Coup De Grace may not radically change skeptics' perception of Kane as Turner's lesser-half. ... But dig deeper and you'll find Kane's finest work so far. [Sep 2018, p.86]

A sweet, herbal fug hanging over proceedings, Zebra joins the dots between blissed-out Balearica, trippy kosmische, Eastern and Afro vibes and spacey jazz. [Sep 2018, p.91]

Younge's Axelrodish take on orchestral soul dominates. [Sep 2018, p.96]

They know their limits, and while they are prepared to test them, gently, Marauder isn't in the market for revelation. With songs this subtle and steely, though, reinforcement is good enough. [Sep 2018, p.87]

Both parties in this collaboration have been firing off great records at will lately: here's another. [Sep 2018, p.88]

If at times things veer towards needy, the sum of the set is saved by how real it all feels. [Sep 2018, p.92]

A notably mature-sounding record full of gnarly guitars, scrunchy Hammond organ and tuneful innocence lost. [Jun 2018, p.92]

Elaborate, sometimes sneakily poignant tunes. [Aug 2018, p.93]

11 songs thematically linked by a search for realty in an increasingly virtual world. [Sep 2018, p.90]

The follow-up has richer, dreamier contours, but the mood is gaunter. [Sep 2018, p.94]

Occasionally, the album threatens to go Spinal Tap-ish. ... But when Dwyer steeps the prog in garage frenzy, the pot boils. [Sep 2018, p.92]

These songs are solid. [Sep 2018, p.90]

There's an agreeable robustness to proceedings. [Sep 2018, p.91]

Minimal beat-logic and a new-age-ish ability to work below pop's usual emotional horizons sets them apart. [Sep 2018, p.96]

If there's a sense that the material has yet to coalesce to its strongest and most consistent point, there's much that bodes well for High Water II, due in 2019. [Sep 2018, p.86]

What follows is like an eccentric, audacious musical collage that somehow hangs together. [Sep 2018, p.93]

We should've seen this one coming. And still it's a gut punch. [Sep 2018, p.89]

Never quite hits that million-streaming sweet spot. [Sep 2018, p.86]

Tennessee roots rockers ease off the barroom brawl piano blues for a more reflective, more modern sound. [Sep 2018, p.96]

Nau's adept handle on lachrymose soft-rock, meanwhile means even when treading water, the album charms with its soft-focus ambience. [Sep 21018, p.90]

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

Disc four's unreleased assortment holds little for Wobble-Levene obsessives. More noteworthy: a disturbingly atonal Banging The Door, two abstract thumpathons from '81-83's "lost" fourth album, some speculative Album demos, and a n instrumental stab at Led Zep's Kashmir. [Aug 2018, p.102]

Brilliant throughout. better than the official Stage with an art-rocking sound he never quite bettered. ... An essential purchase for Bowie fans. [Aug 2018, p.102]

The blend of lushness and rusticity is beguiling. ... Still, for all its accomplished loveliness, there's also a suggestion that Nash's sense of wonder is a little less wild eyed than it once was. [Sep 2018, p.89]

The fractured electronics of his homespun-sounding dispatches give way to freewheeling keys that smack lightly of Thelonious Monk, Herbie Hancock and Bill Evans. [Sep 2018, p.91]

It proceeds funereally, as if in the suspended animation of a nocturnal hallucination, like sleepwalking through a dark and empty airport, but also right there in the room as Wave Pics' on-the-fly magic unfolds. [Sep 2018, p.93]

Louris and company have created a soothing balm for overly neurotic and trying times. [Sep 2018, p.89]

With the less auspicious intrusions of Petra Haden's '80s rock emoting, and Meyer's cliched whiskey-waffle, it's harder to discern where Williamson's heart lies. [Sep 2018, p.88]

With its shuffling drums and strong tune, Microclimate has a song-like feel, while the title track is very different in mood as it gently pulses with restless rhythmic tics and a melancholic, meandering keyboard line. [Sep 2018, p.93]

In its early stages, Joy feels not at all slight, dashed-off or inferior, launching out on a series of acoustic-rattling, inescapably Syd-Barrett-esque pop tunes whose wonky brevity is a virtue. [Sep 2018, p.93]

A more structured back to basics approach really works for them. [Sep 2018, p.94]

