It's an album that at times sounds like it wants to smash your face to pieces, sometimes your heart. It's beautiful, horrible, bleak, spiteful, overwhelmed, overwhelming--a cry of panic ,despair, anxiety in the face of accelerating modernity. .... All three [previously unreleased tracks] are excellent in their way. [Aug 2017, p.100]

This parade of audacious flops is a powerful introduction to this great band's pleasures, should you need one. [Jul 2017, p.104]

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

Bouncy production keep things light; Pharrell-ish Feel It Still, soulful So Young; but perhaps too light. [Jul 2017, p.96]

It's a raucous portrait of a well-drilled band on fire. [Jul 2017, p.87]

It dives into the UK's musical melting pot, blending reggae, hip-hop, Asian beats and dancefloor nous. [Jul 2017, p.93]

Whatever Royal Blood have surrendered in volume here, they have gained in new dimensions. [Jul 2017, p.89]

A winsome, nostalgic atmosphere. [Jul 2017, p.91]

His strength is his honesty. He couches his anxieties in simple but poetic language as his band find the sweet spot between country and rock. [Jul 2017, p.90]

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

It's not the easiest to digest in one sitting, but its languorous, tripy/hippy cocktail is refreshingly unique. [Jul 2017, p.91]

When the music gets quieter there is an irritating increase in tape hiss. [Jun 2017, p.89]

The slow-burners can drag, but it peaks again on Down and Eno-ish Waiting. [Jul 2017, p.96]

Wisely not handing over the reins completely to the makeover crew, the new Sangaré is not so very different from the old one--and when you have a voice like hers, it really doesn’t make a lot of difference what knobs are being twiddled in the studio. Sangaré rocks in her own way, and nothing is ever going to change that.

Throughout, it's the sheer quality of Nau's songwriting that truly impresses. [Jul 2017, p.89]

Earth-shattering breakbeats take a backseat to slicker, smoother, jazzier efforts and broad-brush over-emoting for much of its ponderous second half. [Jul 2017, p.91]

McVie brings the sing-song pop; Buckingham, the whispered vocals and fingernail-splitting guitar solos. [Jun 2017, p.86]

At its best, Weather Diaries rejuvenates their burn-it-down guitars ad pretty vacancy. ... But some of the old problems remain: a thin lyrical wash, an occasional plod. [Jul 2017, p.86]

The righteousness is on full display in New York City. On Sunday Bloody Sunday, Bono howls, “We’re so sick of it!” If such declarations were beginning to sound sanctimonious at the time, 30 years of legit activism--including sitting down repeatedly with ideological adversaries such as Trump VP Mike Pence--casts Bono’s piety as the real deal. ... Thirty years later, U2 continue their pursuit of the righteous; looking back to be sure, but suited to this moment all the same. [Jul 2017, p.104]

Anyone who blanched at Herrema's strychnine sandpaper vocals won't be seduced by this set, however, and Hagerty only rarely scale the truly sublime heights of harmololdic skronk within his reach. [Jul 2017, p.90]

If this is about cities, it's cities glimpsed in poetic, fragmentary dreams. [Jul 2017, p.90]

There is no doubt that Ditto can command the attention, but these songs don't quite sweeten the deal enough. [Jul 2017, p.89]

It's a slight concept (and a short album), which may be to the singer's benefit: in the past she could be off-puttingly clever in a very French way. OUI seems to be saying to us: "Yes, I'm simply a singer. Just Come and enjoy the music.". [Jul 2017, p.93]

Chuck sets an example for everyone else to follow. [Jul 2017, p.94]

With everyone now doing '80s-dance-pop, these Parisians seem more veteran than hipster on this set of Italo-disco and sophisticated pop. [Jul 2017, p.96]

Midway, things meander, after Adrianne Lenker's pellucid vocals twists and turns. [Jul 2017, p.96]

If Crack-Up falls short of perfection, it inspires hope that transcendence is waiting around the corner. [Jul 2017, p.84]

Distractions' expanded palette takes in grime, experimental R&B and robotic house, like an alternate soundtrack for an arcade racer. [Jul 2017, p.91]