Not Pet Shop Boys in highest definition, Hotspot still provides a vivid panorama of their world. [Mar 2020, p.86]

Shauf is as musically jaunty as Josh Rouse. [Mar 2020, p.92]

Some career-catchiest tunes and a lively self-production make Sing an absolute triumph in repositioning. [Mar 2020, p.91]

These great songs live on through reinvention; Bonny Light Horseman have done them proud. [Feb 2020, p.87]

Lurid yet skillfully inconclusive music for these precarious times. [Feb 2020, p.88]

Been Around has heart, soul, a voice and tunes to die for, an early highlight of 2020. [Feb 2020, p.90]

Full of warmth, humour and depth. [Feb 2020, p.86]

Forsyth's emotional power is entirely here and now. [Feb 2020, p.88]

These are songs that chime delicately within uncertain world, in the best possible way, neither here nor there. [Feb 2020, p.90]

Dream On is packed with heartbreak, yet has a deft pop instinct too, courtesy of producer Patrik Berger. [Feb 2020, p.94]

Rekindle the guileless spirit of mid-'90s alt rock in The Alarmist's twilit wistfulness; or Moment's surge of power-chord melancholy. [Feb 2020, p.96]

Instead of meeting fire with ire, there's an attempt to provide calm, clarity, a space to contemplate what really matters. [Feb 2020, p.93]

If the arrangements and performances are as good as retro-rock gets--with veteran drummer Gene Chrisman and keyboard player Bobby Wood among Auerbach's American Sound Studio band they would hardly be otherwise--the lyrics seldom boast a single sentiment or turn of phrase which isn't threadbare. Otherwise, never a dull moment. [Feb 2020, p.92]

Their fusion of Franklin James Fisher's gospel howl and post-industrial beats has grown into something searing and infernal. [Feb 2020, p.90]

It takes its time luring listeners in. [Feb 2020, p.91]

Like Hope Sandoval, Savior's smoky timbre is cucumber-cool rather than over-emotive. [Feb 2020, p.86]

The Only Ones reassures concerned fans that all is very well in Camp Milk Carton. [Jan 2020, p.90]

A frontier bliss-out. [Dec 2019, p.96]

Fogerty remains a force of nature who matches Mick Jagger and Paul McCartney in his commitment to energising nostalgia, his shows less living jukebox than soul-stirring communion. [Feb 2020, p.86]

These enigmatic narratives work well--the themes can be unearthed at one's leisure, immersed in music that's both poignant and delightful. [Feb 2020, p.88]

In the album's second half, Georgia aims beyond euphoria and thrills with Mellow and Ray Gun's hip-hop shade, Honey Dripping Sky's aching power ballad and Ultimate Sailor's Tangerine Dream-style banks of ambient synths. [Feb 2020, p.92]

While relatively straitlaced on hooky earworms Good Mood and Hexagons, it vanishes into a netherworld of hypnotic minimalism amid Tol Circle's warped Mantovani exotica and the title-track's spaced-out disco frug. [Jan 2020, p.91]

The low-fidelity recordings add a refreshingly unpretentious, non-commercial realism. [Dec 2019, p.102]

Lavishness their deep influences merits. ... Endless Indian summer. [Feb 2020, p.107]

It's Holmes who provides the spark throughout Cypress Grove. [Feb 2020, p.94]

A delectably warm sonic pool that invites frequent plunges. [Feb 2020, p.91]

A rare beacon of quality amid the shoddy posthumous rap parade. [Feb 2020, p.91]

The 2009 live comp shows how testing their sets can be, with long glitchy interludes between colourbursts of song. [Feb 2020, p.96]