to lean in to appreciate it. [Nov 2018, p.84]

While perhaps not as momentous as Joni Mitchell's similarly intentioned Travelogue, the gentle, surprising pleasures throughout Simon's autumnal tinkering with his oeuvre make for a rich and nuanced listen. [Nov 2018, p.86]

A pleasant appetiser until ZZ Top bring out another main course. [Nov 2018, p.86]

C'est La Vie is as potent, visceral and concise a sonic expression of this act of courage [step up and be an adult] as you could hope to find. [Nov 2018, p.87]

Elephants On Acid finds Cypress Hill not only recapturing the dynamism and urgency of their early-90s heyday, but also taking that energy somewhere completely new. [Nov 2018, p.84]

Sensitively remixed and remastered--like cleaning stained glass for brighter colours--and in combinations of formats, here's a masterpiece that lives up to its legend. [Oct 2018, p.106]

The fact that some of the material was lifted from cassettes means that the production quality varies wildly, but nonetheless 001 is catnip for Strummer fans. [Oct 2018, p.107]

Alternative views of some other well-known songs affirm Petty's fundamental strengths as a composer and the Heartbreakers' interpretive flexibility. [Oct 2018, p.98]

There's no danger of Wanderer outstaying its welcome, but while it's a brilliant return, it wouldn't be quite right too claim it as a triumph. Not because of the quality of these songs but because Wanderer is a record that know the cost of living and the price of losing all too well. [Oct 2018, p.82]

This is as back to basics as it gets. ... Highlights: Baby Please Don't Go, Sundown Blues and a truly broken-sounding take on Heartbreak Hotel. [Oct 2018, p.93]

A venomous, scabrous, often hilarious protest record, full of ramshackle blues, stinging garage-rock and the occasional brawny hardcore pelt. [Oct 2018, p.93]

Nadler's cathartic inner journey isn't always as easy to empathise with as it is artfully expressed. [Oct 2018, p.88]

Blends Shimmery psych guitar, spacey grooves and indie-falsetto vocals. [Sep 2018, p.96]

Always a unique voice, Phillipps is as refreshingly conciliatory as he is arrow straight. It may be nothing particularly new, but it's the way he tells 'em. [Oct 2018, p.90]

Purists may wince, but the takes are fresh. [Oct 2018, p.93]

The line-up gel beautifully on these three long instrumentals. [Oct 2018, p.86]

The album lags in some of its quieter moments, but still stands as a fine successor in the righteous roots line that includes The Band and The Staples Singers. [Oct 2018, p.93]

His piano-playing is a joy, his vocals a dramatis personae of lively characters. ... The whole thing feels--thrillingly, poignantly--like you're in the room with him. [Oct 2018, p.84]

Cosmic roots reassert themselves; best on New History and the Mercury rev-ish Waves, Breaking. [Oct 2018, p.94]

There's no faulting Shemekia Copeland's voice. [Sep 2018, p.91]