This small brick of a box set housing 22 Isley Brothers albums, many of them essential to any soul-funk library, astonishingly does not include something like a dozen tracks that any sane person would suggest were key to the band's story. This is not a complaint, merely a fact to illustrate the broad sweep of their career. [Sep 2015, p.104]

While other Clansmen excel are building intricate metaphors and vivid storytelling, Method Man is all about swaggering confidence and masterflow flows. [Sep 2015, p.93]

Lyrically, beating the odds and ultra-violence remain fecund topics for Lemmy. [Sep 2015, p.86]

The Cardiff-LA pairing might be creatively equal, but the sound they make is beautifully out of balance. [Sep 2015, p.93]

This is restrained music-making; a slow-release capsule of languid grooves, haunting vocals and crafted songwriting. [Sep 2015, p.93]

Channelling prog ambition, punk attack and all the daring of Krautrock, Pere Ubu were extraordinary. [Sep 2015, p.103]

While the boisterousness that made 2006 single Chelsea Dagger so welcome on the terraces of Stamford Bridge is successfully repurposed on Baby Don't You Lie To Me! and Too Much Wine, and Thief motors like Lady Madonna on Stevie's Higher Ground, other fruits of this reunion with producer Tony Hoffer--see the mellotron-mangled Rosanna--soon sour. [Sep 2015, p.94]

A vessel for unsettled emotional truths. [Sep 2015, p.95]

There's very little talking and the music is powerful and gentle, thoughtful and utterly riveting. [Sep 2015, p.101]

Songs filled with rustic, caught-between-light-and-dark country metaphors. [Sep 2015, p.95]

The songs remain brilliantly elliptical surveys, often of contemporary America. [Sep 2015, p.103]

Hidden Fields finds Lawrie drifting back to his black-denim roots with five tracks of distortion heavy, song-based sedation.[Sep 2015, p.92]

The techno seedlings that before poked through the soil sporadically now burst into full bloom. [Sep 2015, p.93]

Like Lamar’s grandstanding To Pimp A Butterfly, the numerous strands of Compton: A Soundtrack take time and effort to fully unravel, but the rewards are manifold.

The concept is a bit arch and it's easy to get overly trainspotterish with this kind of venture.... apart frim some obviously recognisable moments it sounded like a quality Yo La Tengo album. [Sep 2015, p.88]

They can't always resist their old ways, as autumn processional PPP shows, but Legrand's vocals feel sweeter and closer. [Sep 2015, p.87]

There's nothing bland about this fervid, ideasy album. [Sep 2015, p.90]

Though the results are not always easy to take.... The sense of folk and country pervades each and every performance, saving the day. [Sep 2015, p.90]

Golden Ticket is a diverse treat. [Sep 2015, p.93]

More spacious acoustic currents entwine to create softer, calming reveries every bit as difficult to resist. [Jul 2015, p.90]

Baobab fans will love this, though the Massako tracks have audible distortion. [Sep 2015, p.101]

Their anarchic spirit is captured over the original LP's 11 tracks. [Sep 2015, p.92]

Maker's vocal may be Thom Yorke-like, falsetto lift0-invcluded, but that equidistant spellbound bittersweet spot is Aero Flynn's outright. [Sep 2015, p.91]

It's all muted lust and seductive Scandi sophistication. [Sep 2015, p.92]

Songs and melody remain paramount in this irresistible Technicolor world. [Sep 2015, p.88]

Occasionally there is so much going on it's dizzying--haunting, vulnerable You is a welcome break. [Sep 2015, p.92]

The glitchy electronics hard shield his soulful voice, but on tracks like Corner the digital pulse yields more human warmth. [Sep 2015, p.95]

At once spooky and playful, romantic and angry. [Sep 2015, p.89]

Presence is the best of the three [remasters].... The deluxe edition's bonus track, a soft, piano-led instrumental titled Pod, reiterates how dark and gnarly the rest is. [Sep 2015, p.98]

In Through The Out Door is an honest album that makes Zeppelin sound (almost) human. But it hasn't aged well. [Sep 2015, p.98]

