Closure is more substantial than that implies, carrying on the more direct approach of 2005's Disaffected. [Feb 2017, p.95]

Retour Au Champs De Mars oscillates malevolently with throaty, Death Star bass synths; like much of Iris, it uses a covert approach to win you over. [Feb 2017, p.95]

Here the formula is still fresh and potent, with punchy production, twisting song structures and sweeping choruses. [Feb 2017, p.96]

This covers collection moves with mysterious grace. [Feb 2017, p.90]

It ranks right up there with 2010's exquisite Black Sands. [Feb 2017, p.98]

From the spooked synth attack of hellish 12-minute opener A Natural Satellite inwards, they do little to dispel those fears, robust drums and dirty organs underscoring the swaggering menace of Grace Jones and The Murder of Maria Marten. [Jan 2017, p.98]

Remarkably moving. [Jan 2017, p.104]

Languid piano, sleazy Rickenbacker, intellectual Lothario. Lethal. [Oct 2016, p.96]

An unexpected sound-palette of smouldering beauty, often lit up by sumptuous orchestral arrangements from one Sebastian Hoffmann. [Jan 2017, p.101]

Still crossing the many rivers of doubt, hope and despair that have faced him since his American Music Club days, Mark Eitzel's tenth solo album can nonetheless throw out surprises. [Feb 2017, p.96]

Trials & truths is a diffuse experience. [Feb 2017, p.94]

The jazz roots of George Clinton's Mothership, Ra's visionary music now sounds simultaneously joyous and bereft, a possible future now consigned to the past. [Feb 2017, p.107]

Patchy seven-song set. [Feb 2017, p.105]

When they crank out breathless melodic euphoria like Darkened Rings, originality seems a pointless objective anyway. [Feb 2017, p.98]

Soft Error's background in film and TV composition is the foundation for the opulent, operatic electronica on Mechanism. [Feb 2017, p.95]

For his fourth album, which fuses poo, techno and retro-futuristic disco with deftness, direction and a thick slice of humour. [Feb 2017, p.95]

The eight-song concoction is a joyful, lush and fittingly grandiose suite. [Feb 2017, p.93]

There are 14 songs here, without chaff. [Jan 2017, p.94]

He's at his best, however, when he takes it all very seriously indeed. [Feb 2017, p.96]

His tendency to overemote can prove distracting. [Feb 2017, p.99]

Future Politics' galvanised vision takes myriad forms. [Feb 2017, p.95]

I See You is more nuanced and upbeat than their previous records but, perhaps shrewdly, it enhances their blueprint rather than completely redrawing it. [Feb 2017, p.91]

If lyrics about mushrooms, unicorns and frogs are your jam, Coyne & Co. of course have you covered. The Naked Slaves and Amazon strippers do feel tiredly exploitative. [Feb 2017, p.93]

There's something romantic about this quiet, thoughtful music, but there's a sad quality to it too. [Feb 2017, p.94]

It's pleasant enough, it hardly transcendent, and feels--whisper it--ever so slightly old fashioned. [Feb 2017, p.95]

The results are equal parts beautiful and unsettling. [Feb 2017, p.95]

This is a pure genre exercise but done well. [Feb 2017, p.92]

This radiantly executed effort is also, curiously, Childish Gambino's most anonymous. [Feb 2017, p.92]]

A bold and celebratory affair. [Feb 2017, p.90]

Rich, understated and resonant. [Feb 2017, p.97]

There are tidings aplenty, but little comfort and even less joy. [Feb 2017, p.97]

As with previous Immersion material, analogue synthesizers provide the musical focus here, sporadically infused with electric guitars, often played in the oblique, angular style that Wire Fans will instantly cleave to. [Feb 2017, p.98]

A weave of sublimely lysergic folk-pop. [Feb 2017, p.99]

[John Renbourn & Wizz Jones] playing with such joy, skill and passion that unequivocally shows they were both still on to of their game, successfully marrying two contrasting guitar styles. They both sound good vocally, too. [Oct 2016, p.95]

Stand Up blueprinted the sound that would carry Tull ringmaster Ian Anderson and his troupe through the next decade, [Dec 2016, p.105]

Aloe Blacc swaggers with a charming insouciance on C'est Bon, which is an accurate description of Red Lips itself. [Jan 2017, p.94]

