Laveaux may have set out to rediscover Caribbean roots, but she also underlines how much the islands influenced the early rock'n'roll and soul that emanated from New Orleans ... but with the modernist sheen of France's A.L.B.E.R.T production team. [Apr 2018, p.94]

Bursting with invention, energy and occasionally cheesy synths.[May 2018, p.95]

With smart synths and Young's wry lyricism ensuring a contemporary edge to their retro-leanings, Combat Sports is fizzy fun that won't rot your teeth. [May 2018, p.91]

[The] band's fine third album. [May 2018, p.92]

The sounds here do at times recall territories previously mapped by Brian and RD James, with or without MDMA, but Song For Alpha still makes for an electronic listening album of particular quality. [May 2018, p.93]

An album whose drawn-out grooves spiral seductively like dandelion clocks in the breeze. [May 2018, p.93]

Another star turn for soprano Lavinia Blackwall. [May 2018, p.98]

Many of these 25 short pieces are rich in layered melody and texture, and full of primary coloured sonics. [May 2018, p.94]

A fourth album of brisk Saharan grooves, heavy jamming and trance percussion. [May 2018, p.98]

Ndegeocello's covers album comprises wonderful takes on R&B and soul. [May 2018, p.98]

Second time out, they've all but eradicated the gauzy abstractions, in favour of a cards-on-table, powerpop sound, which, i tandem with impressive melodic directness, should make them on e of 2018's hastiest crossover bands. [May 2018, p.90]

It's a generous and potent fix of Pollard eccentricity. [Apr 2018, p.94]

Good-natured guitar pop from Brighton-via-California by a young all-male quartet with a flair or radio-ready melodies. [Apr 2018, p.96]

Nothing fundamental has changed, the attack is just more scrupulous. ... Hot Snakes' caustic, erudite commentary is more welcome than ever. [Apr 2018, p.88]

Instead of a bona fide entry in either band's catalogue, chalk this up as a Dungen sidebar. [Apr 2018, p.89]

This is an album restless in its search for the new, the sound of White's reinvention in progress, scorching the Earth in anticipation of what might follow. If it misfires on occasion, it's certainly never dull. And if it never quite reaches its destination, it's still quite a ride. [Apr 2018, p.84]

Any sketchiness only adds to the impressionistic atmospheres that the musicians create. [Apr 2018, p.93]

The climax of Tumast is a trance0drone masterpiece that the band would be foolish not to stretch to its limits in concert. Only closer Ma S-Abok suggests there is a comedown side to the Saharan psychedelia. [Apr 2018, p.93]

Politically astute, philosophical and profound, Ty's comeback is a tad too long, but only because he cares. [Apr 2018, p.92]

It's to their credit, though, that this album's uncertain focus works with them, thickening the plot, rather than losing it. [Apr 2018, p.89]

While there is an absorbing, hypnotic quality to droning songs like Twilight Zone, the exceptional thrash of We're Tired Of It offers proof that a few more gear changes would have been welcome. [Apr 2018, p.91]

There's nothing here inviting enough to really convince floating voters, but Editors continue to thrive in their own dark universe. [Apr 2018, p.90]

Miranda's unwieldy new album comes across as showcasing unreconciled viewpoints. [Apr 2018, p.94]

This 18th LP is their finest since '90's Painkiller. [Apr 2018, p.96]

The Decemberists' ace and absorbing eighth album is rather more traditionalist than they're letting on. [Apr 2018, p.88]

Grant sets aside his personal dramas for more absurd theatrical antics. [Apr 2018, p.92]

The Night Sweats' woozy, loose grooves are hypnotising and are perfect accompaniment to Rateliff's gravel-worn rasp. [Apr 2018, p.94]

This promises to be a hard one to beat for fire and fury. Fela would be very proud. [Apr 2018, p.92]

With a shrewd selection of material by the likes of Tom Waits, Josh Ritter, Eliza Gilkyson, Mary Chapin Carpenter, Anohni and Zoe Milford, some effectively subtle, engagingly tasteful arrangements and an immaculate production by Joe Henry, it all sounds of the day for the day. [Apr 2018, p.95]

Thai guitar, Saharan rock give a focus and momentum; a groove underpinning the bracing freeform racket. [Apr 2018, p.96]

A mixed bag all round. [Apr 2018, p.91]

Byrne filters grace, wonder and apocalyptic portent through his fractured worldview. [Apr 2018, p.95]

