The Beta Band made some dazzling music throughout their seven-year lifespan. [Nov 2013, p.101]

This intimate, intelligent album boasts that rarest quality in 21st century rock music: inimitability. [Mar 2014, p.89]

#7885 is an ideal primer for the curious previously cowed by their considerable legacy. [Aug 2014, p.102]

With these selections long-time Arkestra saxophonist Marshall Allen proves himself an excellent guide. [Oct 2014, p.105]

Completists will enjoy having the single edits of many tracks and the sound is sparklingly good. [Jan 2015, p.112]

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

Fish is Chapman still pushing out the boat and long may he sail. [Nov 2015, p.86]

The result is an album that goes far beyond emulation or pastiche to capture the emotional heart of a strange and elusive film, soaring from rapturous highs to quiet, introspective lows, vital romantic life undercut by a melancholy twilight sadness. [Apr 2018, p.89]

Daytona stands loud and proud among Pusha T's best work. [Aug 2018, p.91]

This lavish 36-track celebration doesn't settle for just reheating the best bits, cheerily omitting anything from Kamasi Washington's jazz clarion call The Epic, while proffering 22 new tracks that flaunt its roster's strength in depth. [Jan 2019, p.105]

His most complete artistic statement to date. [Dec 2019, p.93]

Profligate, self-indulgent and, against all oddly, hugely satisfying. ... [The single-disc] Sampler Edition is a handy 58-minute entry point to the mad endeavour. [Dec 2019, p.90]

Shah's voice throughout is fantastic, carrying and castigating her listeners along with her, while her brilliant band nails radio-friendly rock, swirling 4AD-style gothic atmospheres, and perfect post-punk attack. [Jul 2020, p.82]

Richly textured, panoramic celebration of the natural world. [Oct 2020, p.87]

This is an inspired set that reveals new ways of hearing pop classics. [Mar 2023, p.84]

It's the small, tragic details you notice on TLROE. [Jun 2023, p.84]

Further enriched by the palate of Fratti’s cello and Tosta’s brass, Sentir… is an extraordinarily possessed, uncanny world of its own. [Aug 2024, p.83]

Recorded in a single night, this light-touch meld of jazz, ambient, post-rock and hip-hop sensibilities find its players intertwined like tangled wires. [Jan 2025, p.82]

Colossal. [Apr 2025, p.85]

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]

Her voice is as earnestly soulful as Tracy Chapman, as deep and characterful as Nina Simone - and, like Simone, when the emotion engulfs her, the results are electrifying. [Sep 2025, p.87]

The shadowy melodies of New Case and Forgotten Token, a pulverising meditation on displacement, display a depth and sophistication suggesting greatness in Upchuck's future, if the dystopia doesn't get them first. [Jan 2026, p.84]

Van's back, lending vocals to Ain't That A trip, a joyous R&B number that provides one of many highpoints on Hunter's eleventh album. [Jan 2026, p.86]

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]

After a few spins its beautifully arranged songs get scratched into your soul. [Jun 2007, p.100]

By combining the searing intimacy of a boombox-constructed mixtape with progressive and delirious bars, Earl's third album offers a rare kind of insight, sagacious from a 24-year-old. [Mar 2019, p.80]

The result is Gorillaz's most ambitious (and moving) record to date. [Apr 2026, p.84]

It cannot have been a paucity of good songs, strong playing or contemporary production values that was the problem, the 13 hitherto unheard tracks on Wings of Love stunningly illustrate. [May 2013, p.102]