A gorgeously warm, light-footed pop that roams freely. [Aug 2024, p.88]

BASIC speak their own language, but it’s not long before their signs and signals unfold into a fascinating new conversation. [Oct 2024, p.82]

Davachi’s work can be gently provocative but it’s never anything less than stimulating. [Oct 2024, p.91]

The delicious, Moroder breakbeat thump of Birth4000 and squealing garagey rave of Vocoder (Club Mix) have the swagger and heft to leave club soundsystems wobbling, but also need good headphones for home enjoyment. [Oct 2024, p.82]

Newbies Jet Pac Boomerang and Went To A Party zing with his best, quality control being the soul of wit. [Oct 2024, p.88]

Following 2009’s ‘re-enactment’ shows, here, finally, is this fabulous, full-blooded seventh LP. Aficionados will be punching the air within the first minute of opener Hide & Seek: it’s all there. [Oct 2024, p.82]

Nada Surf have always been close to greatness, and Moon Mirror won’t win new fans, but it is wonderful. [Oct 2024, p.82]

Beyond box-ticking cameos from Snoop, Nas, Eminem and Busta Rhymes, horror film-stringed posse cut The Vow (with relative unknowns Mad Squablz, J-S.A.N.D. and Don Pablito) shows LL at his sharpest, “movin’ chess pieces like telekinesis” and stretching his elasticity to ridiculous extremes. Call it a comeback. [Oct 2024, p.88]

As with FWF, it’s hard to discern any redemptive purpose other than the release of darker energies, but on that score Wither’s Suicide-esque pulse, All The Same’s filthy, Decius-style hi-NRG and Running’s synth-bashing rush best hit FD’s target. [Oct 2024, p.86]

Writing about it is like trying to catalogue and analyse a newly opened Egyptian tomb. Archives III is more legacy than most artists muster in a lifetime. [Oct 2024, p.92]

When Fuller and Turner sing together (try Happiness or Cherry) it’s truly spectacular, two of a kind becoming one. [Oct 2024, p.90]

Regardless of language, it’s substantive synth-pop with broad appeal. [Oct 2024, p.91]

Sometimes futuristic, at others surprisingly formulaic, it’s another stepping stone on Sinephro’s path to greatness but one where the parts are worth more than the whole. [Oct 2024, p.87]

Bands, as Donahue famously sang on Holes, “never work quite right”, but with this late-period beauty, Mercury Rev have hit the cosmic balance perfectly. [Oct 2024, p.83]

These songs are consistently fantastic: from Brand New’s harmony-laden prayer for rebirth, to The Letters, Etc’s wry, country-steeped moment of clarity, whispering “how strange to be strangers after what we was”. [Sep 2024, p.89]

There’s an irresistibly slinky Stones groove to Boom Boom Back (Beck Hansen yelps mid-chorus), while Fontaines D.C.’s Grian Chatten guests on the smouldering Stranger. Throughout, Cosials and Perrote joyfully excel. [Oct 2024, p.88]

Sometimes co-written with The The’s guitarist Barrie Cadogan or keyboardist DC Collard, these 12 songs cement Johnson’s ‘cherishable agitator’ status. And – whisper it – there’s hope here, too. [Oct 2024, p.86]

Booze and heartache are constants, but the mood is never morose, borne aloft by Lenderman’s guitar playing, which is primal but emotionally lucid. His tender lyricism is another big plus, locating laudable empathy for his cast of lovable losers. [Oct 2024, p.90]

She counts up her decades on the twinkly Hell-Oh Sixty, ponders the cruel power of good hair on Bangs, and documents love passing its sell-by date on The Farewell Tour, before finding Tom Petty-ish redemption with closing heartbreaker Last Night’s Rainbow. [Oct 2024, p.89]

It’s brilliant, moving stuff, and if this were to be David Gilmour’s final record, it’s certainly the best of his solo career. [Oct 2024, p.80]

If the near Herculean task of sustaining enchantment through 12 instrumentals just occasionally tests Los Bitchos, it's easily forgivable. [Sep 2024, p.92]

Ritual is enchanting and transportive. [Sep 2024, p.84]

While ably constructed, particularly on the wistful The Old House, these songs feel slight - a starting point from which Konschuh's own individual voice may blossom. [Oct 2024, p.84]

There are still instances of thrilling freneticism; a Scandinavian Deerhoof. But this LP is often more cleanly directional – less angular and full of unexpected calm, as with the sweet vocal/ guitar chimes on Bell. [Sep 2024, p.89]

A deeply human record, the shepherd stepping away from his sermons to look for wonder and rapture. [Oct 2024, p.86]

You emerge rooting for Nicholson on every count. [Sep 2024, p.91]

Assembling musicians from the electronica, folk and jazz spheres to frame her disquisitions, she has fashioned a disquieting, gripping artefact. [Aug 2024, p.84]

Much of Ill Times Andrew Perry swings by like a more ’80s-fixated Black Keys (particularly yowler Fool For You), with Kenny-Smith unforeseeably excelling on the mike as a soul man, exorcising paternal bereavement (Dud) and the title track’s all-pervasive life agony. Old Transistor Radio busts out P-Funk proto-hip-hop, but there’s sufficient finesse here to make this team-up a keeper. [Sep 2024, p.93]