Even the less bristling episodes feel luminous and ecstatic, but mostly the magnificent Historian thrives on tension. [Apr 2018, p.94]

Overall this is vivid testimony to art's elevating power. [Apr 2018, p.102]

This new project from Shearwater's Jonathan Meiburg signals serious sonic intent but wears its experiments lightly. [Apr 2018, p.96]

it's uncompromising stuff, but these unsung horrors are unsung no more. [Apr 2018, p.92]

Album four reverts to their initial template of hyper-melodic, lyrically skewed, synth-pop. ... Back on form. [Apr 2018, p.87]

The result is an album that goes far beyond emulation or pastiche to capture the emotional heart of a strange and elusive film, soaring from rapturous highs to quiet, introspective lows, vital romantic life undercut by a melancholy twilight sadness. [Apr 2018, p.89]

Cocoa Sugar is an audacious high-wire act which captures them at a potent peak. [Apr 2018, p.91]

The slightly muted beats across Record suggest the memory of good times, but the joyous flash of self-recognition on Dancefloor shows they are far from over. [Apr 2018, p.95]

Mimicking the band's whole existence, it flickers between light and shade, its clouds fast-moving, sunshine blotted out before it breaks through. [Apr 2018, p.88]

All told, Dead Magic is Hausswolff's finest work to date; a record of remarkable potency and intent. [Apr 2018, p.87]

Rare Birds unpacks a wealth of sonic detail. In the best way, this feels like a record you could lose yourself in for months. [Apr 2018, p.87]

The album suffers whenever excess creeps in. [Apr 2018, p.88]

Allison's verge-of-tears delivery is another sign that Clean's grown-up vibe can't hide the vulnerable teen within. [Apr 2018, p.94]

Only final track, The Way Our Lives Go, a slowish ballad, counts as a surprising divergence from the template. [Mar 2018, p.95]

A record whose maker has poured his life into it. [Apr 2018, p.95]

The best moments come when the duo break out of their languid comfort zone, as on the breezy Feel Your Weight and dynamic Phoenix. [Mar 2018, p.90]

This imaginative collaboration reveals itself as a ghostly and brooding collection with a healthy dappling of rainbow-bright harmonies. [Apr 2018, p.89]

This fifth album, produced by Dan Auerbach in his Nashville studio, captures The Clams' girl group sound with soulful feeling. [Apr 2018, p.92]

Literary, rockin' and still pathologically possessed of above-par tunes. [Apr 2018, p.96]

Occasionally, delicate folktronica beauty mixes dreamy acoustic music with intense, layered electronics, while at others, the ambient wash leaves so little to focus on it's hard not to wonder if they didn't simply fall asleep in the studio. [Apr 2018, p.95]

The Liminanas have returned all their favours by creating a blast of colourful psychedelia. [Apr 2018, p.93]

Clever and very subtle grown-up electronic pop that beats with a broken heart. [Mar 2018, p.93]

Peppered with succinct instrumentals, Three/Three switches styles with impunity, smudging the lines between old and new. [Mar 2018, p.93]

Here, Saunders marks out her own terrain, seeing how far she can go forward, and how far back. [Apr 2018, p.91]

Nothing prehistoric about the latest Buffalo Tom: this is the golden sound of a band in their element. [Apr 2018, p.90]

Cute, but tiring over a whole LP. [Apr 2018, p.96]

At their best melodically, Artificial lopes on Pornography-era Cure beats to a rousing Interpol angst chorus. Further on through, the various '82-91 moves become too familiar and the mood of despond too oppressive. [Apr 2018, p.95]

These are exotic lullabies which, superficial cosiness notwithstanding, lead only to nocturnal anxiety. [Apr 2018, p.91]

A second album that's brimming with pop hooks and instantly memorable choruses. [Apr 2018, p.96]

Peaks on Witchcraft, a perfect Bikini Kill-Pendle Witch coven induction song. [Apr 2018, p.96]

These six new tracks flow neatly on from those recorded for Tche Belew 40 years before. [Mar 2018, p.95]

Everything Is Recorded has its sublime moments, but despite a pervasive post-tricky hip-hop nocturnalism and some loopy-interlude glue sprinkled through, it's just too disparate to cohere into a compelling whole. [Mar 2018, p.92]

[The EPs] bring together the best of both sides of Belle And Sebastian: the innocence and experience, if you will. [Feb 2018, p.92]