A major step up, until Nas fluffs the rhyme ball spouting credulity-testing conspiracies. [Sep 2018, p.96]

Anderson's playing is simultaneously muscular and relaxed, defiant and heartfelt, a new nomadic American music for her own troubled times. [Jul 2018, p.91]

For all her professed preference for slower, gothically-inclined blues, it's old-time rippers like Sometimes There's Blood or land speed banjo record attempt, Oh, Command Me Lord!, where she really excels--and, critically, excites.[Aug 2018, p.88]

Yet for all the invention and undeniably impressive groove control, there are lulls when their meditative update of '70s fusion stars Lonnie Liston Smith, Herbie Hancock and Roy Ayers slicks into something wallpapery, doodly and unselfconsciously by-numbers. [Aug 2018, p.95]

The result is a dreamlike state of unease and wonder, in which you don't know where you are, or what's coming next. [Aug 2018, p.94]

They sound in rude health to me. [Aug 2018, p.96]

It's a judicious match-up. [Jun 2018, p.96]

Hyper-tense, but worth it. [Aug 2018, p.91]

An album of swooning, soft-lens electronica that is firmly of the Eno/Aphex Twin lineage. [Jul 2018, p.95]

Longstreth still doesn't make it easy on the listener with his frenetic arrangements. But, this time around, the sense of plainly expressed emotions is strong. [Aug 2018, p.91]

[The Trinity Session was] An alt-folk classic--and this might be one too. [Aug 2018, p.93]

Best consumed in small doses. [Aug 2018, p.91]

Sonically rich and lyrically intense. [Aug 2018, p.94]

Sculptor yields centre-stage to Randell's haiku-like celebrations of human spirit and suburban transcendence. [Aug 2018, p.94]

It's hardly news that soft rock and heartache go hand in hand, but Johansing's version is particularly seductive. [Aug 2018, p.89]

Seemingly ramshackle songs with deceptively shrewd arrangements, like the woozy, Beta Band-ish Paper. [Aug 2018, p.96]

A first album since 2006 reflects interim activities. [Aug 2018, p96]

The result is a meditative set full pf surprises, and songs that haunt. [Aug 2018, p.90]

While subsequent albums have traced the faultlines of parenthood, until now on the exquisite Sun On he Square, their teenage kids are leaving home. Everywhere, Peris notes absence. [Aug 2018, p.94]

Tastefully arranged, high-spec country-folk introspection. [Aug 2018, p.96]

Big God runs up and down a subtler emotional scale, while the heartfelt Hunger emphasises Welch's admirable desire to connect. Yet High As Hope often feels like The Greatest Showman for people of drinking age, This Is Me for art students--an affirmation, not a challenge. [Aug 2018, p.88]

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]

As with Daptone's soul projects, the emphasis is on authenticity and integrity and the result is spot-on. [Jun 2018, p.94]

This album was submitted to Radio 1 in lieu of a mix, and in many ways it works better when considered on those terms. Because lots of the tracks have a similar vibe they could blend in perfectly well with each other, and it’s a shame that they don’t overlap at any point as this could have improved the overall experience. However, the album is still immensely enjoyable and generously rewards repeat listens.

There are some hammy moments on Americana Act II, but Davies' status as one of pop's great storytellers endures. [Aug 2018, p.92]

HML offset the filthy turbo riffage with moody atmospherics and surprise left-turns. [Aug 2018, p.94]

More quirks and rough edges would have added tot he thrill, but this is nonetheless a heart-warming set from a cultural treasure. [Aug 2018, p.88]

Not a bad track here, but extra points to The Youngbloods' Get Together and excellent Woody Guthrie's Deportee. [Aug 2018, p.93]

It's a record full of fabulous intros. [Aug 2018, p.100]

A debut proving the universal emotional weight in teenage preoccupation with romance. One to watch. [Aug 2018, p.96]

Sweet, but you couldn't eat a whole one. [Aug 2018, p.96]

The pace occasionally saunters, but this is an ultimately positive exercise in the group's titular "reflection and response." [Aug 2018, p.95]

Big, beautiful new record. [Aug 2018, p.94]

Providence Canyon is one of those brilliantly timeless albums that could have been lost in someone's dusty attic for decades. [Aug 2018, p.93]

