The folk comes juxtaposed with industrial creaks and eastern drones, the virtuosity tempered with scrabbling wildness. [Sep 2018, p.96]

Disc four's unreleased assortment holds little for Wobble-Levene obsessives. More noteworthy: a disturbingly atonal Banging The Door, two abstract thumpathons from '81-83's "lost" fourth album, some speculative Album demos, and a n instrumental stab at Led Zep's Kashmir. [Aug 2018, p.102]

Brilliant throughout. better than the official Stage with an art-rocking sound he never quite bettered. ... An essential purchase for Bowie fans. [Aug 2018, p.102]

The blend of lushness and rusticity is beguiling. ... Still, for all its accomplished loveliness, there's also a suggestion that Nash's sense of wonder is a little less wild eyed than it once was. [Sep 2018, p.89]

The fractured electronics of his homespun-sounding dispatches give way to freewheeling keys that smack lightly of Thelonious Monk, Herbie Hancock and Bill Evans. [Sep 2018, p.91]

It proceeds funereally, as if in the suspended animation of a nocturnal hallucination, like sleepwalking through a dark and empty airport, but also right there in the room as Wave Pics' on-the-fly magic unfolds. [Sep 2018, p.93]

Louris and company have created a soothing balm for overly neurotic and trying times. [Sep 2018, p.89]

With the less auspicious intrusions of Petra Haden's '80s rock emoting, and Meyer's cliched whiskey-waffle, it's harder to discern where Williamson's heart lies. [Sep 2018, p.88]

With its shuffling drums and strong tune, Microclimate has a song-like feel, while the title track is very different in mood as it gently pulses with restless rhythmic tics and a melancholic, meandering keyboard line. [Sep 2018, p.93]

In its early stages, Joy feels not at all slight, dashed-off or inferior, launching out on a series of acoustic-rattling, inescapably Syd-Barrett-esque pop tunes whose wonky brevity is a virtue. [Sep 2018, p.93]

A more structured back to basics approach really works for them. [Sep 2018, p.94]

A major step up, until Nas fluffs the rhyme ball spouting credulity-testing conspiracies. [Sep 2018, p.96]

Anderson's playing is simultaneously muscular and relaxed, defiant and heartfelt, a new nomadic American music for her own troubled times. [Jul 2018, p.91]

For all her professed preference for slower, gothically-inclined blues, it's old-time rippers like Sometimes There's Blood or land speed banjo record attempt, Oh, Command Me Lord!, where she really excels--and, critically, excites.[Aug 2018, p.88]

Yet for all the invention and undeniably impressive groove control, there are lulls when their meditative update of '70s fusion stars Lonnie Liston Smith, Herbie Hancock and Roy Ayers slicks into something wallpapery, doodly and unselfconsciously by-numbers. [Aug 2018, p.95]

The result is a dreamlike state of unease and wonder, in which you don't know where you are, or what's coming next. [Aug 2018, p.94]

They sound in rude health to me. [Aug 2018, p.96]

It's a judicious match-up. [Jun 2018, p.96]

Hyper-tense, but worth it. [Aug 2018, p.91]

An album of swooning, soft-lens electronica that is firmly of the Eno/Aphex Twin lineage. [Jul 2018, p.95]

Longstreth still doesn't make it easy on the listener with his frenetic arrangements. But, this time around, the sense of plainly expressed emotions is strong. [Aug 2018, p.91]

[The Trinity Session was] An alt-folk classic--and this might be one too. [Aug 2018, p.93]

Best consumed in small doses. [Aug 2018, p.91]

Sonically rich and lyrically intense. [Aug 2018, p.94]

Sculptor yields centre-stage to Randell's haiku-like celebrations of human spirit and suburban transcendence. [Aug 2018, p.94]

It's hardly news that soft rock and heartache go hand in hand, but Johansing's version is particularly seductive. [Aug 2018, p.89]

Seemingly ramshackle songs with deceptively shrewd arrangements, like the woozy, Beta Band-ish Paper. [Aug 2018, p.96]

A first album since 2006 reflects interim activities. [Aug 2018, p96]