Frequently overwhelming yet unconventionally comforting, there's a bebop-style envelope-pushing at work. [Jul 2018, p.95]

Babelsberg is, without doubt, one of the finest expressions so far of Rhys's talent. [Jul 2018, p.90]

A somewhat arid listening experience. [Jul 2018, p.104]

The Future and the Past is a triumph, a coming-of-age that over-delivers on all Prass promised, and suggests limitless skies in answer to where she might go next. [Jul 2018, p.86]

Images both earthy and heavenly make repeated showings, but case's vexing concern is troubled humans. [Jul 2018, p.88]

Eight songs that drift and haunt with layered voice and moody strings. [Jun 2018, p.97]

[The E Street Band] are barely present. Despite the sterile production, it's a vivid portrayal of personal torment, with great songs. ... Human Touch and Lucky Town make sense: the work of a man focused on changing nappies or seeing his therapist. ... In Concert/MTV Plugged confirms, the sacred texts were better served by E Street's idiosyncrasies. [Jul 2018, p.105]

An off-the-mark stab at Nebraska-era Bruce Springsteen vocals casting a grim shadow over what was a slow burning lament. Thankfully, Wildness's remaining portfolio is stuffed with hooky but soul-bruised cuts. [Jul 2018, p.96]

This vital, vintage-sounding hook-up with dusty jazz fiend Ben Lamdin and reggae producer Prince fatty--packed with wilding horns and lurching bass--bridles with unwearied defiance on How Many Bullets, The Music and She Is. [Jul 2018, p.90]

V. creates a sense of space, both mental and physical, as well as the idea of an alternate perception that is the calling card of West Coast psychedelia. [Jun 2018, p.91]

For an artist who is often too much, however, it is just enough. [Jul 2018, p.89]

While the soundscapes offer subtle rewards, lyrics' emotional perseverance takes a toll. [Jul 2018, p.92]

[Sleep] have customarily not rushed into nailing The Sciences, nor departed from their rubric of burroughsian ganja mythspinning, set to eardrum-busting, down-tuned slo-mo jams. [Jul 2018, p.88]

Eight brief fragments in which the ghostly vocal harmonies and echoing piano seem to exist just out of comprehension, as if playing in a distant hall, or half-remembered from a dream. [Jul 2018, p.95]

Self-producing for the first time, Jurado's colour palette retains occasional ornamentation, including orchestration, Wurlitzers and a choir, but his immaculate velvet baritone is more often set in the starker relief of voice/guitar basics. [Jul 2018, p.93]

It's still raining in Ray's heart, but this is radiant stuff. [Jul 2018, p.92]

Williamson outlines her personal mythology; as a lover, a daughter and, by the closing Piano Love, a future mother, via songs sung in a resonant, often Patti Smith-like voice, over a heat haze backing of Rhodes piano and guitar. [Jul 2018, p.90]

She repeatedly refers to her inability to express her emotions fully--which is exactly how Dirty Computer leaves you feeling. [Jul 2018, p.88]

Its sprawling, ambient techno is a sensory overload of submerged beats, like windscreen wipers during drizzle, over which drift icy phrases and fragments. [Jul 2018, p.95]

Lattimore's deftly played, sometimes heavily processed concert grand harp unfurls mellifluously against yearning keyboard ambiences to generate immersive, natural world-inspired soundscapes. [Jul 2018, p.96]

Eldritch psych-folk that recalls Meg Baird's work in Espers. [Jul 2018, p.98]

Songs of promise, resilience and the occasional unpredictable turn. [Jul 2018, p.98]

A misbegotten romance plays out across the album in disturbing, always enthralling fashion. [Jul 2018, p.98]

Many sure-footed, instantly memorable songs. [Jun 2018, p.88]

Country-soul songs full of warmth and comfort. [Jun 2018, p.97]

It's deliciously hauntingly odd. [May 2018, p.93]

Old and new, sweet and sharp, Welcome strangers holds you in an ambiguous, but utterly enchanting, embrace. [Jun 2018, p.90]

There, is, alas, something much more formulaic sounding about All That I have Left, but for at least 42 of its 46 minutes, Islands is an invigorating place to be marooned. [Jun 2018, p.94]

This ambitious record loses subtlety in the grand Springsteen-ish gestures of songs like Just For Tonight. Bay fares better with the looped, crunchy soul and more nuanced lyrics of Fade Out and Slide. [Jun 2018, p.95]

Their easy familiarity is evident throughout The Siren's Song, with its beautiful mix of of Kacy's crystalline vocals and Clayton's inventive, deep-groove country guitar. [Jun 2018, p.91]

Dance AM and Triangles carve a deep motorik opener; then rave euphoria and swoony breakdowns trail Lyubov Soloveva's vocals. [Jun 2018, p.97]

