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]

Goat Girl's vision is as unique as an oily fingerprint, their confidence dizzying, and richly justified. [May 2018, p.90]

Musselwhite's bittersweet harmonica offers plaintive asides to 10 Harper-penned tunes, the most potent of which is Nothing At All, a solemn waltz-time ballad. Elsewhere, the material ranges from rough-hewn country blues to swaggering Muddy Waters-esque message songs. [May 2018, p.95]

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]