Fatima's Hand is like the titular middle eastern amulet, a thing of intricate protective beauty. [May 2015, p.97]

Despite the extended sabbatical, Leftfield’s muscular, invigorating presence remains undimmed.

If there are few lyrical miracles in these scattershot songs obsessed with sex, drugs and shopping, in this intuitive stylist’s mouth the words themselves are often beside the point.

Once more, Daptone has come up trumps; this is solid gold soul. [Jun 2015, p.90]

Much of the material is standard heavy fare, based around familiar riffs and embellished with solos that blaze momentarily. [Jun 2015, p.89]

Lulu sounds as vital and feisty as ever. [May 2015, p.93]

The most rounded and effervescent of the three [albums]. [May 2015, p.97]

At 12 years' distance, these Papists sound anything but straightforward, ably navigating a compositional logic every bit as nutty as Debaser or Cactus, just with the sonic derangement notched down, and the odd deft pedal-steel lick chipped in. [Jun 2015, p.102]

Golds is rich with wry psych-pop nuggetry of a kindred humour to Robyn Hitchcock. [Jun 2015, p.92]

This is music of compelling intensity. [Jun 2015, p.92]

Who Is The Sender? is effectively a set of moving, funeral-paced closing tracks addressing familiar themes--political disillusionment, morality and spiritual wonder. [Jun 2015, p.92]

Overall the feel is sparse and desolate. [Jun 2015, p.89]

On In Circles, with its plangent, Yan Tiersen-style piano, something wonderful happens--a feeling of limitlessness opening up. [Jun 2015, p.89]

Among many highlights, the best and brightest is the Guided By Voices-do-Status Quo elation of Box Batteries, an elegy for youth designed to live forever. [Jun 2015, p.88]

It's the brooding dancefloor ordnance which marks Hairless Toys as a career highlight. [Jun 2015, p.88]

The Birthday Party-esque clamour of Spit You Out further shows what Metz are capable of when they ease off the accelerator. [Jun 2015, p.87]

Constant Bop is even more eclectic [than White Denim's music]. [Jun 2015, p.87]

There isn't quite as much gleeful taboo-baiting on this second set, as they dig further and harder into the absurdity of being a young woman in America, and still make it catchy and fun as well as angry and melancholy. [Jun 2015, p.93]

The only drawback is that 16 tracks and 55 minutes feel too long for a set of minimalist adventures. [Jun 2015, p.91]

Even while eschewing the much-loved spacey dub demo interludes of earlier releases for a kind of metaphysical hard rock, all but one of these tracks are worthy additions to a now capacious legacy. [Jun 2015, p.90]

While containing only new songs, feels like a greatest hits and as such is a perfect entry point for Giant Sand neophytes. [Jun 2015, p.90]

There's little obvious mind expansion in these long-haired ruminations on modern living, but Rose Windows still have the power to lift listeners far out of the everyday. [Jun 2015, p.92]

Death And Vanilla lack only a little warmth to make submersion in their pre-digital pool irresistible. [Jun 2015, p.92]

Wildly uneven, sporadically awesome. [Jun 2015, p.92]

It's mighty good. [Jun 2015, p.93]

Kala is where the album explodes into life. [Jun 2015, p.93]

This album is brazenly in hock to the shoulder pad decade. Its telegraphed choruses will not be denied. [Jun 2015, p.88]

Welcome Back To Milk is a powerful outpouring, but what lingers are the pauses for reflection. [Jun 2015, p.87]

The logical progression for a band who know exactly what they are doing. [Jun 2015, p.87]

Though mostly a one-man affair, he covers a lot of ground across the album's 11 tracks. [Jun 2015, p.86]

Much of the rest is background music of a high standard and, although shorn of imagery and narrative, has an existential heaviness Camus would appreciate. [Jun 2015, p.86]

California Nights comes over like a dreamier take on Hole's Celebrity Skin or a souped-up. digitally-produced Go-Go's. [Jun 2015, p.86]

