This is reflective country pop with a Van Zandt-ish warmth and wisdom. [May 2017, p.98]

Modern Kosmology is every bit as good as its predecessor. [Jun 2017, p.90]

Super Natural is a wholly visceral experience, plugging into the same socket that animated Jerry Lee Lewis back in '57. [Jun 2017, p.92]

Resistance bubbles with zest and vitality. [Jul 2017, p.87]

Cathartic, rich and true. [Jul 2017, p.88]

Bluesman's solid soul and guitar chops fit snugly with Hi band. [Aug 2017, p.97]

A sleight of hand that transforms its low-key, elegiac ruminations into defiant affirmation of life. [Aug 2017, p.93]

Where Gunshot Lips fits in only adds to the intrigue of this exquisite dark jewel. [Nov 2017, p.102]

An exquisite, meditative experience. [Nov 2017, p.108]

Occasionally, the strings seem like an afterthought to a seemingly traditional Malian griot set-up, but the majestic title track demonstrates the power of the pairing. [Dec 2017, p.89]

Swarming with rich atmospherics, it's a wee-small-hours treasure trove for fans of Blue Nile, Scott Walker or Bill Callahan. [Jan 2018, p.90]

Hammill's best solo album in a long time. [Dec 2017, p.91]

This handsome 3-CD box contains both concerts in their entirety for the first time. [Jan 2017, p.104]

The 35-track odyssey serpentines on an exotic carpet of plangent electric and acoustic guitar sounds through whimsical, sub-Basement Tapes Americana, languorous, Grateful Dead-like psych-folk and hallucinogenic, Lennon-esque-pop. [Jan 2018, p.92]

Simultaneously soaring and depthless, soothing and unnerving, solemn and joyful, McPhee's excursions feel weird, unknowable, as if the path we're on is both bright and labyrinthine, a certain route to the unknown. [Feb 2018, p.94]

This terrific follow-up [to 2016's Hold On] captures the sparks again, and there are plenty of them. [Mar 2018, p.97]

[the Lost Brothers] are most at home in melancholy autumnal folk-lands. [Feb 2018, p.99]

Clever and very subtle grown-up electronic pop that beats with a broken heart. [Mar 2018, p.93]

Young weaves 11 modern blues of frail longing around backwards guitar, mumbling bass and homemade percussion, his chanted lyrics like pale fragile spells for escaping the 21st century. [Jun 2018, p.93]

Their easy familiarity is evident throughout The Siren's Song, with its beautiful mix of of Kacy's crystalline vocals and Clayton's inventive, deep-groove country guitar. [Jun 2018, p.91]

[The E Street Band] are barely present. Despite the sterile production, it's a vivid portrayal of personal torment, with great songs. ... Human Touch and Lucky Town make sense: the work of a man focused on changing nappies or seeing his therapist. ... In Concert/MTV Plugged confirms, the sacred texts were better served by E Street's idiosyncrasies. [Jul 2018, p.105]

Brilliant throughout. better than the official Stage with an art-rocking sound he never quite bettered. ... An essential purchase for Bowie fans. [Aug 2018, p.102]

Beautiful songs studded with dissonant eruptions of noise. [Oct 2018, p.94]

Glenn Jones's repeated trips to the well of John Fahey's American Primitive legacy seem to yield even more refreshing results. [Sep 2018, p.90]

There's no faulting Shemekia Copeland's voice. [Sep 2018, p.91]

Where the comic thesp rabbitholes back to 1980s telly music, with sincere, library-esque 'ommages. [Dec 2018, p.94]

Understandably, the 76-year-old's voice has lost some if its technical precision, but the backdrops have light touch and when she growls Don't Lie To Me's motif, "How do you sleep?" or evokes "thunderclouds of alibis" on the imperious The Rain Will Fall, she oozes despair and fury. [Jan 2019, p.84]

Mollestad Thomassen's adoption of free-flowing soloing brings a sound less claustrophobic than before. Extraordinarily, in doing so, no power is lost. [Feb 2019, p.87]