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]

Throwing down a persuasive gauntlet, opener Undying Love For Humanity is all breezy percussion, percolating synths, chiming vibraphones and complex, wordless backing vocal arrangements--a sunny, tropicalia-like setting for Sadier's typically liquid delivery of lyrics. [Apr 2017, p.97]

It's Flynn's warmest outing so far. [Apr 2017, p.98]

Lovely. [Apr 2017, p.96]

A familiar narrative, perhaps, but rendered with uniquely mordant wit. [Apr 2017, p.91]

It's been a long journey, but Spiral Stairs has finally found his voice. [Apr 2017, p.90]

Finn is still writing wordy story songs, but the breathing space elevates those words. [Apr 2017, p.97]

This disc is bloated with anti-matter sing-alongs to savour. [Apr 2017, p.98]

Much of With You Tonight lacks vim and will likely have vacated your memory by tomorrow. [Mar 2017, p.90]

Halfway through, 39-year-old Jose James undergoes an astonishing transformation via the infectiously funky, Pharrell-esque, dance cuts Live Your Life, and Ladies Man, where he convincingly morphs onto a get-down disco dude. [Mar 2017, p.92]

The street-wise intellect certainly lets his slightly off-pitched voice do most of the heavy-lifting over the stuttering spacey synthetics, phased keys and warped Rhodes of B-Roc's atmospheric production. [Apr 2017, p.95]

The lyrics tackle domestic violence, female genital mutilation, forced marriage and proceeds go to charity--but if all you care about is the sound it's still terrific. [Apr 2017, p.98]

When Crisci does expansive, with the six-minute Ode To The Pleiades, the tremor is sizeable, its rattlesnake beats sinking into jazz piano riffs and iridescent synth pads, [Apr 2017, p.97]

In Mind is an altogether lovely album that quietly demand to be heard. [Apr 2017, p.91]

The increasingly salty bite of Oberst's lyrics is only sharpened by the homely warmth of Salutations' arrangements. [Apr 2017, p.97]

Mayall and his ace band revive songs by Bettye Crutcher, Jimmy Rogers and Jerry Lynn Williams alongside Piquant original material. [Mar 2017, p.96]

The uncompromising Condition is extremely attractive. [Apr 2017, p.93]

[Navita] charts her course through destruction, indifference and the city sounds: doo wop, Lou Reed-y R&R, even indie rock. It's not until she stares clear-eyed at those closest to her that the way is clear: she's to honor her Latin and Caribbean roots in story and sound. [Apr 2017, p.96]

The main feeling it provokes is sincere admiration at a job well done, but a raised pulse, unfortunately, is something Spoon can't craft from scratch. [Apr 2017, p.96]

The results are a triumph. Scott interprets everything in a manner that touches heart-strings. [Mar 2017, p.98]

Big, warm music that doesn't shout loud, yet makes itself heard. [Apr 2017, p.97]

Song-for-song Damage And Joy is the most rewarding Jesus And Mary Chain album since their prime. [Apr 2017, p.92]

It's something of a revelation. [Apr 2017, p.97]

The only musical shift is Bete Morcelee, which isn't grunge but zippy punk; the rest reprise Marry's trademark conjoining of equally joyous Afro-pop and Anglo-phonic guitar-pop. [Apr 2017, p.95]

Adam Lee Miller and Nicola Kuperus have used a familiar creative trope--the artist in residence... Fittingly, Nitzer Ebb's Douglas J. McCarthy, whose own dislocated, radical electronica feels like an overt influence. [Apr 2017, p.97]

She's clearly not afraid to prolong the exquisite agony and, selfishly, you hope Macve never cheers up. [Apr 2017, p.98]

A lively fusion of politically conscious Afro-beat electro pop. [Apr 2017, p.99]

Emotionally speaking, however, Merritt has recreated an inner life that sound agonisingly real. [Apr 2017, p.94]

Blow by blow, it all adds up to Depeche Mode's best album in years. [Apr 2017, p.95]

It's to Blakeslee's credit that Book Of Changes charms even in its bleakest moments. [Feb 2017, p.94]

Some might find the work's almost wilful-seeming opacity and slight whiff of academia off-putting. Judged on purely musical terms, however, it's a ting of great beauty. [Apr 2017, p.90]

Temples aren't stuck in the past, they've glimpsed the future. [Apr 2017, p.94]

Valerie June's siren-like vocal delivery [is] both beautiful and tempting. [Apr 2017, p.98]

Great to have back that little razor edge that Lytle loses when he steps away from his bandmates, but this might be the last time he gets away with it without a major rethink. [Apr 2017, p.96]

Reid offers up dreamlike meditations on pained experience possessed of a quiet rhythm and disarming lyrical beauty. [Apr 2017, p.91]

Its depth makes this their most satisfyingly sensual work to date. [Apr 2017, p.99]

With Heartworms James Mercer has produced another fine crop of pop. [Apr 2017, p.88]

An adroit demonstration of Power's aim to reflect today's festering political landscape. [Apr 2017, p.97]

This third outing developed a gnarly carpe diem edge. [Mar 2017, p.94]

Parlay music that while irrefutably folk, gleefully shoves aside traditionalist tropes in favour of a buoyant, full-bodied combo sound, that, passingly, recalls prime Fairport Convention while proffering a beguilingly mellifluous identity of its own. [Apr 2017, p.98]

Rich, sonic politesse on offer here. [Apr 2017, p.99]

These mostly instrumental voyages speak loudly of no known universe. [Mar 2017, p.98]

A brilliant piece of art. [Mar 2017, p.91]

Windy City is a rather safe album. [Apr 2017, p.90]

The real star is Kingston MC Racquel Jones. [Apr 2017, p.99]

The wig-out-in-wonderland title track has a poppy, Donovan approach before its unsettling phased climax. [Apr 2017, p.99]

It's not an easy album to love. [Apr 2017, p.98]

The unlikely MC tag team's incontestable third rages hard over bass-driven beats positively thrumming with vitality. [Apr 2017, p.95]

The considered Heba is not immediate, but it worms its way in. [Apr 2017, p.95]

Sometimes it's more about a blues feeling, encompassing high-lonesome, electric country-blues rock, two-chord garage rock and at its most beautiful on the opening track Promise The World. [Apr 2017, p.94]

[Jackie] is another near-masterpiece. [Apr 2017, p.93]

A vital album for an anxious era. [Apr 2017, p.90]