Genre-hopping in style with one-woman band Merrill Garbus. [July 2011, p. 114]

It's hard to imagine a record more original or full of life, from any artist of any age, emerging this year. It's that damn good. [Nov 2007, p.91]

Dawson’s command of the nuances of northern English speech and empathy for small, vulnerable things of all ages shines through with all-seeing light. [Mar 2025, p.92]

Here's some blood and guts from Toronto in the prime-time 1970s. And it doesn't just sit there. [Jul 2022, p.101]

Remind Me Tomorrow feels full to the brim, flooded to the top with experimental colour and texture, drones and drums and synthesizers. [Feb 2019, p.85]

An ecstatic update on classic techno. [Apr 2023, p.86]

Sung with his steamrollered Mancunian vowels intact, Garvey's allusive, playful lyrics are as golden as those of your Bermans and Caves here, drawing on Wordsworth, but also name-checking Leo Sayer and The Jungle Book's affable bear, Baloo. [Apr 2024, p.82]

If you can get past the redundancy--and what a redundancy it is. [Jan 2016, p.106]

Welcome to Mali celebrates its artificiality, flaunts its illegitimacy and waggles its infidelities in your face. Amadou & Mariam have just damned authenticite to an eternity in caducite. [Dec 2008, p.98]

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]

Simpson invests this bold, widescreen music with such heartfelt and real pathos and joy that it announces him as a major talent, and makes A Sailor’s Guide To Earth so rewarding.

Mirrored explodes with twisting grooves and obtuse angles. [Jun 2007, p.102]

For Sale ratchets up the band's ever-present anxiety with a dose of on-stage adrenaline to make this the Holy Grail 'Mats fans have hankered after for decades. [Nov 2017, p.109]

There's alot of her here, and the connections are all her own. [Jun 2014, p.89]

Warrants deep exploration. [Nov 2018, p.95]

Bon Iver's musical palette is a far broader, full blown band affair. [Jul 2011, p.98]

A confident and substantial evolution of their sound. [Apr 2024, p.89]

From the gentle breeze of the Tala Tannam to the howling gale of lead single Chismiten, the little clumps of ambient sound - village chatter, footsteps, maybe a cockerel - hold their ground against every new gust of virtuoso fretwork. [Jul 2021, p.89]

As confident a second statement as you could wish for, full of strong melodies, affecting lyrics, sharp playing, immense arrangements and sympathetic production. [Jun 2016, p.86]

BSP's sifts from poignant viola and tranquil vocals to foaming turbulence are perfect. [Jan 2014, p.104]

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

Wisely not handing over the reins completely to the makeover crew, the new Sangaré is not so very different from the old one--and when you have a voice like hers, it really doesn’t make a lot of difference what knobs are being twiddled in the studio. Sangaré rocks in her own way, and nothing is ever going to change that.

Nothing is off limits, the entire artistic palette is there to be used. And Diawara exploits that uniqueness with aplomb. [Jun 2018, p.92]

The case is made for this wilful outfit's prog-jazz with a hardcore punk heart. [Aug 2019, p.90]

The sprawl of her vision is impressive; the mystic excellence of its execution suggests she should make a habit of such recordings. [Sep 2020, p.88]

Her best songs - cinematic anthem Lost Woman's Prayer and highly charged Every Day In Faith - sound like well-established country classics. [Jan 2022, p.89]

While Long Live The Strange turns the outsiderism of Supergrass's Strange Ones into an anthem, with bonus chorale. The rest is more soul-searching, but with instrumental structuring and melodic grace of satisfying excellence. [Feb 2023, p.82]

Not ideal for newcomers, perhaps, but a recumbent feast for fans. [Jul 2024, p.101]