For all its characteristic lyricism and stylistic restlessness, to say there is never a dull moment on Notes on a Conditional Form would be a slight overstatment. [Jul 2020, p.103]

It's the multi-layered harmonies and busy, overlapping rhythms that stick. [Jul 2020, p.104]

Soundtracked largely by sweet, inoffensive Scandipop flavoured with R&B, EDM and acoustic indie. Occasionally, however, she complements her subject matter with notes of punk and emo ... and produces something livelier and less conventional in the process. [Jul 2020, p.104]

He's still more traditionalist than outlier, but that's not necessarily a bad thing. [Jul 2020, p.19]

No band should by rights sound as sharp, melodic and funny more than 50 years into their career, but Sparks are no ordinary band. [Jun 2020, p.113]

Mutable Set is best at its most surreal. [Jul 2020, p.110]

Viewed either as an introduction or reinvention, Williams emerges as a formidable solo artist here. [Jul 2020, p.111]

The songwriting here is just undeniably strong and direct. [Jul 2020, p.107]

Fake is rearranging his sound rather than reinventing it. [Jul 2020, p.109]

The music here is more than arresting enough. [Jul 2020, p.113]

Marling's seventh solo LP has the clarity, mastery and quiet strength of a folk-rock classic. [Jul 2020, p.110]

Here he revisits an early interest in exotica, the '50s faux-tropical lounge style, creating mood music with a global twist. [Jul 2020, p.110]

If you've ever half-enjoyed an Eels album, What's New, Tomboy? will make you swoon. [Jul 2020, p.109]

These 10 tracks sustain a brooding atmosphere. [Jul 2020, p.109]

Though their lyrical scope remains limited, they work hard to deliver the kind of catharsis you'd associate with a cherished coming-of-age movie. [Jul 2020, p.106]

Stretching his creative wings has worked for Toledo; there's a sense of him pushing outward as well as forward, even as he questions the point of it all. [Jul 2020, p.106]

Style and contentment. [Jul 2020, p.104]

The results are mixed. [Jul 2020, p.104]

Cenizas creates the precious illusion of space and motion. [Jul 2020, p. 109]

A wonderful counterpart to his book, and just as special on its own. [Jul 2020, p.110]

Halo's score is detailed and meticulous - but far more sombre than her usually playful, exuberant records. [Jun 2020, p.100]

Misch's fluid songwriting is still to the fore, as on the title track's loose-limbed shimmy, heightened by an uplifting string arrangement. [Jun 2020, p.102]

All of [the songs] exhibit the unique charms of the Chicago singer/songwriter. [Jun 2020, p.99]

It's the voice that carries it all: rawer and more rousing by the minute. [Jun 2020, p.108]

Paranoid, doomy synths temper the classicism of Christinzio's luxuriant Harry Nilsson songwriting. [Jun 2020, p.94]

An atmosphere of heightened weirdness prevails. [Jun 2020, p.95]

It's the sound of grand ambition realised. [Jun 2020, p.98]

Perspicacious and personal, cool and colossally enjoyable, Sawayama is both a triumph over trauma and a paean to the power of effervescent pop in practically all its forms. [Jun 2020, p.98]

Well worth the wait. [Jun 2020, p.105]

Showing his mastery of modern music in all its form. [Jun 2020, p.98]

You come to see the The Lovely Eggs are an act of fine calibration of noise and sweetness, of intelligence and brutish mettle. [Jun 2020, p.102]

Authoritative, direct and exhilarating. [May 2020, p.100]

An album that dares to tackle life's big questions head on. [Jun 2020, p.101]

An 18-song adventure in sparse and particular beauty. [Jun 2020, p.97]

It's a record of quiet confidence, its brightness dialled down but its impact still fierce. [Jun 2020, p.100]

For every screamed verse there's a genuinely soft melody. ... The Garden's uniquely garbage kind of glamour is far better than their clownish antics would suggest. [Jun 2020, p.100]

Simultaneously disorienting and seductive. [Jun 2020, p.106]

Ward continues to set a standard few other artists can match. [Jun 2020, p.106]

Spidery tendrils of sex-and-drugs-related dread curl around dramatic synth-pop and twinkling R&B, Yet there's also a batch of tracks that draw from bombastic, slightly tacky '80s pop - a warm, funny and wholly welcome diversion from the stylish but sterile bleakness that remains Tesfaye's calling card. [Jun 2020, p.106]

Sleazy listening at its best. [Jun 2020, p.106]

Feels so far behind the curve that it's just rolling gently backwards on roller-skates at this point. ... More edge, it seems, would only burst their bubble. [Jun 2020, p.106]

Their music conjures the Sahara via a hypnotic desert blues that informed by both Malian folk music and their love of Western bands such as Pink Floyd and Can. [Jun 2020, p.106]

The sonic scope here is far wider, incorporating both industrial and squawking jazz into something that chimes perfectly with uncertain times. [Jun 2020, p.106]

It's his sharp, searching lyrics that elevates 3.15.20 to giddying heights. [Jun 2020, p.106]

The songwriting is more direct. [Jun 2020, p.105]

Locked inside Womb is an excellent EP, but stretched out to 10 tracks it can feel predictable. [Jun 2020, p.105]

There's still vigour in The Orb's ambient house vision. [Jun 2020, p.105]

At times they meander a little too much, as on the ponderous Fool Thinking Ways, but this is far from the work of beginners. [Jun 2020, p.105]

