The high point is a take on Diane Warren's Sunlight To My soul featuring The Soweto Gospel Choir. [Jul 2026, p.91]

A Dirty Three, free-folk weirdness takes Sophie Harris's vocal theatrics somewhere darker. [Jul 2026, p.93]

The title track and Singularity speak of a trajectory where AI gives a final push to an already cannibalistic pop culture. But this thesis is spiced with joyous synthesis. [Jul 2026, p.91]

A ragged triumph. [Jul 2026, p.88]

The horny Dry Spell is typically smart storytelling, cheekily contemporary and as wittily candid as her hero John Prine, while Back On The Wagon is a credulous assertion of faith in an erring lover from an unreliable narrator. [Jul 2026, p.87]

She's still the bedsit heartbreak queen for pop fans of a certain age. [Jul 2026, p.83]

The brothers have recorded an album that goes to the heart of who they are. [Jul 2026, p.80]

Shrugging off the stones, flower girl persona of 2024's AM pop-heavy Chaos Angel, Miatreya Corso is a more modern proposal. [Jul 2026, p.83]

It doesn't always land, but the DJ Shadow-esque glitch-hop of Peak Again- with Low's Alan Sparhawk on vocals - reflect James's desire to conquer new territories. [Jun 2026, p.93]

More than half of these 10 crisp, vital songs derive from guitarists Pete Astor and Andy Strickland co-writing for the first time, applying decades of hard-earned wisdom and fresh vitality to quintessential designs. [Jun 2026, p.84]

The touchstones - Julee Cruise, Kate Bush, The Blue Nile - are more classic than experimental but the heartbreaking emotions remain utterly real. [Jun 2026, p.88]

What matters is that Harding remains a fascinating songwriting provocateur, preternaturally discipline, but able to trip emotional wires you might not even know you had. [Jun 2026, p.82]

It's a moody, unpredictable thing, from the Call's Balearic moment of ecstasy, to the deconstructed country-folk of Feist's What Happens Now, to the indie-noir of This Briefest kiss, all sulphurous bass and saxophone, but these many facets cohere brilliantly. [Jun 2026, p.88]

Sol. Hz radiates a luxuriant warmth that's hinted in its title. [Jun 2026, p.93]

Expressing both righteous anger and relaxation of spirit, this is her most assured record yet. [Jun 2026, p.85]

This album feels like a reliable harbour. [Jun 2026, p.87]

Dreamy, psych-folk beauty. [Jun 2026, p.91]

Another album of homages, jammed fast and loose in early 2025 at Auerbach’s Easy Eye Sound studio in the wake of a cancer diagnosis for the singer’s father Chuck – who died soon after on March 29. The urgency and catharsis in these tracks makes sense in that context, but there’s something else here: a deep connection with music, felt in every groove and texture. [Jun 2026, p.89]

Their latest band, captured on Live Forever in full electric flow. [Jun 2026, p.84]

These are certainly boss songs – Easter Lily feels like the strongest collection of material U2 have mustered in at least 20 years.

Their third LP proper was still their best, most filler-free creation. .... Reminds us how much The Lovin' Spoonful mattered, and why Neil Young fantasied about joining them. [Jun 2026, p.94]

The best Paisley Underground-adjacent, Byrds-infatuated new LP you've heard in a while. [Jun 2026, p.68]

Like its closest Amos siblings, Scarlet Walk (2002) and American Doll Posse (2007, it's far from immediate, but the delayed gratification reaps rewards aplenty. [Jun 2026, p.86]

As trad indie goes, The World Is Not Good Enough is concise, fluid beauty, just 229 minutes of plangent songwriting that explores Solomon's alarming lack of cope mechanisms. [Jun 2026, p.86]

It is simultaneously comforting and haunting, an emotional closeness that is both playful an unsettling. [Jun 2026, p.93]

The epic A Friend Like You, the tenderest song about being unable to walk away from a relationship, rueing "why the hell do you have to be so sweet", or the self-explanatory Sad Song, ironically the jauntiest track here. [Jun 2026, p.87]

The best pieces here really are as good as their previous iterations; very occasionally, perhaps even better. [Jun 2026, p.96]

Throughout, Starr’s drumming is reliably great, and while he may indeed have travelled a long long road, here he sounds 85 years young. [Jun 2026, p.86]