Far from electrifying. [Jun 2015, p.86]

Even amid its fluffy ornamentation, producer Tucker Martine spikes the players' innately epic capabilities with a puritan elixir. The rewards are considerable. [Jun 2015, p.84]

[A] dazzling modern dance album. [Jun 2015, p.94]

Sol Invictus scratches a creative itch created by the band's Second Coming Tour, and reasserts that they will not be second-guessed or pigeonholed. [Jun 2015, p.94]

This is his first tentative experimentation with some big band backing. [Jun 2015, p.96]

This successor has some Morricone moments, but is comparatively wan and blandly moderne. [Jun 2015, p.96]

Pulsing with youthful rebellion, PV sound wildly bacchanalian. [Jun 2015, p.96]

An engaging, yet still hip-swinging trip. [Jun 2015, p.96]

Their second album is a bittersweet indie-punk chaser. [Jun 2015, p.96]

A dense dream dialogue. [Jun 2015, p.96]

The Cree folkie in fine bellicose form at 74. [Jun 2015, p.96]

Super-barbed, electro-pub rock. [Jun 2015, p.96]

A modestly sized, nine-track snapshot of the singer in a more appealingly inward phase.

Cohen’s sound checks, as lengthy as the shows, where he’d experiment with old songs and try out new ones, were celebrated by insiders, and the three examples here are among the highlights: a remarkable Field Commander Cohen, like a four-and-a-half-minute operetta; a cover of George Jones’ Choices (gorgeous fiddle); and a new Cohen original, up-tempo blues Got A Little Secret.

There’s joyous invention at work here, along with nagging hooks which bury themselves deeper with every play.

A surprisingly stark yet passionate affair, with just enough unorthodoxy to suggest that a multilayered musician lurks at its roots. [May 2015, p.94]

His risk-taking is admirable but "abandon," perfect or other-wise, is not his optimum look. [May 2015, p.91]

Its 10 redemptive songs oscillating between Americana, baroque chamber balladry and unabashed pop. [May 2015, p.98]

It's a record that benefits from a pervasive electro-melancholia induced by quaking analogue synths, dulcet arpeggios and fragile vocals, recalling fraternal, dark electro-pop mavens Disclosure. [May 2015, p.97]

The sound Of Your Laughter and The Guessing Game are Get It On-style glitter boogies; by contrast Stay Now and All That Glitters reveal a more fragile side. [May 2015, p.92]

His sixth solo offering is a surprisingly mainstream jolly. [May 2015, p.97]

A genteel album, more for mellow reflection than dancing on ceilings. [May 2015, p.93]

Dark, minatory rhythms underpin stark lyrics telling of hard times in the north of Mali. [May 2015, p.95]

It's a huge step forward on their earlier recordings. [May 2015, p.95]

A polished affair, it cannot but fail to eschew their naive early '80s glory. [May 2015, p.100]

Quietly thrilling pop noir. [May 2015, p.100]

Polished and platitude-laden but hugely effective. [May 2015, p.100]

Mostly it rocks. [May 2015, p.99]

There's a sense in almost all the songs of open roads, either beckoning or closed in, or both. [May 2015, p.99]

There was much brooding menace and acoustic industrial, and things have not developed significantly. [May 2015, p.99]

Even if purists find the whole baroque confection too much, they will have to admit there's never been a record quite like this. [May 2015, p.99]

If the album has a fault, it's in sequencing, with some of stronger moments low in the pecking order. [May 2015, p.99]

A record, which, though obviously heartfelt, never sounds unified. [May 2015, p.98]

Hinterland feels less like the spirit of the dance floor and much more like the crush of a weaponed march. [May 2015, p.98]

An album whose wider appeal reaches for powerpop nirvana. [May 2015, p.98]

The razor-wire riffs some of their best. [May 2015, p.98]

