Jewel-sparkly and gently devastating. .... Devotees of Judee Sill, loved-up Bill Callahan and When Harry Met Sally will find it bright-eyed, glossy of coat and gentle of snout. Take it home. Feel less alone. [Aug 2024, p.85]

Unearthly. [Jul 2024, p.91]

Short it may be, but Happenings is full of ideas. [Aug 2024, p.83]

Ishibashi’s latest score is again subtle, delicate, but robust enough to blossom away from the film itself. It’s her balancing of disparate elements that’s so impressive. [Aug 2024, p.87]

Ultimately, by stylistically venturing back and forth in time, Aaron Frazer has struck gold with Into The Blue, a multifaceted soul album that blurs the past, the present and the possibilities of the future. [Aug 2024, p.82]

A haunting meditation on the state of America in the age of Trumpery (How I Wish) is the highlight, preceding the title track’s rousing gospel call to civil rights action. In contrast, she also documents the intimate and personal (Nothing Personal). [Aug 2024, p.89]

Pollard sounds more curious and engaged here than on some recent releases, and the result is the most compelling GBV of their third act. [Aug 2024, p.82]

Short but definitely sweet. [Aug 2024, p.94]

Their talent for maximalism is evident on the jagged, urgent Cinnamon Temple and a wonderfully trippy inversion of Jefferson Airplane's White Rabbit. [Aug 2024, p.90]

Songwriter is indeed a by-product of music rendered on a digital frontier; it is a worthy effort because it reinforces the humanity of a star who, in his last days, could seem like some untouchable god. [Aug 2024, p.78]

Walk Thru Me Andrew Perry feels less vibey and cutting-edge, with occasional polemical tunes reedily voiced by Davis, and Barlow brooding on grown-up issues like parenthood (My Little Lamb) and battling depression (Crepuscular) – not different enough from latterday Sebadoh, or indeed solo Barlow, surely, to reprise 1995’s commercial uplift. [Aug 2024, p.84]

Both energy and melodies hold strong throughout, and, suitably topped off with Ballad Of Mott-style self-chronicling finale Born Innocent, Redd Kross is these Angelenos’ defining epic. [Aug 2024, p.86]

How Will I Live… feels like a portal to some esoteric beyond, where minimal jazz, obtuse indie and folk-horror collide. Ominous, calmly-executed highlights I Swallowed A Stone, Unbraiding and How It Starts are marvels of world-building. [Aug 2024, p.84]

Deep, rewarding songs, rich in authorly detail, which, not for the first time, position Rateliff, still only 45, as a new Springsteen. [Aug 2024, p.81]

Ultimately, it’s hard to escape the conclusion that they’ve scaled greater heights with more time and pre-writing. [Aug 2024, p.91]

Further enriched by the palate of Fratti’s cello and Tosta’s brass, Sentir… is an extraordinarily possessed, uncanny world of its own. [Aug 2024, p.83]

Kamaru's softly spoken words amid Arkives' discomfiting drones drags listeners to unexpected depths, his voice a ghost in a machine of otherworldly chorale, siren-like synths and heaps of static. [Aug 2024, p.87]

In this filmic offering, all commentators observe our crumbling landscape. .... On the dark, drum-lead chant Baby Roe, DiFranco sounds like Billie Holiday as she upbraids the overturners of Roe v Wade (“We’re so wigged out/Yeah, we’re so devout”), before pleading for “the path of least suffering”. [Aug 2024, p.89]

McFarlane inhabits her songbook, eking out fresh meanings and truths. Unashamedly old-school backing from a core quartet of Giacomo Smith (sax), Joe Webb (piano), Ferg Ireland (bass) and Jas Kayser (drums) plays to her storytelling gifts. [Aug 2024, p.84]

Hex isn’t really about individual tracks, though: it’s about mood and feel. Overwhelmingly, the feel is good. [Aug 2024, p.86]

That on-the-road-again feeling is all over the album, with a well-honed band that plays like they still get a kick from it. [Jul 2024, p.91]

A rare (and improved) document of a more muscular Wings. [Aug 2024, p.99]

An urgent debut perfect for anyone grieving The Comet Is Coming's demise. [Aug 2024, p.90]

The intimate strings that lace the title track's elegiac sequence of pedal-effect guitar movements is a fresh high, the shadow-playing six-string storytellers surpassing the limitations of their intimate format. [Aug 2024, p.89]

A beautifully poised collection of deep, off-kilter, quasi techno and smudged ambient. [Aug 2024, p.87]

Placed in the modern setting and told in the universal language of folk music, her tales all ring true. [Aug 2024, p.83]

It is sentimental and raw, demented and ultimately reaffirming. [Aug 2024, p.81]

It's a fabulous record. A unique kind of Various Artists tribute album where its 11 songs - not a bad one among them. .... In All, delightful. [Aug 2024, p.80]