Songwriter Darnielle expertly renders the acute emotions of adopting a new tribe and the resignation that life often forces. [Jun 2017, p.89]

A classy and elegant piece of work. [Jun 2017, p.93]

Super Natural is a wholly visceral experience, plugging into the same socket that animated Jerry Lee Lewis back in '57. [Jun 2017, p.92]

One tiny complaint: the original tapes were intended as complete listening experiences, immersive acts of prayer with transportive qualities of a religious or psychedelic experience. For the time being, this is just a taste of the full bewitching trip. [Jun 2017, p.102]

A grand sweep of material that shows their evolutionary flights and remarkable consistency. [Jun 2017, p.98]

Brass blasts and strings reveal cinematic vistas. [Jun 2017, p.95]

Modern Kosmology is every bit as good as its predecessor. [Jun 2017, p.90]

Rosewood Almanac more than transcends its influences. [Jun 2017, p.93]

An album that ranks among his finest work, not just for its strident messages of hope, but also for simply possessing such a high quotient of unimpeachable songs. [Jun 2017, p.84]

Halo digs deep into the unknown and bring back unexpected brilliance. [Jun 2017, p.93]

Unfortunately, Afterglow further embraces, and is overshadowed by, his influences. [Jun 2017, p.91]

Gloomy, seductive avant folk-blues. [Jun 2017, p.95]

A home-recorded collection of covers that roams joyfully (but not too joyfully) through six decades of songs. [Jun 2017, p.94]

A fuzzed-up Pixies-worthy melodic high. [Jun 2017, p.95]

Less niche cartoon-rave abroad, more classic-rock and baggy/disco. [Jun 2017, p.86]

Joan Shelley has a trick, at least, of making time disappear, her stately clear voice a rock at which the world flings itself in vain. [Jun 2017, p.86]

This is intended to be the lighter of the two albums although the stylistic differences aren't great. [Jun 2017, p.91]

The changing seasons--and death--haunt This Old Dog without ever hamstringing its perfectly weighted, sometimes deceptively chipper grooves. [Jun 2017, p.94]

An altogether more positive attempt to commune with nature. [Jun 2017, p.88]

A heady, volatile brew that, in these emboldened settings, have the makings of anthems. [Jun 2017, p.92]

A deeper return to that midnight shade of soul frontman Greg Dulli long ago made his own. The grungy tenor of the previous album is now mostly absent. [Jun 2017, p.94]

Slowdive is a surprisingly joyous return to the fray. [May 2017, p.90]

This is reflective country pop with a Van Zandt-ish warmth and wisdom. [May 2017, p.98]

Their ninth studio album is simultaneously more cosmic and conceptual than earlier efforts. [Jun 2017, p.89]

At the heart of Continuum and Incurably innocent are untamed pop melodies that writhe like snapped power-lines, while berserk closer Hostage Stamps is a glorious collision of Jane's Addiction, Minor Threat and Mahavishnu Orchestra. [Jun 2017, p.91]

It's on the Mellencamp/Carter duets Indigo Sunset and the tough, self-questioning What Kind Of Man Am I that it all shifts up a gear. [Jun 2017, p.93]

The sounds of surrounding life collaborating with art. [Jun 2017, p.86]

Wildly imaginative music. [Jun 2017, p.92]

Miraculously, the whole thing is given a neat completness by John Congleton's slick, electro-rock production. [Jun 2017, p.92]

A more sophisticated Harry Nilsson-like groove, but still keeping those Music City roots. [Jun 2017, p.95]

Sanborn's relentless modernism occasionally overwhelms Meath's sumptuous keening vocal and serpentine melodies. [Jun 2017, p.94]

The result is tender, powerful avant-rock to shake the walls. [Jun 2017, p.94]

Outlaw doesn't deliver six-pack sagas, instead he offers Bottomless Mimosas as a morning pick-me-up. [Jun 2017, p.93]

There's an appealing stealth and positivity to Ron's writing here. [Jun 2017, p.91]

Clever and cool, Season High is a career high. [Jun 2017, p.90]

