He covers old bases with new fervour, but there's so much happening, so much detail that it feels like a giant leap forward. [Dec 2021, p.92]

Both of these albums twisted machines to Radiohead's will, to their need to hear soulful songs singing in their wires. And they're resonating still. [Dec 2021, p.102]

Strictly for fans of "difficult." [Dec 2021, p.92]

New Adventures In Hi-Fi holds up well now. ... CD2 consists of all previously released material. Fun of you've never hears R.E.M. saunter through Wichita Lineman, but completists will see this one as a massive opportunity missed. [Dec 2021, p.98]

There are shorter tracks, but the longer songs (averaging seven minutes apiece) are the real gems. [Dec 2021, p.89]

On the plus side, Ross is in good voice, but as comeback albums go, this is an underwhelming affair. [Oct 2021, p.96]

Stirring, seductive album. [Dec 2021, p.88]

Despite the turmoil these songs describe, a flash of Elliott Smith-style emotional acuity every few seconds, musically Valentine tells a different story. Building on the confidence of 2018 debut Lush. [Nov 2021, p.87]

Beautifully poised. [Dec 2021, p.92]

Music best experienced as the sun drops below the horizon. [Nov 2021, p.91]

An intimate, thematic country-blues-rock set. [Nov 2021, p.93]

Paints on a much broader canvas here than 2019's debut Fyah, roving roughshod across genres. ... In Cross's seasoned palms the tuba's possibilities feel endless. [Dec 2021, p.89]

Witty and moving, somewhere an indie movie needs this as a soundtrack. [Dec 2021, p.85]

The focused, meander-free Ocean To Ocean is big on uplift, balm and musical adventure. [Dec 2021, p.84]

There's considerable ambition at play here. [Dec 2021, p.90]

Absence finds New Orleans trumpeter Blanchard and regular band E Collective effortlessly shifting textures, with disguised flares of long notes and high blasts casting fresh melodic light on much-covered works Fall and Diana. [Nov 2021, p.89]

I Don't Live Here Anymore is the most grounded War On Drugs record and the best: a calm space amid a world in collapse. [Nov 2021, p.82]

Reinvents Burt Bacharach on the Bell Gets Out If The Way and brings an XTC-ish bloom to the downtempo powerpop of Cherub and The Great Child Actor. [Dec 2021, p.84]

Stripped back and raw, his mesmerising guitar front and centre, this is gritty old-style blues with a laser-sharp modern focus. [Dec 2021. p.86]

-io doesn't try to ingratiate or console. Instead, Fohr ambitiously attempts to strip back protective coatings and cocoons, to show what happens when distractions peel away and the inevitable pushes through. [Nov 2021, p.90]

Baffling excursions into exotica also make Fantasy Island different enough to reignite their "wow" factor. [Nov 2021, p.91]

This album feels personal, contemplative, yet thanks to Harris's blurred vocals, the meaning is never in focus, like notes sent back from the edge of a waking dream. [Oct 2021, p.96]

Deerhoof being Deerhoof, the arty, poppy, proggy noise is jagged, cathartic, and occasionally grand. [Nov 2021, p.88]

Probably his most varied album. ... The extremes work better still, be it Cyrus's eyebrow-raising raw trawl through Metallica's Nothing Else Matters or the vocal pyrotechnics which course through Young Thug & Nicki Minaj's Always Love You. [Dec 2021, p.87]

An intermittently discomfiting record, tinged with sadness and beautifully composed. [Oct 2021, p.97]

The music's suboptimal sound quality is only a minor drawback to a sonic experience whose raw intensity is both disquieting and uplifting. [Nov 2021, p.102]

Fun House moves Duffy ever closer to the revelatory heart of the matter. [Nov 2021, p.92]

Move, a blistering collision of heavy rock and Latin pop. The remainder of the album ranges from percussive jazz-rock and bouncy Latin Techno to febrile thrash metal. [Dec 2021, p.87]