All and all, a winning, beats-driven combination of the personal and the universal. [Apr 2023, p.82]

If the default mode of these simmering barroom confessionals is a certain existential weariness, they're nonetheless dispatched with substance and soul. [Mar 2023, p.90]

The nonpareil group's best record in exactly a decade. [Apr 2023, p.82]

Her fiercest offering since 1996's landmark The Way I Should, and a long overdue follow-up to that album's righteous ire. [Apr 2023, p.83]

These 10 tracks showcase Brewis's beautifully expressive singing and, in the waltz-time jazz of Start Over, deep empathy. [Mar 2023, p.91]

This is no holding exercise. Instead, think beautifully conceived curio. [Apr 2023, p.85]

Tracks such as the thunderous Six-Pack or The Fall Of Paul might clang with dissonant noise or pinball off into a riot of machine gun rhythms, but it's generally not at the expense of songs that a festival crowd could bellow back at them. [Apr 2023, p.83]

Occasionally, the vaulting arrangements threaten to overwhelm what is a naturally lower-case singing voice, but the ambition here cannot be faulted. [Apr 2023, p.85]

The album's urgency and purpose is irresistible; there's a riot goin' on, and Algiers just lit the touchpaper. [Mar 2023, p.87]

Its largely brooding, contemplative mood raising ghosts and evoking bruised skies. [Mar 2023, p.92]

A fine collection from a timeless song craftsman. [Mar 2023, p.84]

7s feels like therapy for its creator but has the power and potential to rub off on us all. [Mar 2023, p.88]

A blend of well-crafted original material alongside several covers. [Mar 2023, p.89]

Highly seductive and pulsates with youthful energy. [Mar 2023, p.88]

Orbital remain a comforting presence, and still have plenty to say. [Mar 2023, p.85]

Yet it all still swings, rocks and rolls like a galleon in a squall, the Stones live remaining the luxury you can't do without. [Mar 2023, p.102]

O'Neill has locked into humanity's flawed relationship with nature. But there's celebration too. [Mar 2023, p.92]

What follows is a quietly substantive if still somewhat pallid, meditation on faith and death. [Mar 2023, p.92]

Their most corrosive cocktail yet of melodious sunshine pop and blackly comedic lyrics. [Mar 2023, p.85]

The likes of Beck and Stevie Nicks play supportive rather than starring roles, and the sonic flavours here recall the noir clubby pop of Humanz (2017). The woofer-pumping reggaeton of Tormenta however sees Albarn step aside to let Puerto Rican rapper Bad Bunny shine. [Mar 2023, p.85]

Lewis hits peak saxophone artistry here. [Mar 2023, p.89]

Dickinson is the singer's best foil since Bernard Butler, spinning a kaleidoscope of suave, modernist soul-pop. [Mar 2023, p.87]

It's also the group's most exciting, most engaged, most breathtaking album this century. [Mar 2023, p.85]

The source isn't always apparent, as Loscil and English's manipulations drift closer to the ambient techno of Gas. [Mar 2023, p.91]

A follow-up that finds the pure-toned Montreal-based singer painting with a wider palette, thanks to backing from pianist Felix Fox-Pappas and Toronto jazzers BADBADNOTGOOD. [Mar 2023, p.89]

The past might be intoxicating, but The Candle And The Flame - lucid, conversational, immediate - is beautifully present in its moment. [Mar 2023, p.84]

All guns are still blazing, but slightly differently. [Mar 2023, p.86]

They sing beautifully together and play everything. [Mar 2023, p.83]