They impress with a neo-Romanticism rather than basic rabble-rousing. [Sep 2016, p.99]

If you're mad enough to be planning a Breaking Bad-themed barbecue you've just found the perfect soundtrack. [Sep 2016, p.90]

It's foundations are suitably raw, emotional and, more often than not rhythmically muscular. And yet, by skillfully offsetting this by weaving in strands of Afro-jazz, the pervading mood is one of calming, introspective reverie. [Sep 2016, p.93]

The falsetto vocals can sound glibly glossy, but as mainstream alternative to Animal Collective they'll go far. [Sep 2016, p.99]

Wild Beasts' stripped down songs have developed incrementally into a more electronic direction and these finely detailed arrangements feature twitchy kit and synthetic drums, sequencers, abstract sonics, '80s keyboard stabs and guitars occasionally let off the leash. [Sep 2016, p.95]

Wildflower can either be enjoyed as a horizon-filling album-long trip, or by zooming in on the array of every changing, intra-song moments, as sounds and ideas flit in and out of focus. Whatever your preference, it was worth the wait. [Sep 2016, p.92]

It's Ry [Cooder] who handles the production chores and does that capably. [Sep 2016, p.94]

Sleepy Eyes is an immediate standout, as is the mellow but life-affirming title song. More playful is the excellent Two And Two Don't Make Five, a kitsch retro-groove spiked with humour and a funky organ solo. [Sep 2016, p.94]

Neville is in wonderful vocal forms ranging through lovely balladry, gospel, doo wop and funk. [Sep 2016, p.95]

The thread that binds is Tyler's enduringly impressive voice. [Sep 2016, p.95]

It could sound outdated, but instead, done with such panache and passion, it's very much alive. [Sep 2016, p.96]

His [Chris Collingwood] Kermit-does-Carole King voice can be too sugary for some, but not for high-spec pop fans. [Sep 2016, p.99]

With self-awareness and personal catharsis equally high on the agenda, everybody's favourite nerdcore veterans may not have grown up just yet, but they've certainly become better at acting their age. [Sep 2016, p.98]

Much of Give A Glimpse has the warm familiarity of a beloved sweater, but none of it sounds rote or autopilot. Mascis might be tending the same patch, but there's fresh flowers sprouting from that soil. [Sep 2016, p.88]

The cumulative effect is effortlessly gorgeous, if a little smoothed out compared to the variety and tension of the last two albums. [Sep 2016, p.96]

It's hard to imagine CRB ever re-inventing the wheel, but boy do they know how to roll. [Sep 2016, p.96]

The more you play it, the better it sounds. [Sep 2016, p.96]

[Manu Chao's] sonic tropes influence more than the three songs he appears on but Rose hasn't been around this long without knowing how to wrest the stage from the men in her music. [Aug 2016, p.94]

The album takes the artist to new territory. [Aug 2016, p.92]

Subversively moving. [Aug 2016, p.94]

Overall these are bold ideas rather than great songs. [Aug 2016, p.91]

Entertaining, at the very least. [Aug 2016, p.93]

She has moved into a more hospitable climate, where multitracking of bass-strung guitar, lap and pedal steel, electric piano and percussion have resulted in a warmer palette, a golden late-sfternoon landscape of long desert shadows. [Aug 2016, p.97]

A record to give reigning empress of dancefloor diversity Roisin Murphy a run for her hard earned. [Jul 2016, p.95]

With its children's choir,s its nods to Tears For Fears circa Songs From The Big Chair, and its Kanye and Kendrick Lamar-inspired production tics, the rest of Ellipsis also brings a fresh twist to Biffy's rampant stop-start riffage. [Aug 2016, p.98]

The result is fittingly breathtaking, a singer destroying his own work, yet creating something more elegiac and profound in the process. [Aug 2016, p.90]

The message songs are delivered from the heart. [Aug 2016, p.95]

Murphy has smartly subverted the dancefloor diva image, and these songs come from the uncanny valley, android beauty not quite hiding their off-centre menace. [Aug 2016, p.98]