When Fuller and Turner sing together (try Happiness or Cherry) it’s truly spectacular, two of a kind becoming one. [Oct 2024, p.90]

Regardless of language, it’s substantive synth-pop with broad appeal. [Oct 2024, p.91]

Sometimes futuristic, at others surprisingly formulaic, it’s another stepping stone on Sinephro’s path to greatness but one where the parts are worth more than the whole. [Oct 2024, p.87]

Bands, as Donahue famously sang on Holes, “never work quite right”, but with this late-period beauty, Mercury Rev have hit the cosmic balance perfectly. [Oct 2024, p.83]

These songs are consistently fantastic: from Brand New’s harmony-laden prayer for rebirth, to The Letters, Etc’s wry, country-steeped moment of clarity, whispering “how strange to be strangers after what we was”. [Sep 2024, p.89]

There’s an irresistibly slinky Stones groove to Boom Boom Back (Beck Hansen yelps mid-chorus), while Fontaines D.C.’s Grian Chatten guests on the smouldering Stranger. Throughout, Cosials and Perrote joyfully excel. [Oct 2024, p.88]

Sometimes co-written with The The’s guitarist Barrie Cadogan or keyboardist DC Collard, these 12 songs cement Johnson’s ‘cherishable agitator’ status. And – whisper it – there’s hope here, too. [Oct 2024, p.86]

Booze and heartache are constants, but the mood is never morose, borne aloft by Lenderman’s guitar playing, which is primal but emotionally lucid. His tender lyricism is another big plus, locating laudable empathy for his cast of lovable losers. [Oct 2024, p.90]

She counts up her decades on the twinkly Hell-Oh Sixty, ponders the cruel power of good hair on Bangs, and documents love passing its sell-by date on The Farewell Tour, before finding Tom Petty-ish redemption with closing heartbreaker Last Night’s Rainbow. [Oct 2024, p.89]

It’s brilliant, moving stuff, and if this were to be David Gilmour’s final record, it’s certainly the best of his solo career. [Oct 2024, p.80]

If the near Herculean task of sustaining enchantment through 12 instrumentals just occasionally tests Los Bitchos, it's easily forgivable. [Sep 2024, p.92]

Ritual is enchanting and transportive. [Sep 2024, p.84]

While ably constructed, particularly on the wistful The Old House, these songs feel slight - a starting point from which Konschuh's own individual voice may blossom. [Oct 2024, p.84]

There are still instances of thrilling freneticism; a Scandinavian Deerhoof. But this LP is often more cleanly directional – less angular and full of unexpected calm, as with the sweet vocal/ guitar chimes on Bell. [Sep 2024, p.89]

A deeply human record, the shepherd stepping away from his sermons to look for wonder and rapture. [Oct 2024, p.86]

You emerge rooting for Nicholson on every count. [Sep 2024, p.91]

Assembling musicians from the electronica, folk and jazz spheres to frame her disquisitions, she has fashioned a disquieting, gripping artefact. [Aug 2024, p.84]

Much of Ill Times Andrew Perry swings by like a more ’80s-fixated Black Keys (particularly yowler Fool For You), with Kenny-Smith unforeseeably excelling on the mike as a soul man, exorcising paternal bereavement (Dud) and the title track’s all-pervasive life agony. Old Transistor Radio busts out P-Funk proto-hip-hop, but there’s sufficient finesse here to make this team-up a keeper. [Sep 2024, p.93]

With her gravel’n’smoke voice, ability to be both cheeky and heartbreaking, and a dirt-kicking live band, her rise and rise is inevitable. [Sep 2024, p.91]

The album’s overriding mood is captured by the title track’s gospel choir sample: “daylight, sunshine, dance, embrace.” [Aug 2024, p.82]

[Grian] Chatten’s role feels ever more pivotal. His voice now has multiple personae, notably a Jeff Buckley doppelgänger on Romance’s upper register peals. His lyrical flow, meanwhile, makes pretty much every song an event. [Sep 2024, p.82]

A culturally rich and generally wonderful 72 minutes of little-heard revelry. [Oct 2024, p.94]

“Don’t mind me… I’m a lazy sod,” sings Ian Gillan. Other daft lyrics such as “Mother nature’s keeping her socks on” support his confession, but Deep Purple’s indomitable frontman remains in fine voice and, musically at least, they sound reborn here. [Aug 2024, p.81]

The huge exhilaration of Hawk's previous two albums has largely been replaced by more troubled moods - and more stylistic variety - but bravura lyrics remain. [Sep 2024, p.86]

Laus's writing is maturing, Real Man and tie My Shows surprisingly country-folk, while elsewhere there's bell-clear acoustic pop. Any occasional sameness is offset by existential stingers. [Oct 2024, p.90]

Boasting Dwyer's catchiest hooks yet. But Sorcs 80 is most alive when embracing its core weirdness. [Oct 2024, p.87]

A glorious convergence of talents. [Sep 2024, p.92]

Another Day, another faff-free, one-session-apiece exercise in succinctness, for a sixth long-player which presents Fucked Up as a more highly evolved version of their old selves – dense, intense and to-the-point. [Sep 2024, p.88]