It's a mess of ambition and avant overload, and often too much, but you can't help but admire The New Sound's Stevie Chick wild abandon. And while the whirlwind of concepts and sonic right-turns ultimately fails to cohere, its thrills are many. [Nov 2024, p.84]

There’s a vulnerability and a very English kind of saudade to Below A Massive Dark Land, but also a sense of individual purpose [Nov 2024, p.94]

For the closing three tracks, the revolving door’s finally still and Marshall himself (AKA Madman Butterfly) keens proceedings to a satisfying, if still unsettling calm. [Sep 2024, p.88]

A difficult record for many reasons, but an ineffably beautiful one, too. [Nov 20224, p.89]

Shows he hasn’t lost the knack for marrying accessible melodies with vivid storytelling, wry humour and subversive lyrics. [Nov 2024, p.85]

Flow Critical Lucidity – the best record Moore has been involved in since Sonic Youth’s The Eternal, 15 years ago now – feels as close as he’s come to something new. [Nov 2024, p.86]

Inspired by dives into recessed memories for a concurrent memoir, these songs are testaments to his experiences – and his expertise as a steadfast syndicate of the great rock song. [Oct 2024, p.88]

She turns doubt and anxiety into subtly burnished, soulful nocturnes, more sensual than any existential crisis should be. [Oct 2024, p.82]

The rough-milled follow-up to 2020’s Down In The Weeds, Where The World Once Was doesn’t suggest time is mellowing him. [Oct 2024, p.86]

Packed with songs that tug imperceptibly at the heartstrings, Odyssey runs the gamut from introspection and melancholy to hope and deep joy. It will take some beating. [Nov 2024, p.90]

This record shows an artist stretching out to fill space, refusing to settle for anything small. [Oct 2024, p.85]

All the ducking and feinting is entertaining enough, but it begins to feel more like a box of disguises than a coherent album. [Nov 2024, p.91]

Godspeed You! Black Emperor’s Efrim Manuel Menuck and Mat Ball of Big Brave joined guitar forces to make music that stood up to the Montreal cold. The heat generated by the band (completed by Jonathan Downs and Patch One of Maine post-rockers Ada) isn’t entirely the kind you huddle around for comfort, though. [Nov 2024, p.87]

A yin-yang parity asserts itself with the wistful, jazzy, Rose-sung Simple Days, electro-pop You Saw and epic, wicca-ish Druantia. Elsewhere, there’s arty chamber pop, demented swing-jazz and the epic Surf’s Up-echoing closer Sunrise: middle-aged bliss has rarely sounded so weirdly magical. [Nov 2024, p.91]

In Waves partly mimics the jostle and heave of a crowded dancefloor. All You Children presses The Avalanches into euphoric service, matched for dynamism by Baddy On The Floor, a bend-and-snap collaboration with DJ Honey Dijon. [Nov 2024, p.85]

There are inevitable quibbles. The omission of The Band’s own songs here is a missed opportunity to tie together these two institutions, both then wrestling with unknown futures. In the sleevenote, critic Elizabeth Nelson forgoes research into a historical moment where the primary witnesses are rapidly disappearing for a spree of purple prose. Some tapes are, of course, better than others. But, by and large, pick a track at random and you’ll find yourself stunned by how hard these six were pushing. [Nov 2024, p.98]

For the most part Migratory is music for reflection and meditation, held together by Fujita’s unique lightness of touch. [Oct 2024, p.84]

Sometimes, as on Hold Me In The Fire, they unashamedly chase Chasing Cars’ modern-day-standard template. At others, like restive prisoners looking to try new ideas on the outside, they break out, hence the electro-percussive, choral title track. [Oct 2024, p.88]

Plunges him back to the old soundworld of heavily Auto-Tuned ballads (of the 12 tracks here, only Bread Believer is pacey) and a voice that sounds like it’s on the verge of tears, even if the lyrics sound more disorientated than tragic. .... But Maine’s nagging melodies hold up, and Shirt still feels convincingly real. [Oct 2024, p.84]

From Terry Edwards’ dysregulated trumpet on Always A Stranger to the wheezy strings of The Secret Of Breathing, Soft Tissue is a magnificent reminder that few people know better how to arrange life’s broken pieces, how to orchestrate the chaos. [Oct 2024, p.84]

A gorgeously warm, light-footed pop that roams freely. [Aug 2024, p.88]

BASIC speak their own language, but it’s not long before their signs and signals unfold into a fascinating new conversation. [Oct 2024, p.82]

Davachi’s work can be gently provocative but it’s never anything less than stimulating. [Oct 2024, p.91]

The delicious, Moroder breakbeat thump of Birth4000 and squealing garagey rave of Vocoder (Club Mix) have the swagger and heft to leave club soundsystems wobbling, but also need good headphones for home enjoyment. [Oct 2024, p.82]

Newbies Jet Pac Boomerang and Went To A Party zing with his best, quality control being the soul of wit. [Oct 2024, p.88]

Following 2009’s ‘re-enactment’ shows, here, finally, is this fabulous, full-blooded seventh LP. Aficionados will be punching the air within the first minute of opener Hide & Seek: it’s all there. [Oct 2024, p.82]

Nada Surf have always been close to greatness, and Moon Mirror won’t win new fans, but it is wonderful. [Oct 2024, p.82]

Beyond box-ticking cameos from Snoop, Nas, Eminem and Busta Rhymes, horror film-stringed posse cut The Vow (with relative unknowns Mad Squablz, J-S.A.N.D. and Don Pablito) shows LL at his sharpest, “movin’ chess pieces like telekinesis” and stretching his elasticity to ridiculous extremes. Call it a comeback. [Oct 2024, p.88]