There's considerable ambition at play here. [Dec 2021, p.90]

Absence finds New Orleans trumpeter Blanchard and regular band E Collective effortlessly shifting textures, with disguised flares of long notes and high blasts casting fresh melodic light on much-covered works Fall and Diana. [Nov 2021, p.89]

I Don't Live Here Anymore is the most grounded War On Drugs record and the best: a calm space amid a world in collapse. [Nov 2021, p.82]

Reinvents Burt Bacharach on the Bell Gets Out If The Way and brings an XTC-ish bloom to the downtempo powerpop of Cherub and The Great Child Actor. [Dec 2021, p.84]

Stripped back and raw, his mesmerising guitar front and centre, this is gritty old-style blues with a laser-sharp modern focus. [Dec 2021. p.86]

-io doesn't try to ingratiate or console. Instead, Fohr ambitiously attempts to strip back protective coatings and cocoons, to show what happens when distractions peel away and the inevitable pushes through. [Nov 2021, p.90]

Baffling excursions into exotica also make Fantasy Island different enough to reignite their "wow" factor. [Nov 2021, p.91]

This album feels personal, contemplative, yet thanks to Harris's blurred vocals, the meaning is never in focus, like notes sent back from the edge of a waking dream. [Oct 2021, p.96]

Deerhoof being Deerhoof, the arty, poppy, proggy noise is jagged, cathartic, and occasionally grand. [Nov 2021, p.88]

Probably his most varied album. ... The extremes work better still, be it Cyrus's eyebrow-raising raw trawl through Metallica's Nothing Else Matters or the vocal pyrotechnics which course through Young Thug & Nicki Minaj's Always Love You. [Dec 2021, p.87]

An intermittently discomfiting record, tinged with sadness and beautifully composed. [Oct 2021, p.97]

The music's suboptimal sound quality is only a minor drawback to a sonic experience whose raw intensity is both disquieting and uplifting. [Nov 2021, p.102]

Fun House moves Duffy ever closer to the revelatory heart of the matter. [Nov 2021, p.92]

Move, a blistering collision of heavy rock and Latin pop. The remainder of the album ranges from percussive jazz-rock and bouncy Latin Techno to febrile thrash metal. [Dec 2021, p.87]

Nothing remotely insipid here; rather anger as an energy and top tunes. [Dec 2021, p.84]

Skin takes in soul, jazz and trip-hop, and more than fulfils her early promise. [Dec 2021, p.90]

It's a mark of Shauf's talent that songs this deft could ever have been left to gather dust. [Dec 2021, p.92]

Let It Be might be the runt of The Beatles litter but it's half of a very good album. ... The outtakes discs are very much works in progress, as The Beatles chat and work their way through new songs: an eavesdrop into their process. ... What comes through is how true The Beatles were to the idea of going back to their youthful inspirations. [Dec 2021, p.99]

There are simple messages, delivered earnestly, but the magic of this group has always been their ability to translate the elemental into the transcendental. It is a miracle they pull off frequently on My Morning Jacket, with confidence and inspiration, every moment a fresh beginning. [Nov 2021, p.85]

In amongst the jumble of influences, trad indie-guitar Parquet remains: in, say, the early Go-Betweens-y Just Shadows, and the galvanising lyrics of collective consciousness - written pre-pandemic, but wonderfully inspiring for late 2021. [Nov 2021, p.84]

Moondust For My Diamond stays the right kind of precious. [Nov 2021, p.91

Delicate yet resolute, Geist is a beautiful spin through the windmills of Lay's mind, unreal in the best ways. [Nov 2021, p.92]

Audiobooks' adoption of absurdity continues to confound in the most delightful ways. [Nov 2021, p.91]

He finds drama in the mundane. [Nov 2021, p.94]

A classic rock record, in all senses. [Nov 2021, p.84]

Instinctual, fully lived-in record, it touches and thrills. [Nov 2021, p.93]

Their most forward-facing jazz album yet, packed with complex, multi-storied compositions you can still dance to. [Nov 2021, p.89]

The only downside seem to be an audience with a dreadful sense of rhythm clapping along. ... But an excellent selection of songs, beautifully performed. [Nov 2021, p.103]