All this may seem so exhaustive as to verge on the absurd, but fear not. It is the most fascinating document imaginable. [Dec 2016, p.100]

Heart Song dips deeper into drama, with additional electric guitar and heavier drums adding chiaroscuro to her patented slowburn. [Dec 2016, p.89]

At least 50 years out of date, and wonderfully so. [Jan 2017, p.98]

One listen, maybe two, will be enough for most. [Sep 2016, p.93]

The true centerpiece is Tiny Wood's autobiographical 20-minute suite, Blue Remembered Hills. With pastoral inserts and thematic crescendos, it's evocative and emotionally raw. [Jan 2017, p.98]

From the moment she opens her mouth here: her gargley vocal, set to fortissimo, summons dusty trails, rattling trains and late-night boozing. [Jan 2017, p.99]

If it doesn't reach the sustained invention of John Coltrane's odyssey in E, Africa/Brass, Youngs' talent for wringing emotion from base materials remain undimmed. [Jan 2017, p.102]

Rousing, otherworldly, outlandish. [Jan 2017, p.104]

Definitely one of 2016's better achievements. [Jan 2017, p.99]

Regardless of how they're captured, these songs still have the capacity to enthrall. [Jan 2017, p.113]

Once inside, you discover fresh wonders. [Dec 2016, p.104]

It's hard to imagine a more comprehensive collection from such an important group. [Dec 2016, p.98]

A bruised, heartsore set. [Jan 2017, p.104]

The trio's most accessible. song-based effort to date. Thankfully, it's not at the expense of the rattling rhythms and freeform stylings of previous work. [Dec 2016, p.93]

[Sid Griffin] hurled all bluegrass boundaries out the window as pride of place on this new album. [Nov 2016, p.92]

[Highly Suspect] may alarm those who recall grunge and nu metal. [Jan 2017, p.104]

[Vanishing Life] exceed the sum of their hardcore parts by adding loose, QOTSA-style hips to their riffs and even the odd synth. [Jan 2017, p.104]

After 20 years, Fuzzy Logic still hasn't stopped making sense. [Jan 2017, p.110]

Demos have emerged from 1965-66, 1968 and 1973, but these 13 are the best yet. [Jan 2017, p.110]

Gelb may be onto something and his chutzpah i laudable but, ultimately, only time decides which songs become standards. [Dec 2017, p.94]

While hats should be tipped for the sentiments expressed, with less urgency to make his point and more time spent on making it listenable the message might have stood a chance of reaching a few more ears. [Jan 2017, p.96]

Highlights are many. [Jan 2017, p.100]

The London trio founded by drummer Yussef Dayes and Keyboardist Kamaal Williams give it an urban twist , factoring grime and broken beat influences into their unpredictable improvised jams. [Jan 2017, p.99]

Live albums often disappoint but this one doesn't. [Jan 2017, p.101]

Awash in trademark snaky overdrive, heavy sustain and controlled feedback, this is a big, rich work of buzzy acid-blues melodicism, the unique sound of a guitar virtuoso sketching wild patterns for late-night journeying. [Dec 2016, p.94]

Oren Ambarchi and several of his distinguished collaborators move from cold pulsing grooves to free electronic jazz freakout in a manner most conductive to euphoria. [Jan 2017, p.97]

Technically striking, yet for all its precision sounds oddly sanitised. [Jan 2017, p.104]

He [Scott Mogan] references Phillip Glass, anti-humanist literature and aerial photos of industrial pollution. [Jan 2017, p.104]

A debut both thrillingly volatile and touchingly melancholic. [Jan 2017, p.104]

Now he only resembles himself--a distinctive and exhilarating vituperative voice celebrating anything from glam rock to beans on toast. [Jan 2017, p.102]

Dawn's Auto-Tuned vocals push it into Major Lazer territory. Yet the best moments are where restraint wins out. [Jan 2017, p.102]

The package as a whole doesn't invite repeated listens. [Jan 2017, p.102]

A mixed bag, then, but rarely short of mood-elevating. [Jan 2017, p.100]

Ultimately guided by voices, it peaks on cypher session S Bento MC5, an affectionate homage to A Tribe Called Quest's Scenario. [Jan 2017, p.99]