A superbly crafted reiteration of Walker's aesthetic, with the Chicago scene influences of 2016's Golden Sings That Have Been Sung given greater prominence. [Jun 2018, p.90]

It's an all-instrumental, but through eight focused tracks bringing to mind the non-vocal aspects of Eno's Another Green World, Vini Reilly at his most hard-edged, and mid-period Popul Vuh. [Jun 2018, p.91]

As well as blending linguistic elegance and musical levity, Sparkle Hard affirms Stephen Malkmus's increasingly contemplative approach. [Jun 2018, p.94]

Built on Phair's self-taught chording and a melodic sense of rich DIY potency, these compelling narratives blossom into a transfixing (and profane) particularity. [Jun 2018, p.102]

Cooder magnificent way with bottleneck on steel is often in evidence, while his son Joachim's percussion-rich soundscapes with loped and sampled elements help contemporise his dad's inherently rootsy sound. [Jun 2018, p.90]

The group have been honing their craft for over 20 years and all their trademarks can be found here. [Jun 2018, p.96]

An album that's warm, honest, awash with tuneage, never corny, and really rather marvellous. [Jun 2018, p.95]

Unsurprisingly, it flies the Wire and Minutemen flags high. More surprising are the occasional nods to funk and '60s bubblegum. [Jun 2018, p.95]

The group's double-messages coalesce most finely on the few occasions they pause for ballads, like th aching I Can Change. But the nostalgic melodicism, and relentless pep, of the rest will thrill even those who miss what lies below. [Jun 2018, p.91]

Pay No Mind plays appealingly like The Jesus And Mary Chain slowed to 16 rpm. Then, just as you're settling into drowsy twilight, out of nowhere, a lyric smacks like citrus on the tongue. [Jun 2018, p.89]

Panic Blooms generates fond memories of a recent past. [Jun 2018, p.89]

All in all, the Monkeys' sixth long-player is a bold move. [Jun 2018, p.95]

While still connected to soul's sacred wellspring, frames his artisanal songcraft in more modernist settings. [Jun 2018, p.95]

While a little slavish in worship of her influences, these seven icy near-instrumentals conjure a gripping imaginary thriller in the mind, their glacial electronic melodies underpinned by taut rhythms. [Jun 2018, p.89]

Upbeat episodes are outweighed by melancholic drama. [Jun 2018, p.88]

The magic of DJ Koze lies in the unique complex musical terroir he's built. [May 2018, p.93]

Meticulously constructed, yet with melodies and rhythms born out of improvisation, it's an album of two halves, moving from euphoric collapse to an uncertain contentment. [Jun 2018, p.89]

It's often a mess, but to witness he process is genuinely exhilarating. [Jun 2018, p.88]

Morrison elevates his game on a set weighted equally between blues standards and visits to his own back catalogue. [Jun 2018, p.91]

What remarkable about the Roxy recordings, though, is the focus an power of the Santa Monica Flyers. ... The live performances a few days later are more robust, without diminishing the wired ambience. [Jun 2018, p.103]

Friedberger's finest solo album to date. ... Supple, elastic, and in forward motion, it loses nothing in translation. Vibrate, resonate. [Jun 2018, p.86]

The vignettes pack enough detail and emotion to work as well in short fiction form. [Jun 2018, p.97]

Young's soundtrack to his partner's film is similarly random, but when it hits the right mark, it too dazzles. [Jun 2018, p.88]

No. 4 is a warmer, more cohesive work than 2015's No. 3. [Jun 2018, p.93]

Reassuringly autumnal, it drifts by with the grace of a soaring kite. [Jun 2018, p.88]

It's pleasant enough, but suffers for not taking songs places they've never been. [May 2018, p.98]

Feels like a belated sequel to Laraaji/Eno's 1980 Day If Radiance. [Jun 2018, p.97]

There's little dry about old guy jokes. [Jun 2018, p.97]b

At once brooding and beautiful. [Jun 2018, p.97]

It doesn't all work; but when it does, it's wonderfully widescreen. [Jun 2018, p.96]

Most of the songs are observations from an emotional distance. [Jun 2018, p.96]

Kindness sees Andrews play the traditional diva, brilliantly so on the swelling, epic title track. Elsewhere, shadowed by atmospheric tremolo guitar and elements of Memphian soul, Andrews injects Americana archetypes with tenderness and empathy. [Jun 2018, p.96]

Keith's surreal wordplay has one leg planted firmly in the future, ensuring Dr. Octagon is still one of a kind. [Jun 2018, p.96]

The Messthetics is a short set, long on detail. [Jun 2018, p.94]

Loner is the sound of her undoubted talent turned feral. It's a wonderful, rollicking beast. [Jun 2018, p.94]

