At times the central theme, exploring our relationship to Earth and ancestral wisdom, veers into portentousness- but this is undercut by the rich musical mix. [Jul 2025, p.83]

Akpro's narcotic melodies grip tight as dubby bass lines (played by Akpro) probe alongside loping beats, flickering embers of guitar, saxophone haze and the singer's sultry delivery. [Jul 2025, p.80]

If You Asked For A Picture is a zig-zagging combination of gentle (the opening Thumbtack is acoustic guitar plus reverb-y, quivering vocals before muffled drums kick in halfway through) and tempestuous. [Jul 2025, p.79]

A mix of sentimental parenting and venal cynicism, the orchestral Pot Of Gold is peak Doherty. [Jun 2025, p.88]

Litle Feat aren't reinventing the wheel here, but the one they have still works just fine. [Jun 2025, p.87]

This collaboration feels like a specific crystallisation of his {thom Yorke's] enduring love of electronic music, its release on Warp fitting given how much Autechre and Aphex Twin informed Radiohead’s Kid A-era pivot. [Jun 2025, p.78]

It's largely stripped of their loftier excesses. Instead, the tone - meditative, inward-looking - coalesces around Circle Of Trust's tender electro, Ride Or Die's minimal escapist lullaby or the tech-U2 of She Cries Diamond Rain. [Jun 2025, p.80]

Fourteen tracks long, The Road... is almost overwhelming, like overdosing on chocolate truffles, but even after all this time, Philippe's compositions are only getting stronger. [Jun 2025, p.89]

An exquisite, sometimes spectacular achievement rich with emotive resonance. [Jun 2025, p.80]

This fifth and self-produced eponymous LP restates their collective intent with the hip-hop groove and soaring chorus of Gold Rush, the breezy drivetime rock of Old Tape (tackling persistent self-criticism) and the Judee Sill verses of Mad Love. [Jun 2025, p.80]

With its silvery guitar and tentative vision of collective power, the title track also offers a means of escape. It frames an album that, in its own determined way, boldly meets the moment. [Jun 2025, p.83]

Clinic fans will dig this. [May 2025, p.93]

It's the jubilant reach and dynamite in the details that make The Scholars a rock opera worthy of the form. [Jun 2025, p.85]

It's the vast common ground that they delicately negotiate and improvise in which makes Totality so enthralling, so satisfying. [Jun 2025, p.89]

Idol's rebel yell still has snarl and charisma, but some of these songs (Wildside; Too Much Fun) feel like pop-punk makeweights included to get Dream Into It up to 35 minutes. [Jun 2025, p.82]

Eliot's songwriting, always more Jacques Brel than Jam, has palpably matured. [Jun 2025, p.84]

Colossal. [Apr 2025, p.85]

Best of all is Politics Don Expose Them, which hits hard yet swings on great horn lines and a catchy call-and-response chorus. [Jun 2025, p.88]

Funny, bleak, cathartic and brave, with a winning redemption arc, in all but design Weirdo is a blues album - transforming unbearable pain into deeply affecting, original art. [Jun 2025, p.86]

You can't pin them down, but there lies the joy. [Jun 2025, p.84]

Hieroglyphic Being aims to take you to a higher state of consciousness. There's plenty of fun to be had there. [May 2025, p.91]

Somehow, he and producer Jake Davis have conjured an utterly compelling account of Tyler's lurching mental health. [Jun 2025, p.87]

There's something of the counsellor's couch about these songs, a record that trembles between acute self-awareness, self-laceration and self-preservation in its quest for "the deep blue OK". [Jun 2025, p.82]

Ever predictable, funny and imaginatively constructed, Viagr Aboys is a total gas. [Jun 2025, p.80]

Unpredictable and stylistically chameleonic, Deerhoof's clamorous noise and freak-out rifferama seems perfectly attuned to current world flux. Still there is joy here too. [Jun 2025, p.80]

Some of the most minimal yet complex, heavy but refined music going. [Jun 2025, p.86]

Ultimately, this is music with therapeutic benefits, for the listener as much as for its creator. [Jun 2025, p.89]

The Blind Boys Of Alabama and Norah Jones pops up in Sweet Things Just For You, but no guest can overshadow June's sweet and salty tones. [Jun 2025, p.89]