Daytona stands loud and proud among Pusha T's best work. [Aug 2018, p.91]

While Maltese's playfulness extends to queasily imagining Theresa May and Donald Trump in flagrante as a nuclear holocaust rages on As The World Caves In, both Less and Less and doomy ballad Mortals prove he can deliver without relying on irony as a crutch. [Aug 2018, p.89]

A beautifully honed vision of an often-harsh landscape. [Aug 2018, p.89]

This is a record that manages to feel both trapped and rootless. [Aug 2018, p.90]

Inspired stuff, though its slightness feels like a tease, and leaves us hungry for more. [Aug 2018, p.88]

There is a levity to Uniform Distortion that differentiates it from all James's previous work. Indeed, work is the last thing it resembles. [Aug 2018, p.86]

If the circus-field antics are superseded by darker, sleeker dance-floor shapes, it remains a volatile, persistently disconcerting record. [Jul 2018, p.93]

A series of near-overwhelming musical epiphanies. [Jul 2018, p.94]

Just when it seems it's an invitation to drift away, Kazuashita sags the attention, demands vigilance; a record of the world, rather than out of it. [Jul 2018, p.95]

An edgy outing vividly redolent of downtown Manhattan--as was--this composed studio transition keeps OC's sawn-off edges intact. [Jul 2018, p.94]

This treads similar terrain [to 2016's Last Days Of Oakland], burrowing into Delta blues, weaving in elements of Leadbelly, Prince-style funk and hip-hop loops. [Jul 2018, p.96]

Parish underscores his composing skills wit these uneasy instrumentals and tight-wound songs. [Jul 2018, p.98]

Mambo Cosmico is largely a carnival of delights. [May 2018, p.95]

A boldly fresh album that veers between lithe wit, sinister landscapes, big choruses and coolly adventurous instrumental arrangements. [Jul 2018, p.90]

A beautiful slice of contemporary singer-songwriter craft that gently nods to their love of Sandy Denny. [May 2018. p.98]

The duo's valiant attempt to circumvent the buzz-kill of pre-meditation can only take them so far, however, and Arthur Buck is not without the odd dud. [Jul 2018, p.89]

It's when Marr stops thinking "big festival rock sound" that this LP shines. ... Ultimately, it's all about the angle of his jangle--ever unimpeachable. [Jul 2018, p.88]

The album has its own voice. [Jul 2018, p.95]

Throughout, she oozes charisma, sophistication and soul. [Jul 2018, p.92]

There are enough off-kilter moments to stop complacency setting in. [Jul 2018, p.90]

This is a sumptuous and personal record capturing universal human themes of hope, fortitude and loss. [Jul 2018, p.95]

The most fun comes, unsurprisingly, on the funkier first side. [Jul 2018, p.93]

It takes awhile to get some traction on these unassuming songs. But once inside it is a strange and enticing world. [Jul 2018, p.95]

So joyful, so tender, so warmly anthemic, its vintage moves are timeless, and irresistible. [Jul 2018, p.89]

Well-crafted third from the south London art pop duo with a playful spirit to match their impeccable post-punk influences. [Jul 2018, p.98]

Heavy with atmosphere, Dream House doesn't disappoint, corralling their genius for cerebral house chicanery, subtle techno and motorik rhythms. [Jul 2018, p.95]

Ultimately, the record triumphs via Rolling Blackouts; deep inhabitation of their music, ans the space of its creation. [Jul 2018, p.92]

Bold emotional directness supplanting gobby perpetual-teen 'tude on a set of soulful urban pop. [Jul 2018, p.98]

This second volume maintains the high standard. [Jul 2018, p.104]

The most striking thing about Listening To Pictures is how effortlessly contemporary it sounds. [Jul 2018, p.94]

A record out of time, and, in terms of quality, out of this world. [Jul 2018, p.91]

It's all imbued with such unhinged energy and genre-skipping abandon that Warmduscher collectively concoct some weird pop voodoo, perhaps best heard on the swampy bastard blues of the title track. [Jul 2018, p.96]

Nothing is off limits, the entire artistic palette is there to be used. And Diawara exploits that uniqueness with aplomb. [Jun 2018, p.92]