Slowly Paradise are slow love songs, but slow love songs that, thanks to Chenaux's playing, suggest an impermanence at the heart of all romance, a chaos at life's core. [Jun 2018, p.93]

Admirably obtuse, Slug put the odd into prog odyssey with style. [Jun 2018, p.93]

Young weaves 11 modern blues of frail longing around backwards guitar, mumbling bass and homemade percussion, his chanted lyrics like pale fragile spells for escaping the 21st century. [Jun 2018, p.93]

How she continues to turn apparent whimsy into profundity borders on the miraculous. [Jun 2018, p.92]

It's never morbid, but mortality is a running theme. [Jun 2018, p.91]

Highlights include Richard Youngs' wistful Summer's Edge, with Sugden deadpan amid a splashing keyboard fountain. [May 2018, p.97]

This is continuing proof that the 42-year-old Gaz Coombes's best work is happening in the here and now. [May 2018, p.90]

The 11-song tracklist forgoes perennials such as Touch Me I'm Sick for lesser-spotted nuggets like Fuzzgun '91, a splenetic thrash through Roxy Music's Editions Of You and the Heart-sore epic Broken Hands. [Feb 2018, p.90]

A stylish, stoned variant of leftfield R&B in quick-fire bursts, exhibiting pop smarts, sojourns into shimmering, skewed house. [Apr 2018, p.91]

There's no high concept, just 12 pop songs that sound as if the pair decided to down tools the moment working ion them felt like work. [May 2018, p.90]

His latest sounds like the product of a much-needed rethink, bracketed by two cosmically speculating slowies: the opening, sparkling title track documents its author's self-fulfilling quest to mine a deeper instinctual creativity, while closer No Man's Land has a wide-eyed romanticism, evoking Mercury Rev. [May 2018, p.93]

While these tales may have been found in far-flung places, they all ultimately belong to the same deep tradition--and one where unvarnished simplicity enhances the material's uncanny potential. [May 2018, p.94]

Find A Light breaks down the distance between dexterous Southern rock and country brilliantly on songs like Best Seat In The House and Run Away From It All. If they have a weakness this time around, it's occasional lapses in quality control. [May 2018, p.91]

The Straight Hits! is front-loaded with positivist rockers, but these are ramshackle. ... The second half mercifully reverts to Pearson's true calling as a funereal balladeer; even then, the transition's too jarring to cohere to the conceptual/titular framework. [May 2018, p.90]

Rather than a showcase for their collaborators, however, MOM take the greatest of liberties with these sound sources, fragmenting and processing them into unrecognizable forms, and even occasionally playing them straight. [May 2018, p.

This album has been well worth the wait. [May 2018, p.91]

Joy Division, Suicide and JAMC collide for a post-punk racket: ear-splitting and sublimely desolate. [May 2018, p.98]

On the third Uni long-player--a series designed, unlike his starker glitch compositions, to work in dance clubs--the 52-yar-old's signature techno pulses and liminal keyboard clouds enmesh with comparative generosity. [May 2018, p.93]

It's a warm and heartfelt album. [May 2018, p.97]

It's a mixed bag. ... Until Hot Chip's mothership heaves back into view, Taylor's emotive, immersive solo output will tide things over nicely. [May 2018, p.93]

The results are terrific, harking back to The Black Album and Strawberries, with lots of Phantasmagoria-like gothic pop and '60s-via'80s garage a la Naz Nomad. [May 2018, p.96]

It all shines a light on Cash's enduring artistry. [May 2018, p.94]

Can't deny his range (hip-hop, disco, acoustic picking) or songwriting, but voice and lyrics lack depth. [May 2018, p.98]

TLICTFIR finds Wye Oak reaching new heights of sophistication. [May 2018, p.96]

This is LaVette's album, start to finish: heterodox song choices, rearranged verses, tweaked lyrics--none of it gratuitous. [May 2018, p.90]

Amid all the bleakness and despair, Goulden emerges as a true shining light. [May 2018, p.92]

Multi-Love's frequently tremendous follow-up. [May 2018, p.92]

Beneath the surface sheen, Resistance Is Futile is a complex, multi-layer work. [May 2018, p.88]

Another Eels album--the 12th!--to treasure. [May 2018, p.94]

Dracula simmers like The War On Drugs, and Calling Paul The Suffering has Latino touches, while Blue Rose dresses Greenwich Village rock in Fleetwood Mac silk. [May 2018, p.96]

Brion's 3/4 step-step micro-cues--for Greta Gerwig's perfect comedy drama--come with the necessary sprinkling of inexplicable sadness. [Apr 2018, p.89]

A provocative, anti-establishment critique of the blind idolatry received by the British monarchy and finds each of the nine tracks paying homage to Hutchings' list of notable women that he believes are worthy alternative monarchs. [Apr 2018, p.87]