A record that is demanding and compelling, though often beautiful. [Jun 2017, p.90]

Grand intermeshing spinneys of lush ambient sound, distant pounding beats, lonesome horns and glimpsed shadows of melody that hint at Beethoven, Mozart and older Teutonic ghosts. [Jun 2017, p.89]

Mulcahy follows the songs through rock, jazz and indie pop, from opening lullaby Stuck On Something Else to the Robert Wyatt-esque Geraldine, a rare and wise treat from an underrated songwriter. [Jun 2017, p.89]

It's soulful, spiritually questing--pretty much irresistible, too. [Jun 2017, p.88]

A boundlessly inventive and occasionally quite bonkers record that draws heavily on the input of its myriad guests. [Jun 2017, p.88]

Evilly powerful, filmic and flowing. [Jun 2017, p.88]

It's A Myth is like a musical Mondrian painting: all bold lines and defined patterns effortlessly delivered, but oblique and enigmatic too. [Jun 2017, p.87]

There are good songs here, but it sometimes sounds like Sheryl is trying too hard to turn back the clock. [Jun 2017, p.87]

A solid 11-song set. [May 2017, p.92]

A hugely enjoyable whole. After a fortnight's heavy rotation, it has yet to reveal its fatal flaw. [May 2017, p.89]

A return to fundamentals closest in kin to Lamar’s 2012 debut, proving that, questionable sleeve design aside, he’s in imperious form.

A record to welcome the morning light as it seeps through chinks in the curtain. [May 2017, p.91]

Both the rabbit hole ride of Comanche Moon and reverb-laden panic attack Death March--two highlights--could have been released at any point in the last half century. [May 2017, p.89]

Not as humorous as 2Bears nor as wistful as Hot Chip, here Goddard further explores the potency of the danncefloor combined with intelligent, leftfield pop. [May 2017, p.92]

Exactly the sort of angry rebel rock you want from a band with their backs it the walls and foes on all sides. [Apr 2017, p.96]

There's peace and a wild purity to it. [May 2017, p.92]

The coherent Volume 1 sounds like a Midlake-as-such album: a more direct follow-up to 2013's Antiphon. [May 2017, p.89]

Americana shows a man still writing to find out his place in the world. He's seen it all, he's seen through it all, but there's still open road ahead. There's no better adventure than that. [May 2017, p.86]

It's intensely personal. [May 2017, p.88]

Their sixth album doesn't veer too wildly from it [their MO]--lashing Krautrock grooves to a broad cross-section of dance music tropes, and embellished with Best's labuorous, conversational vocal style. [May 2017, p.91]

Shimmering, lounge-pop gives a velvet backdrop to fluent, Dylan-ish vernacular sung with flawless mitteleuropa cool. [May 2017, p.98]

Too much of this double album plods. [May 2017, p.98]

Occasionally things get laboured or dull; still, a powerful new direction. [Apr 2017, p.93]

There's a bit of power ballad journeying but taut pop hooks aplenty too. [May 2017, p.98]

Threat levels peak on Sewer Blues' ominous, John Carpenter reverberation. [May 2017, p.98]

The sound they conjure is often heavenly. [May 2017, p.95]

When the songs are this well-crafted, we'll be back again. [May 2017, p.88]

It's clever, funny, confrontational and touching. [May 2017, p.94]

Eventually Janka Nabay's updating of Sierra Leone's bubu beats gets under the skin. [May 2017, p.95]

The results present a dense mesh of disparate tempos, hypnotic rhythms and passages of glittering beauty. [Apr 2017, p.97]

The limits of comfort zones are not breached. [May 2017, p.89]

If previous Body Count efforts wobbled close to self-parody, Bloodlust nail-guns the impending doom of post-truth Trump America with incision. [May 2017, p.92]

Her impact remains astounding, but a The Sporting Life-style left-turn is long overdue. [May 2017, p.95]

The geo-political subtext only adds gravity to Foon's already compellingly brooding soundscapes. [Apr 2017, p.95]

