It's lovely stuff throughout. [Apr 2015, p.87]

Carrie & Lowell has an air of insecurity underlining the sophistication of the music. [Apr 2015, p.84]

Van delves deep to breathe new life into some relatively lesser-known gems ranging from 1974’s Streets Of Arklow (from Veedon Fleece) to Get On With The Show (What’s Wrong With This Picture?, 2003), rejuvenating them with persuasive soul and passion.

Fresh Blood’s 10 tracks span an impressive spread of moods.

Her second full album centres on sophisticated rococo pop, but there's also a nice viscous, keyboard-heavy prog undertow. [Mar 2015, p.93]

Chic, soulful, but more boom and swoon than hooks. [Feb 2015, p.96]

Ultimately, Chasing Yesterday is an assured second step on Noel Gallagher’s solo path--more sure-footed lyrically, while bearing a very becoming new-found musical spaciness.

It suggest that a future as pullover wearing folkies is theirs for the taking if they fancied it. [Mar 2015, p.94]

At this temporal distance from the shock of their new, the post-millennial Pop Group are engaging, galvanizing, and far from unlistenable in its ongoing fusions of Afrobeat, funk and dub.

For it's pop smarts, Ten Love Songs feels like Sundfor's international breakthrough. But it's everything else--the disquieting atmosphere, her voice, the sinuous, haunting melodies it carries--which sets it apart. [Mar 2015, p.93]

[Signs Under Test] satisfies the soul without losing its precision-tooled digital lustre. [Mar 2015, p.97]

Mick Jones's production captures a vibrant, timeless analogue vibe, particularly on the sister's sassy numbers. [Mar 2015, p.97]

It is full of sublime moments. [Mar 2015, p.97]

Occasionally, the histrionics and faux-biblical warnings of this guitar-drum duo tread a fine Spinal Tap line, but they do its majestically they can only be admired. [Mar 2015, p.95]

Viet Cong aren't quite home yet, but they're getting there. [Mar 2015, p.100]

The music is too futuristic--and, more bizarrely, too rooted in Indian Ocean folk roots--ever to get weighed down in heaviosity. [Mar 2015, p.96]

While the material heads nowhere new, there's a good feeling to all that's happening. [Mar 2015, p.99]

This debut stands apart, not because it hails from St. Petersburg but for its speedy and electronically iced take on shoegaze. [Mar 2015, p.100]

The overall tone is one of forbearance rather than rabble-rousing provocation. [Mar 2015, p.100]

Ghost Culture;s pungent, treacly melodies and fidgety, complex syncopation are a robust blend. [Mar 2015, p.97]

Odd, occasionally unsettling, always memorable. [Mar 2015, p.97]

The material is cleverly sourced. [Mar 2015, p.97]

The results are at first comically unexpected, then intriguing. [Mar 2015, p.94]

While Brothers Of The Sonic Cloth impress with the monolithic power of their noise, there's little else that compels here. [Mar 2015, p.94]

[The] third Egyptrixx album has a fidgety, unsettling quality. [Mar 2015, p.97]

Their debut exists in a musical moment, conjuring a freedom and thrilling abandonment in its hypnotic shuffle boogie and punky blues rock riffs. [Mar 2015, p.93]

You've heard it all before, but rarely done so well. [Mar 2014, p.98]

An album of studied precision and endless textures. [Mar 2014, p.95]

Thankfully, frequent shards of light lift the gloom and raise the spirits. [Mar 2014, p.95]

It's a journey worth taking with him. [Mar 2014, p.95]

There are grand arrangements and barbed bon mots in the style of Randy Newman and Harry Nilsson, but what's most striking are the more restrained moments. [Mar 2014, p.94]

This is a very real example of "that difficult second album." [Mar 2014, p.93]

On the whole, they succeed by taking a careful layered approach. [Mar 2014, p.100]

All told, a spellbinding journey. [Mar 2014, p.100]

Nobody's expecting Steve Earle & The Dukes to break new ground, but when they break sweat, Terraplane comes to life. [Mar 2014, p.100]

Ain't nothing original, but it feels--and sounds--mighty fine. [Mar 2014, p.98]

Though a very beautiful whole, the mid-tempo Picture You is samey and only breaks its mood on Fryshusfunk. [Mar 2014, p.98]

Nothing here is ever structurally predictable, nor is it all cacophonous. [Mar 2014, p.98]

A few shuffling moments suggest Sunday pub lunch surrounding by Bugaboos, but when Gonzalez hits his meditative stride--Every Age's there-is-a-season stateliness, the post-rock smudges of What Will---he owns the room. [Mar 2014, p.98]

An effervescent, ebullient record. [Mar 2014, p.97]

A multifaceted--yet cohesive--creation that burnishes anew the golden age of space exploration. [Mar 2014, p.93]

A vivid, pulsing rhyme banquet that's out-there, edgy and kaleidoscopic. [Mar 2014, p.96]

More deliciously downbeat analog instrumentals. [Feb 2015, p.96]

For unswerving fans only, and not of Pink Floyd. [Feb 2015, p.96]

This extraordinary record is more refreshing burst than last gasp and its timelessness speaks more to life than death.

