This sad skewed pop with shades of Momus, Sakamoto, L. pierre and Bjork weaves its magic on the fluttering yet forthright Salty, vocal tapestry of Come Behind Me, So Good! and raw emoting of Meo, but palls a little before its haunting apex on spaced-out sign-off Coyote, with spectral echoes of Kazu's complicated past. [Oct 2019, p.86]

Terms Of Surrender presents a man sinking on the edges but bullishly so, not countenancing change. The effect is disquieting, uncomfortable, especially with Aaron Dessner's sumptuous production giving these songs a contrastingly romantic sheen. [Oct 2019, p.83]

Hval deals in big cerebral questions, but these songs--intimate, intricately fleshed out--have roots in both body and mind. [Oct 2019, p.86]

The Return could do with some editing as it's unwieldy 78 minutes risk losing the audience before its finest songs: the epic, autobiographical title track, and the redemptive, gospel-soaked closer Made Us better. But Too much of a good thing is nothing to hold a grudge over. [Oct 2019, p.89]

This is Black Star Riders' best work yet. [Oct 2019, p.88]

The best new tracks' confidence boosts the band's emotional clout. [Oct 2019, p.88]

It's a familiar world they inhabit, but still a deeply odd one. [Oct 2019, p.82]

Real heart pulses behind the earwiggy riffs, the lyrics tracing ideas of love from first stage to last, more nuances being revealed on each play. [Oct 2019, p.85]

There are a few other naff moments, but Gallagher's voice carries everything, sounding fantastic, high and bright in the mix. [Oct 2019, p.82]

The result is charged and post-apocalyptic. [Oct 2019, p.90]

Pang! doesn't just look forward to a blazing global meltdown. Beneath the modernist sheen, Rhys roots these songs in something older and wiser. [Oct 2019, p.83]

Groovy and moving, in all the right directions. [Oct 2019, p.88]

A gently rambling rumination twinkling with congas, shakers and bird-like flute. [Oct 2019, p.92]

He is so clearly in his element that you can just hand over the controls. [Oct 2019, p.97]

This whole album is a desert rock classic. [Oct 2019, p.82]

If not quite a match for Gainsbourg's ticklish masterpiece, it's a partial return to the stringy artistry of 2003's Friends Of Mine. [Oct 2019, p.83]

Meditative Time (You Got Me) sets the pace: a gently rambling rumination twinkling with congas, shakers and bird-like flutes. [Oct 2019, p.92]

Free, in a good way, resembles his more esoteric work from that time, such as 1999's brooding Avenue B. [Oct 2019, p.88]

Rubberband sounds too much like jazz's great disrupter chasing black-radio approval via The Human League. ... Rubberband is not a Great Lost Miles Davis Album. But it has a lot of great Miles Davis on it. [Oct 2019, p.101]

The LP's title might suggest the randomised poetry of google translate, but Low Probability Of A Hug speaks a language everyone can understand. [Oct 2019, p.85]

It's pleasant but ultimately inessential stuff. Way better are the tunes where the tape echo effects kick in. [Oct 2019, p.82]

There is humour to the harsh, spangly electropop of tracks like Feel For You and Vampires, but in places the concept is a little too arch and pumped up, sounding like a teen Netflix drama. [Oct 2019, p.82]

Her queasy, pitch-shifting sound aligns with labelmate Flying Lotus's high-end head music. [Sep 2019, p.96]

An ass-shaking blend of disco, house, '80s pop with apparent self-awareness. [Oct 2019, p.92]

Malone draws the listener into the unique interior timbre of the pipe organ, like the idling breath of a large machine at rest; a music of worship, where the object of spiritual veneration is the inner space of the instrument itself. [Oct 2019, p.89]

There's a cosmic/romantic wisdom to highlight One Way Or Another and Two Dreamers' sunshine classicism. [Sep 2019, p.96]

Crow sounds wholly at ease, but for all the vocal variety Stevie Nicks, James Taylor and a rueful Vince Gill bring, she doesn't sound wholly inspired. [Oct 2019, p.89]

While there's a suspicion that the album format isn't their natural habitat - only the melancholic shuffle of (Vi-Vi) Vicious Games veers away from the acid template - the sinewy, skeletal intensity here has a creeping allure. [Oct 2019, p.90]