It's when they change gear, on the likes of Old Stuff, New Glass, which goes into a funk workout reminiscent of ESG, or on the Orange Juice-flavoured likes of 48 Percent or Blue Suitcase (Disco Wrist)--whose reverb and chiming guitars leans towards post-punk idea of reggae--that The Orielles excel. [Mar 2018, p.97]

This is a raw and acutely personal document. [Mar 2018, p.93]

A poignant reminder of a talent that may have gone forever. [Mar 2018, p.102]

GoGo Penguin build on its momentum with the most insistent distillation of their potent brand of piano-driven melody and groove. [Mar 2018, p.91]

The arrival of his first child and Trumpism, shadowed by a friend's death, have filled Brighter Wounds with heightened bliss and anxiety. [Mar 2018, p.94]

It's beautiful throughout, but more ice or fire is sometimes required. [Mar 2018, p.91]

Not least of the record's triumphs is its vindication of a band at its peak even after all these years. [Mar 2018, p.94]

This new 11-song album is dense, almost joyous with sound, instruments all jostling for space--guitar, banjo, drums, horns. [Jan 2018, p.90]

[the Lost Brothers] are most at home in melancholy autumnal folk-lands. [Feb 2018, p.99]

With some lyrics on the utilitarian side of blunt, it lack the younger Jobson's poetic delusions, but and elegiac title track, shimmering Refugee and Kings Of The New World Order's halcyon riffola are all powerful statements worthy of the Skids legend. [Feb 2018, p.96]

The Cumbrian art-rockers go out on this crisp, thoroughly engaging high: a live in the studio, Boy King-heavy stroll through some of their big-hitters recorded at RAK in London over two days last summer. [Mar 2018, p.96]

Like the original, Twin Fantasy 2017 transports us to a unique and fully formed world, where this time the physical geography is still more affecting. [Mar 2018, p.96]

Protest and dissent rarely sounds less strident than on Widdershins, but any resistance to the dark tide is an inherently good thing. [Mar 2018, p.96]

Forget Me Not may echo Dancing In The Dark's intro, but it's bouncy energy is pure Ready Steady Go!, while the crisp, finger-poppin' stomp of If Your Prayers Don't Get To Heaven evokes gospel-tinged Motown. ... However, an ensuing sequence of stodgy ballads and grunty blue-collar rockers kill that aspiration, underscored by dreary production from Ted Hutt. [Mar 2018, p.92]

The alert and taut Always Ascending restores theband's original pop kinesis and then some. It is by far and away their most interesting offering since that debut album. [Mar 2018, p.92]

RRD's tempo is beatific, fingerpicked guitar and violin cresting sweetly, though some fervent moments provide real highlights. [Mar 2018, p.90]

An album of quite magnificent mardiness. [Mar 2018, p.94]

Throughout, Joan still sounds as bewitched, bothered and bewildered by love, a timeless sensation that transcends digital intervention. [Mar 2018, p.94]

His seventh album vibrates with fear, rage and fierce defiance. [Mar 2018, p.92]

Resolve puts her comfortably on par with neo-classical giant Nils Frahm, Max Richter and Hauschka. [Mar 2018, p.93]

Sonically never less than knowingly enormous, but concise at eight tracks, Walk Between Worlds is sure and strong. [Mar 2018, p.91]

There are moments when Craft's melodies don't punch quite so hard as his striking, road-less0trodden imagery. [Mar 2018, p.90]

Oh My smacks less of a one-off project, more of the opening chapter in a narrative which could dominate its participant's future. [Mar 2018, p.94]

An unusual yet utterly coherent balance of tenderness and euphoria, vulnerability and invention. [Mar 2018, p.96]

The lows arrive all too often. [Mar 2018, p.97]

Field Music's most ambitious album yet. ... A consummate success. [Feb 2018, p.88]

An impressive album, fulled with songs that often hark back to familiar strains but offer compensation in their lyric content. [Mar 2018, p.97]

Restraint is key here, and ichaelson's very English version of Americana is a career pinnacle. [Feb 2018, p.96]

This terrific follow-up [to 2016's Hold On] captures the sparks again, and there are plenty of them. [Mar 2018, p.97]

Their second album is a delicate collection that welcomes you back into their magical world. [Mar 2018, p.95]

If he wasn't there already, Freedom's Goblin puts Segall in the very top flight of late-'teens rock contenders. [Mar 2018, p.90]

While the incredibly kinetic South Central LA rapper's second album wins no prizes for originality, it's a relentlessly fun listen. [Mar 2018, p.93]

Vessel Of Love is her most vital work to date. [Mar 2018, p.91]