He sounds the most determined he has in over two decades. [Feb 2015, p.94]

These self-penned songs feel so timelessly authentic they might have been dredged from the deep well of traditional British Isles song from which Roberts regularly sips. [Feb 2015, p.95]

Their most remarkable record in years. [Feb 2015, p.95]

There's tear-in-the bear country, an angry field song, but the killer is Sorrow's shine. Classic Jim White. [Feb 2015, p.95]

Brainy music is back--about time. [Feb 2015, p.95]

Its echoes of '60 Brit Invasion rock, arch lyrics and prime Pollard song-title jibber will sound more familiar. [Feb 2015, p.96]

This is a fine celebration of a finely poetic band. [Feb 2015, p.103]

Newcomers won't fail to be charmed by an album that channels all four Velvets albums at different moments, in the process of locating YLT's own unique voice. [Feb 2015, p.102]

An eerily rootless modern drift through the electronic depths of Tarkovsky's Zone. [Feb 2015, p.96]

This trio's future pop debut is almost synthetically pristine. [Feb 2015, p.96]

Witchy and hypnotic. [Feb 2015, p.95]

[A] wonderfully scrappy debut. [Feb 2015, p.95]

In total, a pleasant, charm-filled release but no great addition to the Nelson canon. [Feb 2015, p.95]

Revealing and uplifting. [Feb 2015, p.94]

A blistering, breathless set of dynamic, high-impact punk rock aiming straight for the heart and jugular. [Feb 2015, p.94]

Natalie Prass's debut luxuriates in the same effortlessly timeless space as Rumer's Seasons Of My Life and I Am Shelby Lynne. [Feb 2015, p.94]

An exhilarating step beyond [the 2005 and 2007] albums' late-'60s foundations. [Feb 2015, p.93]

This blending of expected and unexpected makes Soul Power something altogether special. [Feb 2015, p.92]

It's a mixed affair. [Feb 2015, p.91]

If there's little of the duelling gamesmanship that made their 1993 debut so remarkable, this is still a joyful comeback, brimming with big screen music. [Feb 2015, p.91]

Hayes's new-found prolificacy certainly hasn't exhausted his gift for timeless pop. [Feb 2015, p.91]

The Decemberists' seventh is unlikely to weaken their commercial pull. [Feb 2015, p.91]

The album's no fence-sitter, it hits hard almost for the duration. [Feb 2015, p.90]

Their tenth album is grand, moody and elegant in all the right places. [Feb 2015, p.90]

Those who have stuck with the Glasgow act this far will find much to enjoy here. [Feb 2015, p.90]

If the formula is simple, it delivers brutish thrills a-plenty. [Feb 2015, p.89]

This tenth album opens, unappetizingly for non-disciples, with a histrionic funeral dirge call provocatively, Killing Strangers--plus ca change from the Status Quo of Satanist twaddle. But hold tight, there's livelier material ahead. [Feb 2015, p.89]

Bada$$ proves a natural born rhymer on a deeply rewarding showcase of advanced level lyricalism. [Feb 2015, p.89]

Kykeon is an album of simple instrumental guitar rites that, through repetition, drone and variations of melodic line achieve a particular kind of ecstatic cyclic euphoria. [Feb 2015, p.88]

Surprisingly marginalised on the latest Wu effort, Ghostface Killah proves he's fighting fit on this gritty, organic partnership. [Feb 2015, p.88]

The best Waterboys record since 1988's Fisherman's Blues. [Feb 2015, p.88]

No Cities To Love stares down its troubles, power and joy ultimately lying in the hands of the people who can write such songs. [Feb 2015, p.86]

An instinctive and honest sublimation of a state of mind, full of intriguing revelations but leaving enough questions unanswered to keep you ever seeking more in its grooves. [Feb 2015, p.88]

That Cambodian rock band with a repertoire of the most obscure covers have grown up--and no snakes were harmed in the making of this album.

This album comes with a strong sense of fantasy: authors can be rock stars, “unknowns” can become known and Stevie Wonder is right over there. What is solid, however, is Ronson’s ability to throw a swell party.

This is a more colourful record than its predecessor, but it’s troubled, too.... Meanwhile, aficionados of pure sonic treats are well served. [Feb 2015, p.89]

It's a sumptuous collection. [Nov 2014, p.100]

It’s subtle, it won’t grab you by the lapels, much less the jockstrap or G-string, but it does carry that twangy tang of life.

Sadly this well-meaning rewroking doesn't [hold up]. [Nov 2014, p.93]

Eighth and best-yet album of horn'n'vibes-heavy jazz cinematics. [Oct 2014, p.96]

Well after its final note fades, Islands lingers long in the memory. [Oct 2014, p.93]

Black Messiah is an exquisite realisation of what D’Angelo does best.

This is very much sitting-in-the-pub-moaning music. [Dec 2014, p.98]

One of Neubauten's very best releases. [Jan 2014, p.98]

A likeable troika of covers--Neil Young's Revolution Blues, The Monkees' You Just May Be The One and Sandy Denny's Bushes And Briars--effectively locate Acoustic Dust on the stylistic spectrograph. [Jan 2015, p.98]

There are plenty of cherishable moments to be savoured. [Jan 2015, p.96]

Too many superfluous guest vocalists distract but the result are bright and bold. [Jan 2015, p.96]

It rates amongst the best three or four post-millennial psychedelic rock records. [Jan 2015, p.95]

Moran builds on the foundation of the stride of king's eclectic, joint-jumping oeuvre. [Jan 2015, p.94]

It doesn't all gel, but the hits-to-duds ratio is high. [Jan 2015, p.94]

Turnbull readily unleashes his inner thespian but he's got playful pop-song chops, making A Hound At The Helm something of a post-modern glam trip that's far too good to be neglected a second time. [Jan 2015, p.94]

This is uneasy listening with little in the way of recognisable groove or plotting. [Jan 2015, p.94]

Gentlemen remains his [Dulli's] masterpiece. [Jan 2015, p.108]