This solo debut sits her ripe, occasionally darkly brooding voice--Rachel Sweet with a hatchet--against grungy country and knowing '60s vibes. [Apr 2017, p.93]

With an occasional propensity for mindless wigouts slightly curbed, it's windswept anthems a-go-go on their best album for years. [May 2017, p.96]

Pure Comedy is quite some trip and one that lifts Father John Misty to another level altogether. [May 2017, p.93]

A must for fans of either protagonist, plus devotees of classic Todd Rundgren and Ween. [May 2017, p.94]

Woodwind, thumb piano, ocarina and analogue synths uncannily evokes the funny, sad fairytale world of Sniff, Toft, Moominpappa and gang. [Apr 2017, p.93]

It's obvious that the Chicago-born, multi-instrumentalist bluesman is about to add yet another Blues Music Award nomination to his already impressive tally. [May 2017, p.96]

Lyrics with thematic substance are complemented by fine tunes. [Apr 2017, p.93]

Triplicate lacks the revelatory impact of Shadows In The Night. And you always wish there was more light, inside these pocket-size arrangements. ... But this kind of immersion--in folk, blues or Sinatra--has always been serious business and rejuvenation to him: looking for answers and a way forward in a pasture of plenty. [May 2017, p.90]

A perfect starting place for Holter neophytes, In The Same Room doesn't really add much to her extant discography. [Apr 2017, p.96]

The foundations--the Latin rhythm section--remain solid, and wandering freely around is saxophonist Issa Cissoko, who, spiritually and musically, is to Baobab what Keith is to the Stones and Bez to the Mondays. Still a bit special. [May 2017, p.95]

The latest dispatch carries on its immediate predecessors' good work with familiar Wire tropes all in place. [Apr 2017, p.91]

Jo Bevan declaims like Siouxsie leading The Smiths, on fevered melodies worthy of a band named after a Cure rarity. [May 2017, p.98]

Mostly You Had Me At Goodbye is an artist stretching out and eagerly grasping a whole new world, one that she should easily conquer. [May 2017, p.94]

Greene here pulls together abstract R&B, twisted 2-step and crunching house, skillfully adopting vocal techniques employed by his heroes, Masters At Work. [May 2017, p.91]

Instrumental rhythms and all manner of sound effects are used to colour in these morbidly compelling stories. [Apr 2017, p.90]

Intriguing debut. ... A surfeit of vocals is distracting. [May 2017, p.98]

Wonky fuzz-pop duo from Leeds weird out a little on follow-up to 2015's Ratworld. [May 2017, p.98]

Shrieky-voiced, Jad fair-esque solo set of mid-70s Bowery oddball punk. [May 2017, p.98]

The odd head-snapping moodswing, a la Nick Cave, can jar. [May 2017, p.98]

What lets her down is a pair of English songs--beautifully sung, but the material is unforgivably weak. [May 2017, p.95]

Occasionally infuriating when great ideas are cast aside indiscriminately, Wolf's vision remains undimmed. [May 2017, p.92]

A spectacular lift-off, but Owens' career apogee sounds a long way off yet. [May 2017, p.91]

While Drunk is occasionally muso brinkmanship there's a human touch that grounds it. [May 2017, p.91]

John Talabot and Axel Boman share a rep for expressive, expansive rhythms aimed at forward-thinking dancefloors--music that can stand in its own right, away from the club. Thrust together, it's an approach that the Catalan/Swedish twosome maintain. [May 2017, p.91]

Covers include The Four Tops' Loving You Is Sweeter Than Ever cooked into greasy Southern soul, and the title track, where, backed by Derek Trucks on slide guitar, she delivers the hymnal straight. [May 2017, p.96]

Future Islands still sound thrillingly marginal, people standing on an emotional faultline, waiting to be swallowed up. [May 2017, p.94]

Silver Eye shows mo loss of conviction, a dense, meditative collection that explores cosmic mysteries and natural wonders without any wispiness. [May 2017, p.92]

A compelling consistency of mood makes Metal Illness easy to get lost in. [May 2017, p.94]

This is Mastodon rediscovering both their edge and their emotional resonance. [May 2017, p.96]