Hallelujah, melodies and lyrics are not just sensitive but sharp and witty, glittering with a dazzle reminiscent of Britpop at its deftest. [May 2015, p.96]

The whole thing carves out and inhabits a persuasively exotic world of echo that invites total immersion. [May 2015, p.97]

Sauna becomes a transitional journey of self-surrender, Elverum's soft-sung imagist perceptions slowly reaching toward a quiet, meditative transcendence. [May 2015, p.96]

Witty, tender pieces to charm even those for who wrestling means Shirley Crabtree. [May 2015, p.100]

Edge Of The Sun offers no real surprises, but it is perhaps their poppiest set yet. [May 2015, p.99]

Living Fields is no instant hit, but the twilight world you're eventually drawn into is difficult to leave. [May 2015, p.98]

If nothing here quite reaches the hook-laden heights of Outdoor Miner or Kidney Bingos, there are plenty of sunlit avant-pop uplands. [May 2015, p.97]

It's Bronxie's heart, soul and natural world-inspired epiphanies that charm most. [May 2015, p.96]

Tripp is a complicated, slow-burning wonder that matches Cerulean Salt for fuzzy, bed-headed zingers but adds several layers of regret and self doubt and is all the more rewarding for that. [May 2015, p.95]

They lurch between plaid-smothered unresolved chords and frontwoman Sadie Dupuis's verbose story-telling, delivered deadpan a la early Liz Phair. [May 2015, p.95]

Here technology is merely a vessel for a sound that remains pastoral and beguiling. Truly, a class act. [May 2015, p.95]

Their second outing makes no effort to remap their coordinates: they remain riffy, distorted, full of nocturnal energy, possessed of rollicking good tunes, but also open up a more expansive goth-rock strain on indie-radio cuts. [May 2015, p.94]

The fourth LP is blisteringly confident as the band evolves toward maturity. [May 2015, p.94]

Amid the jagged funk-offs, a synthesized steel band and the odd keyboard etude colour a strong debut. [May 2015, p.94]

Her second album doesn't up the merriment ante much. [May 2015, p.93]

East India Youth has barely tinkered with the formula for his second full-length--a good thing. [May 2015, p.93]

Tellingly, Al Jardine and David Marks return here, their harmonies shining in the gorgeously dreamy Whatever Happened. [May 2015, p.93]

It is no ragbag collection, even if several tunes are little more than snippets. [May 2015, p.92]

The album is a retroactive joy from start to finish. [May 2015, p.92]

White Men Are Black Men Too places Young Fathers firmly alongside Suede, Dizzee Rascal and Arctic Monkeys in the pantheon of those whose post-Mercury follow-ups confirm they know exactly where they're going and aren't going to let winning a modest prize distract them. [May 2015, p.88]

It's confirmation that the old boy's still got a few tricks in him. [May 2015, p.90]

A Fool To Care has scarcely a weak note. [May 2015, p.90]

What it lacks, however, is the quality of songwriting in his best best work from the '70s. [May 2015, p.90]

This Is The Sonics emits the same primal heat that's inspired successive generations of garage-dwellers, from the Cramps through Mudhoney to The White Stripes. [May 2015, p.90]

Policy is a dazzling execution of one man's crazed vision. [May 2015, p.91]

For a collection with an eye on the setting sun and the slow decline, it's a fine late flowering. [May 2015, p.91]

Less visceral than before, this one's a quintessential grower. [May 2015, p.91]

Ba Power is all about intensity, force and electricity. [May 2015, p.92]

This portrait of the artist might be a gloomy, oppressive one but it’s grimly fascinating nevertheless.

With O’Brien running the gamut from one-night-stand shelf lurker (No One To Blame) and post-coital dewy (Dawning On Me) to resentful (Hot Scary Summer) and widowed (Darling Arithmetic). It’s a risky exercise but O’Brien pulls it off thanks to his trademark musical economy.