The best of the original bunch is still the frantic rockabilly charge Wearing And Tearing from the Polar Studio sessions.... What gives this new Coda its edge are versions of Four Sticks and Friends recorded in 1972 by Page and Plant in Bombay with local musicians who'd never heard a Led Zeppelin song before. [Sep 2015, p.98]

Evocative songs of Cornish coastal contemplation. [Sep 2015, p.95]

What Turner lacks in lyrical bravura he makes up with arena sized melodic hooks. [Sep 2015, p.95]

This is an album that seduces as readily as it challenges. [Sep 2015, p.88]

Abyss is a darkly compelling tour de force. [Sep 2015, p.94]

Impressive--and then some. [Sep 2015, p.86]

Bowness's delivery on the more subdued material tends to revisit similar melodic cadences, but when the musicians inject more energy, as on The Great Electric Teenage Dream and the gorgeous Sing To Me, the music is transported to a different level. [Sep 2015, p.90]

Surely the sweetly sour bubblegum album of 2015. [Sep 2015, p.86]

Furthering their Sonic Youth/Television post-punk quests. [Sep 2015, p.95]

An epic, cataclysmic set playing host to moments of magnificent Strum-und-Drang. [Sep 2015, p.92]

At 70 minutes long, there's a lot to digest but it's worth persevering with as repeated listens gradually unveil a musical universe unlike any other. [Sep 2015, p.89]

The overall sense is of a spirited and inventive band truly coming into their own. [Sep 2015, p.87]

The hits may well keep rolling in for Years & Years, but next time a bit more adventure wouldn't go amiss. [Sep 2015, p.87]

A leaner, more radio-friendly effort. [Sep 2015, p.86]

The devil's in the details, be it the drum machine patterns that propel Church or the lush pedal-augmented textures of Medieval, while the instrumentals that open and close the album aren't simple throwaways but highlights. [Sep 2015, p.86]

Spry and spontaneous sounding. [Sep 2015, p.87]

The surface of Another One is pure pleasure; underneath, it's not quite so easy. [Sep 2015, p.90]

Blood proves to be another mixed bag. [Aug 2015, p.92]

Star Wars confirms that Wilco now fully own a unique American noise wherein nothing is wholly traditional or wholly experimental. But if the band’s own sense of self is stalwart, the characters they detail are consistently unmoored.

If it's not immediately obvious what such vaunted DJs see in Souleyman, Legowelt's remix of the title track spells out the floor-filling qualities. [Aug 2015, p.91]

Crushing riffs and ancestral memories of hardcore. [Aug 2015, p.98]

Classic Quadrophenia, recorded with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra and TV-friendly tenor Alfie Boa, works, but only sometimes. [Aug 2015, p.91]

What's really mind-blowing is the audio quality of that initial 60-year-old performance (and indeed, the box set in general), which is so lucid that it sounds as if Miles is in the room playing right next to you. [Aug 2015, p.106]

Shirley Inspired and Unheard Songs both bear rich testament to the fact that posterity is barely getting started in these two. [Jul 2015, p.88]

Heavy on reggae, with strong funk and grooves. [Aug 2015, p.98]

Its utilitarian arrangements only highlight how difficult it is to create a worthy cover. [Aug 2015, p.94]

The compelling, all-instrumental 39-minute studio performance remains recognisably a Field Music creation. [Aug 2015, p.94]

Three songs clearly outstrip the others. [Aug 2015, p.89]

Born In The Echoes finds them capturing the most elusive sound of all. They sound, at last, like themselves again. [Aug 2015, p.90]

Distractions is one addictive rush of spiky DIY energy. [Aug 2015, p.96]

Her beautifully compassionate songs are cradled in gentle, melodic arrangements from ever-inventive producer John Vanderslice. [Aug 2015, p.94]

One of the most surprising ambient albums of the year. [Aug 2015, p.95]

Knockin' Boots shuttles between classic disco, '80s electro soul, Gallic House tropes and stripped-down future funk with significant aplomb. [Aug 2015, p.88]

Instrumentals pretty much picks up where FSA left off. [Aug 2015, p.95]

