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]

Inspired by a tumultuous period in his life, the 13th album from the guitar virtuoso has distinct shades of dark and light, making for some of his most interesting work to date. [Oct 2018, p.88]

Chris is an imposing structure, one likely to dominate 2018's skyline. There are, however, still heights left to hit. [Oct 2018, p.89]

An album like this could be relevant at any time, really, but it takes the past couple of years to make it quite this livid. [Oct 2018, p.91]

The Dubliner's fourth album of original material is his most varied sonically, yet is perversely his least fussy, happy to let a simple melody be carried by his distinctively sweet, slightly prim diction. [Oct 2018, p.84]

Emanon is unequivocally a visual treat but in purely musical terms, it's nothing less than stunningly breathtaking. [Oct 2018, p.88]

Their latest warms the electronic pot with quirky pastoralism--brass, melodica, clattering-teacup percussion and tangible emotional warmth. [Oct 2018, p.94]

While never the greatest singer, Escovedo's lyrics more than compensate. [Oct 2018, p.91]

The Goon Sax have created a glorious pop album that perfectly captures those awkward confusions on the road to adulthood. [Oct 2018, p.90]

Almost flawless record. ... It alights on an entirely new air of depth and fascination, in keeping with its author's age and experience. [Oct 2018, p.85]

This London quartet's third LP avoids indie cliche, taking various routes to achieve electro-pop lift-off. [Oct 2018, p.94]

Kravitz's stylistic schizophrenia remains on Raise Vibration, whether in the early-80s electro-beats of Who Really Are The Monsters? or the What's Going On moves of It's enough. [Oct 2018, p.87]

Coates uses an eccentric blend of rich strings and muffled hardcore rhythms that are seductive, haunting and deliciously weird. [Oct 2018, p.87]

While the playful spirit and precise progressions of his previous albums linger, it's demonstrably darker entries that capture Gonzales's disarming craftsmanship best. [Oct 2018, p.91]

Its dense analogue assault envelopes you like a pea-souper. [Oct 2018, p.87]

It's more varied and interesting: angular, Cure-guitar shapes, echoing shapes. [Oct 2018, p.94]

He's still a whiz with a tart lyrical couplet, too. [Oct 2018, p.94]

Overall, Love, Loss, And Auto-Tuned is a deviant masterpiece. [Oct 2018, p.92]

Kingdoms In Colour is a bright, pan-global musical jaunt delivered as a glitter cannon explosion. [Oct 2018, p.87]

Driven along by a renewed sense of urgency and purpose, this may be Richard Thompson's most creative album in decades. [Oct 2018, p.92]

Monsters Exist feels like a stadium rave washing machine, stuck on infinite cycle. [Oct 2018, p.88]

Glenn Jones's repeated trips to the well of John Fahey's American Primitive legacy seem to yield even more refreshing results. [Sep 2018, p.90]

His commitment is palpable, the sequencing deft, and whole wilfully hit-free bombast-fest commendable, if scarcely palatable to anyone apart fro card-carrying Suede-heads. [Oct 2018, p.93]

Her lyrics draw you in, as she explores the chemistry of attraction on the title track to an appropriately sexy descending chord sequence, while a fly-by-night lover gets his comeuppance on Easy Street. [Oct 2018, p.84]

Material arcane yet relevant, as well as freshly minted. [Oct 2018, p.90]

Some of the vocal processing, though pushed to the extreme, will be a little familiar to Bon Iver fans/sceptics. Persevere, though, and yet more classic Low songs emerge from the post-apocalyptic murk. [Oct 2018, p.87]

Another inspirational triumph over adversity. [Oct 2018, p.90]

Every song puts a tap in your toe, a worm in your ear and a smile on your face. [Oct 2018, p.85]

Dissolution doesn't break character, but there's a sharper focus to the writing--and more sweeping melodies. [Sep 2018, p.88]

Every song is arranged beautiful but it feels like an accomplished assemblage rather than a living, breathing whole. [Oct 2018, p.85]

A soaring, feverish conflagration of sense and sensuality. [Sep 2018, p.90]

Their follow-up sees them crank everything up to the next level. [Sep 2018, p.94]

It's a tense, grace and often euphoric listening experience that simultaneously lacks the grit, drama and disquiet of their finest work. [Oct 2018, p.91]

A psychedelic soft rock treat that peaks with the uncanny, ethereal chord-changes of the sleep-walking Meet Me in The Air, but Poignancy, tunefulness and feeling abound throughout. [Sep 2018, p.94]

Negro Swan is more consolidation than the ext great leap forwards. [Oct 2018, p.91]

There's more to the differences between the two versions, however, than a valve amp versus the original's solid state, with over 30 years of musicianship and experience bringing the songs up to modern speed. [Sep 2018, p.92]

Songs feel shy of messing with the familiar. [Sep 2018, p.94]

Performance is White Denim's most produced album, thickly textured with brass, keyboards and studio atmospheres. Play it loud, though, and you easily imagine the euphoria at the bar after every track. [Sep 2018, p.84]

Beautiful songs studded with dissonant eruptions of noise. [Oct 2018, p.94]

A keeper. ... This is still a terrific entry point into a band who repay obsession. [Oct 2018, p.87]

It hangs together and, indeed, convincingly documents fragmentation of the individual. [Sep 2018, p.94]

There are nods to Scissor Sisters with some honky-tonk disco and references to the demi-monde. But there are also extraordinary tracks of looped beats and grainy heartbreak. [Oct 2018, p.84]

The intervening nine songs jump between genres with varied success, with a fee whimsical tracks sticking out like sore thumbs. [Oct 2018, p.88]

It works as a powerful artistic statement. [Oct 2018, p.88]

This is taut, Blondie-cool guitar-pop with a finger on the self-destruct tab. [Oct 2018, p.90]

At its core, this is pop music of a rare assurance. [Oct 2018, p.91]

Go To School is a misstep--the sound of talented young musicians over-reaching to the point of unlistenability. [Oct 2018, p.93]

Another strong set. [Oct 2018, p.94]

At Weddings quickly coalesces into an utterly compelling presence. [Sep 2018, p.88]

A Broke Moon Rises sheds a gentle but persistent light in the darkness. [Sep 2018, p.86]

It's always good when, after 30 years as a music critic, the hairs on your arms stand on end. [Sep 2018, p.89]

Slightly mannered vocals; odd but good. [Sep 2018, p.96]