The actual music on Blurry Blue Mountain, however, is warm and enveloping.

It is also, perhaps more importantly, an album absolutely overloaded with spine-tingling, pulse-quickening electro noises.

Everyday Life regularly steps to the left-field, proving that Coldplay are more adventurous than they’re often given credit for.

The rest of it though, is soulful and intelligent where 'intelligent' is not exclusive to 'good beats and rhymes.' Which is what it's all about.

Taking cues from ’60s free jazz, dub and disco and combining it with the punk-rock sensibilities of their former outfit, Watersports is a delirious fever-dream of an album.

Do Whatever...sounds less like inhibitions being shed, less like sex with a tree trunk after a hallucinatory, three-day Haribo bender than their other stuff - and that's kind of a shame, too.

Beverly’s effortless indie rock debut is the result of a casual collaboration between honey-voiced guitarist Drew Citron and her occasional employer, former Dum Dum and Vivian Girl Frankie Rose.

Occasionally, Geography grows monotonous, but derivative it is definitely not. There’s something undeniably unique about the tone of Tom’s voice--precise yet effortless--and his guitar skills are prodigious.

Blue Roses, you see, is less Nash and more Bush, a dizzyingly beautiful set of delicate folk songs that sound like they’ve been sprinkled with pixie dust and reincarnated from some perfect bygone age.

Only the plodding ballad ‘Hurt Yourself’ fails to earn its place on the track list, and on the whole Death Magic makes a grander statement than its more rudimentary predecessors. It sounds like Health finally know what they want.

Consciously retro, sure, but more convincingly so than Disclosure and similar young bucks.

When they deviate into a treacly world of dub and shifting tones (‘The Channon’), there’s still a lineage, along with an identifiable personality.

Together, EL VY create an enthralling musical space where Matt Berninger can explore the idea of being Matt Berninger.

Some of 'Free The Bees' could have been recorded 40 years ago and some of it could have been beamed down from an orbiting space station 3,000 years further along the pipe than us. [26 Jun 2004, p.54]

Covers all the same ground as albums by Le Tigre, Liars and The Rogers Sisters in the space of one spectacular 45-minute burst. [12 Nov 2005, p.45]

Overall, Pure X’s immersive charm remains intact. Only ‘Rain’ betrays the heady sonics of old.

Largely, Styles taking a new approach to things really works – ‘Kiss All The Time…’ feels like an album that you’ll really want to spend a lot of time with, letting all its layers envelope you.

It's a fine debut that hints at a finer future - and for their determined attempts to twist something new out of retro influences, we salute them.

We’ve been overdue an election-year statement record from the trio, and ‘Saviors’ gives it a good crack. .... Of course, the record is a good romp too.

At other times we're not sure whether we should be laughing or feeling uncomfortable; either way Ventriloquizzing is certainly no dummy's game.

For an album that you might think is merely an excuse for a megabucks world tour, it sure does, er, wail.

Not hip-hop in its most conventional form then, but a mutant version drenched in, and suffused with, the same rebellious spirit. An organic meta-hip-hop, if you will, that hearkens back to Gill Scott Heron's innovation and looks forward as well.

A superbly impertinent set. [10 Jul 2004, p.48]

The Fall: quantity and quality.

They were always one of the most metal band of the alt.rock boom that emerged from their Seattle scene in the early 1990’s, but on Rainier Fog; there’s a beauty and an expanse--as well as a major chord or two--that sees the band evolving.

The album may seem short at only nine tracks, but there are enough ideas crammed into Curve Of The Earth to call it one of the most well rounded records of 2016.

A melancholy blend of shoegaze, hardcore and alt rock overlaid with Palermo’s dark and dreamy vocals.

Experimenting with different vocal registers and taking advantage of how harmoniously her voice goes with live instruments, she’s shared a collection that should leave you itching for her next step. If these are loosies, it’s proof of how top-notch her craft is.