Minimal, murky, magnificent. [Aug 2015, p.96]

Something More Than Free is as close as he's yet come [to a classic album]. [Aug 2015, p.92]

A little gem. [Jul 2015, p.89]

The material is, if anything, stronger than its predecessor and at times exquisitely beautiful. [Aug 2015, p.93]

Vocally she delivers, Southern fried and passionate. But the songs, ever diverse, lack shape. [Aug 2015, p.98]

Recent electric songs mix well with country ballads. [Aug 2015, p.98]

Rolo Tomassi are best when varying the textures. [Aug 2015, p.96]

Much of the remainder, however, plays a depressingly straight bat with mainstream thrills. [Aug 2015, p.96]

This is terrific, 90-minutes of ice-quaking noise, jet-engine feedback, histrionic metal screaming, Gothic doom and ambient euphoria that feels simultaneously ecstatic and terrifying. [Aug 2015, p.95]

Untethered Moon leaves no doubt these guys are on fine form again. [Aug 2015, p.95]

Time Flies is a similarly lovely creation, but with this surface gloss also comes a lack of depth and a slight cheesiness to the whole affair. [Aug 2015, p.94]

A welcome return to the comfort zone of their first two releases after the dreary mid-tempo rock of 2013's Stories Don't End. [Aug 2015, p.93]

It's brevity, meanwhile, ensures this sweetly, powerful group don't wear out their welcome. [Aug 2015, p.93]

It's astonishing how, despite his 32 instrumental credits and 20 guests, it still sounds dustbowl-empty, as if these were missives from The Great Depression, time-wise and spiritually. [Aug 2015, p.93]

A quirky collision of funk, pop, blues, Bowie-esque rock and electro, it'll perturb traditional soul fans--some of his cross-genre experimentation is weirdly unsettling--but there are several ear-catching gems. [Aug 2015, p.92]

His innate genius for transforming base building blocks into rhythmically compelling, humanist dance gold shines through. [Aug 2015, p.89]

Aching, poetically quotidian observations permeate Universal Themes. [Aug 2015, p.89]

This feels like production line Muse: big riffs, bass squelches, conspiratorial dialogue, but few new ideas. [Aug 2015, p.88]

Moonbuilding 2703 AD proves that his space academy can still churn our excellent results. [Aug 2015, p.88]

The melodies are sunny, but Red Kite glimpses the brilliant glare of summer through a morning fog which stubbornly refuses to clear. [Aug 2015, p.94]

It finds Glasper trying to maintain the interest of his new audience by putting a trio spin on neo-soul material as well as songs by Joni Mitchell and Radiohead. [Aug 2015, p.91]

There are some beauties here. [Aug 2015, p.91]

A typically finely crafted slice of emotionally raw storytelling with an absolute peach if a guitar solo. [Aug 2015, p.93]

A record with a beauty and sense of emotional elevation to match the place where it was made. [Aug 2015, p.92]

He [Luke Younger] has blended ghost-echoes of dub, techno, and house to oddly sounding effect. [Aug 2015, p.95]

Not much subtlety, but if some of the lyrics and playing are sometimes tough and ready, righteous passion overrides it to carry the day. [Aug 2015, p.88]

Inji is great fun, offering new surprises with every listen. [Aug 2015, p.92]

Heavy on atmosphere, but candid and brave also. [Aug 2015, p.98]

This "new" RP Boo set feels like a deeper, warmer work. [Aug 2015, p.98]

With a few exceptions, she just sounds bored. [Aug 2015, p.93]

The mind-boggling multiplicity if voices on Key Markets, the sneaking sophistication, and the beyond-colourful language, serve up a currently unrivaled feast for the mind. [Aug 2015, p.89]

Driven, hooky, moving. Better than Prozac or a sunny day. [Aug 2015, p.88]

These sings might inhabit unsteady mental states, but each component could have been places with tweezers and a jeweller's loupe. [Aug 2015, p.86]

An exercise in soulful, somnambulant alt-R&B with a distinctively British sound. [Jul 2015, p.91]