It's a thematically and musically complex record that encourages wonderment. [Jun 2023, p.92]

The beauty of Jump On It also lies in how it evolves Orcutt's music rather than compromises it. Start here and work backwards. [Jun 2023, p.89]

This is an absolute joy. [Jun 2023, p.92]

Relationships with uncomfortable endings, uneasy attractions, and deep personal loss pepper Fullbrook's songs, but her Tiny Ruins bandmates consistently lift her into the light, creating warmth and depth rather than leaving the listener in endless gloom. [Jun 2023, p.86]

Spectral Lines tries to come at hurt, loss and destiny afresh, with Ritter's dexterity with universal themes often paying dividends. [Jun 2023, p.86]

It's Stigmergy, named after a concept of collective action, that best encapsulates the ecstatic NIS groupthink: one hypnotic soloist after another - Ben Lamar Gay, brilliant on coronet - drifting elegantly in and out of systems repetition. [Jun 2023, p.92]

A sometimes-striking record that suggests new ground without actually reaching it. [Jun 2023, p.84]

de Graaf is repositioning herself in a mightily crowded market, but the sometime human rights lawyer triumphs via intense lyrics about coming-of-age awareness, loneliness in the big city, life's unpredictability and, on Water Stains, the old chestnut of time's passing. [Mar 2023, p.87]

Most of its layered, ornate creations and moody conjurings emerge from a deep shoegaze rabbit hole redolent of Slowdive and Lush. [Jun 2023, p.90]

It's polished, professional, but one for the faithful. [May 2023, p.89]

The Window Is The Dream initially seems opaque, but keep looking through and all becomes beautifully clear. [May 2023, p.92]

The cumulative effect is lulling and hypnotic. [Jun 2023, p.89]

Pedal steel still colours Safe To Run but so do fuzzier guitars; synthesizers are involved, and tributaries are equally pop, folk and rock. [Jun 2023, p.86]

Neale is imaginative, but she's steeped in songwriting craft and she knows her way aound a whopping chorus. That's more than enough. [Jun 2023, p.90]

“People say people my age shouldn’t be making records,” Hunter has said. With his mind still agile, his piano playing still on top form and his voice still strong, Defiance Part 1 makes a nonsense of that. At 83, Hunter also sounds much more starry-eyed about rock’n’roll than he did in Diary Of A Rock’N’Roll Star. [May 2023, p.90

The emphasis more on fractured, abstract improv rater than frenetic carousing. Interesting stuff, for sure. [May 2023, p.89]

Rainbow is bleak. [Jun 2023, p.105]

High Flyin' is a highlight of the bootleg series so far. [Jun 2023, p.105]

No more the quieter introspection and reflection of solo tracks like Hormones or Fever Dream – here Thorn and Watt are a combined force, capturing the giddy euphoria and release of the club experience.

The album's second half-hour wilts, but the first is Temples Excelling as never before. [Jun 2023, p.92]

10 elegantly rendered tracks, uncovering an intersection of The Clientele and Waxahatchee. [Jun 2023, p.91]

The music makes fearsome sense on its own, but a viewing of The Cry Of Jazz is recommended before listening. [Jun 2023, p.87]

Stereo Mind Game certainly sustains an atmosphere, but it's a brooding and bleak one, and at times the darkness of Daughter's dream-pop can feel a bit suffocating. [Jun 2023, p.85]

[Ben Gregory's] emergence from psychiatric treatment to go solo has restored ambition, engineering a starling psychodrama, both spiritual and musical. [Jun 2023, p.87]

Beguiling from the outset. [Jun 2023, p.90]

All Roads Lead Home holds together surprisingly well. [May 2023, p.86]

Devoid of da funk it may be, but the scale and scope here are impressive. [May 2023, p.86]

Her most beautiful [music] in decades. [May 2023, p.87]