A sensitive, sure-footed triumph. [Jan 2017, p.99]

It's both far-out and potentially pack-leading. [Jan 2017, p.99]

An urgent if mostly meditative-sounding call-to-arms, that he brings poetic shape and power to his politics. [Jan 2017, p.98]

Gately's soft vocal melodies audible through the layers of madness, leading you to points of strange beauty and lyrical wonder. [Jan 2017, p.97]

Wainwright nevertheless manages to make the songs her own. [Jan 2017, p.96]

No Further Ahead Than Today's 10 chromium-smooth synth-pop essays are so meticulously, lavishly and mellifluously constructed that listening to them is like being dosed up with dopamine. [Jan 2017, p.96]

There's a palpable connection to their country's dread history that allows Wolf People to transcend their music's fantasy elements, whiles still being properly fantastic. [Jan 2017, p.96]

Before The Dawn is glorious and confounding--in other words, pure Kate. [Jan 2017, p.96]

Any fears that Deaner may have matured during his absence are summarily nipped in the bud by the most puerile collection of ditties since, well, Ween. [Jan 2017, p.94]

Tasseomancy's third album moves with a deceptively breezy sway. [Jan 2017, p.94]

If Perpetual Surrender had elements of woozy, chillwave, Familiar Touch is full-scale yacht-rock sophistication, with honed chorus hooks and silken arrangements rippling with precision curves. [Jan 2017, p.94]

You come away from Hamburg Demonstrations only further assured of the breadth and indestructibility of Doherty's talent. [Jan 2017, p.95]

It's disappointing that there aren't one or two more inspiring moments, especially when there's a roughly equivalent number of duds. [Jan 2017, p.92]

This album opts throughout for classy tristesse, perfect for Close To You and A House Is Not A Home, too steadily composed for Walk On By and Another Girl, both heartbroken songs behind the on-point style. [Nov 2016, p.87]

It’s not all perfect. You could rightly question whether the Q-Tip/André 3000 duet Kids… has any place on a ATCQ album. Or whether a glut of guest spots including Elton John, Jack White and Kendrick Lamar are strictly necessary. Yet ultimately it’s the original, immersive Tribe vibes that conquer all.

Woman looks set to keep the leather-clad pair trucking for the foreseeable by bridging the propulsive beats of 2007's sweeping debut with the more baroque, borderline-cheesy prog aesthetic of 2011's Audio, Video, Disco. [Dec 2016, p.89]

Though still no barrel of laughs--far from it--there is evidence of green shoots of hope here. [Dec 2016, p.91]

These are superior soundtracks for sure, but just a little low on levity. [Dec 2016, p.93]

This ace duets set builds around extant Miller vocals from vintage demos. [Nov 2016, p.96]

Intoxicated Women makes you fall in love with Gainsbourg and his women all over again. [Dec 2016, p.95]

As with its predecessors, Compulsion Songs is jammed with feedback-laden throwback journeys that still worship respectfully at the altar of Spacemen 3, The Jesus And Mary Chain and Sonic Youth. [Nov 2016, p.93]

More a set of unconnected pieces than a single, cohesive whole, while not short on individual charm it's hard not to see this as anything other than a warm-up for the main event to come. [Dec 2016, p.91]

Fans of Porcelain Raft will go nuts for the aural sigh that is Pavo Pavo. [Dec 2016, p.94]

James ford and Jas Shaw's command of synth hardware lends itself to organic songwriting. [Dec 2016, p.93]

Pyramids’ borrowing of Chuck D’s mantra “I don’t rhyme for the sake of riddlin’” is emblematic of his still-abrasive mood, whether dissecting the prison system’s failures on A Bigger Picture Called Free or unleashing his most heartfelt rallying cry on the thrilling Robert Glasper-produced, Stevie Wonder-starring title track.

This stripped-back retro-retread is in danger of playing to the opposite of their strengths. [Dec 2016, p.88]

A strange, haunted phantasmagoria that explores atmospheres and moods more suited to the score of an art film than to a rock album--despite the gratuitous use of grungey guitar noises and distortion. [Dec 2016, p.94]

Onstage his confidence was sky-high, his command total, much as it was in the studio. [Dec 2016, p.105]