[Grian] Chatten’s role feels ever more pivotal. His voice now has multiple personae, notably a Jeff Buckley doppelgänger on Romance’s upper register peals. His lyrical flow, meanwhile, makes pretty much every song an event. [Sep 2024, p.82]

A culturally rich and generally wonderful 72 minutes of little-heard revelry. [Oct 2024, p.94]

“Don’t mind me… I’m a lazy sod,” sings Ian Gillan. Other daft lyrics such as “Mother nature’s keeping her socks on” support his confession, but Deep Purple’s indomitable frontman remains in fine voice and, musically at least, they sound reborn here. [Aug 2024, p.81]

The huge exhilaration of Hawk's previous two albums has largely been replaced by more troubled moods - and more stylistic variety - but bravura lyrics remain. [Sep 2024, p.86]

Laus's writing is maturing, Real Man and tie My Shows surprisingly country-folk, while elsewhere there's bell-clear acoustic pop. Any occasional sameness is offset by existential stingers. [Oct 2024, p.90]

Boasting Dwyer's catchiest hooks yet. But Sorcs 80 is most alive when embracing its core weirdness. [Oct 2024, p.87]

A glorious convergence of talents. [Sep 2024, p.92]

Another Day, another faff-free, one-session-apiece exercise in succinctness, for a sixth long-player which presents Fucked Up as a more highly evolved version of their old selves – dense, intense and to-the-point. [Sep 2024, p.88]

Flight b741 feels like the doozy Primal Scream aspired to circa Give Out But Don’t Give Up. Turns out you don’t have to fly to Memphis to shine. [Sep 2024, p.88]

Like Baldwin, Ndegeocello isn’t one to look away, but both are generous enough and have the artistic skills to let you walk a mile in their shoes. [Sep 2024, p.87]

Aswad and Steel Pulse stand proud amid JA heavy-hitters Burning Spear and Black Uhur u, while PiL, The Slits and The Pop Group mingle with the un-dread Joe Jackson, SLF and Angelic Upstarts. With Misty In Roots glaringly absent due to ‘rights issues’, there’s ample scope for a sequel. [Sep 2024, p.101]

Ever unpredictable and inspired, >>>> is anything but run-of-the-mill. [Aug 2024, p.81]

Through it all, Metheny’s sole medium is a guitar built by luthier extraordinaire Linda Manzer. Thanks to his cloistered affair with the instrument, everybody wins. [Aug 2024, p.89]

The occasional slo-mo reverb-guitar twang, and on The Answers To The Questions a weary beatbox, cap off a supremely unsettling update on Lynchian pop weirdness. [Sep 2024, p.92]

It's impressive stuff, full of craft and invention, but there are moments when there could be more mellow - and a touch less pyrotechnic indie-rock Roman candle. [Sep 2024, p.91]

Smoke & Fiction is lean rock'n'roll that plays to the group's strengths. [Sep 2024, p.86]

This NYC ambient country trio continue to evolve on their fifth LP. [Sep 2024, p.94]

No Name is a much more nuanced record, more of a piece with White’s entire varied discography, than it might have first appeared.

Are Possible grasps the roots of folk tradition and propels them enthusiastically into new terrain. [Sep 2024, p.88]

What follows is a remarkably moving distillation of Blur’s 33 years as pop stars. [Sep 2024, p.84]

Here, the 36 unreleased tracks (albeit including alternate or instrumental versions of the LP cuts) highlight the outside influences that each brought to the table. [Sep 2024, p.96]

Lovely though these songs are, it’s hard not to feel they demand a similar attention, your mind fighting to impose structure on their swathes of classic rock signifiers, their lyrical opacity. Izenberg might be getting closer to his music, but he’s still oddly far away. [Sep 2024, p.84]

Forged from 60 hours of improvisation, the excellent follow-up to 2019’s Laughing Matter is tightly crafted without being too stable, the band throwing their melodic rope bridges over wide dark spaces on JJ’s woozy exotica lullaby or Lifeboat’s ominous electro-folk. [Sep 2024, p.84]

The Alabama five-piece, alongside producer David Cobb, totally cut loose, upping the octane to hard rockin’, guitar crunchin’ Southern gospel soul. [Sep 2024, p.86]

The Evidence and Hear The Children Sing are probably lodged in Talya Salsburg and Poppy Oldham’s subconsciouses for life now. Give this beautiful record of uncanny domesticity a few listens, and they may well take up residence in yours, too.

A succinct record about wisdom accrued through adversity, its layered arrangements packing subtle psych tropes and world-weary vocal-harmony. [Aug 2024, p.88]

There’s quite a variety of country musicians here. Most tend to play their selection pretty straight, though Rhiannon Giddens has an interesting take on Don’t Come Around Here No More. ... It’s the old school who provide this collection’s highlights. [Aug 2024, p.89]

Most of I Have Notes is a shop window for Gouldman’s songwriting craft. [Sep 2024, p.87]