Much of the material here would fit seamlessly on any of their records since 1996's No Code. ... Gigaton is a reminder that Pearl Jam are a band totally comfortable in their own skin. [Jun 2020, p.104]

It's potent stuff. Visceral is an understatement. [Jun 2020, p.103]

Leithauser's voice is its usual delicious scuffed-up howl, the music covers a broad indie-rock sprawl, but the focus here is the stories. [Jun 2020, p.102]

The Chatham Singers furnish these 12 tracks of street crackle and pop with skeletal verve. [Jun 2020, p.94]

Against all odds, this is a brilliant second act. [Jun 2020, p.97]

Rodriguez digs deeper into rave and party culture here. [Jun 2020, p.97]

Soft soul, gibbering jazz fusion and the cyber-futurism of overseer Flying Lotus still works a collective shock. [Jun 2020, p.96]

An intimate, close and enjoyably ambiguous record. [Jun 2020, p.94]

Beautiful stuff. [Jun 2020, p.94]

Casablancas's lyrics are, as ever, largely and deliberately incomprehensible, but enough phrases slip intermittently into the foreground to convince you that they must mean something. [May 2020, p.98]

That Godrich is a master at harnessing restless energy should be no surprise. Here is further proof. [May 2020, p.112]

The album's deft genre-hopping is navigated with a confidence that comes from clearly hard-won experience. [May 2020, p.110]

This is lush music to get lost in. [May 2020, p. 100]

The general vibe is of music for well-upholstered hotel suites. [May 2020, p.104]

It's clever, effortless and very likable. [May 2020, p.110]

High Risk Behaviour is about as enjoyable as the sound of bored small-town kids thrashing around with guitars gets. [May 2020, p.107]

A montage of brief yet expansive instrumentals, it veers from the richly choral to the dissonant, from busy polyrhythms to spare, awestruck synth-symphonies. [May 2020, p.112]

This utterly beautiful balm of a record feels less like a confessional, and more a vessel for warmth, serenity and worldly wisdom. [May 2020, p.114]

Unusually welcoming entry point. [May 2020, p.92]

A set of songs that can be chilling but never cold. [May 2020, p.109]

Rejoice is sparse, just drums and bass, with Masekela's flugelhorn providing the fluidity and freshness that elevates it above the park kickabout it might've been. [May 2020, p.100]

There's not much room for nuance, but who needs subtlety when you've got pounding riffs and heroic guitar solos like this. [May 2020, p.112]

There are worse things to listen to as society slides into the abyss. [May 2020, p.104]

Six albums in, Baxter Dury has realised a sound and lyrical approach that is unmistakably his alone. [May 2020, p.101]

It finds Morrissey wandering down some interesting musical avenues. [May 2020, p.109]

Hey Joy, the second track on The Districts' fourth LP, is a moment of near-perfection. ... It's a bar the rest of You Know I’m Not Going Anywhere never quite reaches, though, it comes close. [May 2020, p.106]

It's a suitably schizophrenic listen, the bubblegum-pop attack of Wasted On You and Move To San Francisco contrasted with the soul-searching anxieties of the album's second half. [May 2020, p.100]

At times the meandering is frustrating, while at others the release when a song finally locks into its groove, as on the twisting Lipstick Song, makes the experimentation all worthwhile. [May 2020, p.110]

It's an experimental, fitful listen that rewards concentration. [May 2020, p.103]

There's almost too much bubbling up in their heads. [May 2020, p.109]

Naturally, it's an immaculately stoned affair. ... You might not be able to teach old punks new tricks, but who cares when they perform as well as this. [May 2020, p.115]

It coats its spiritualism in an optimism that is never less than radiant. [May 2020, p.113]

Troy and Edwards bring some bite to the Lips' experimentation, keeping their more wayward indulgences in check while they do it. There's still a stellar breadth of sound and colour on offer. [May 2020, p.104]

Effectively a double album proving that time hasn't blunted Heaton's lyrical sharpness. [May 2020, p.108]

It's all very cinematic and atmospheric but with lyrics offering a light, sixth-form poetry vibe, much here is easy to bid adieu to. [May 2020, p.109]

Princess Nokia's genre-surfing might be attention-grabbing, but it's her honesty, openness and clarity of expression that make her a musician you can really invest in. [May 2020, p.111]

Princess Nokia's genre-surfing might be attention-grabbing, but it's her honesty, openness and clarity of expression that make her a musician you can really invest in. [May 2020, p.111]

It's business as usual, but when business produces songs as lovely as November's sumptuous indie-pop it's hard to resist. [May 2020, p.110]

One of the finest of his career. [May 2020, p.109]

These songs coalesce into visionary rabble-rousing. [May 2020, p.106]

Miss Anthropocene is not quite as brilliantly weird as its predecessor, but is certainly compelling enough to maintain Grimes' status as one of the most fascinating pop stars on the planet. [May 2020, p.105]

Excellent from start to finish. [May 2020, p.103]

Clark had already mastered storytelling; now she's mastered heartbreak. [May 2020, p.103]

An act of liberation as well as creation, it's thrilling testament to a spirit set free. [May 2020, p.102]

Occasionally needs higher definition, yet her brittle voice and watchful lyrics cut through the Cocteau Twins grunge of With Love, the eye-rolling daze of All My Friends Are Drunk, the slacker energy of Keep It Near. [May 2020, p.100]

For all the many diverting moments, the lack of judicious editing leaves the album spending too much time going round in circles. [Apr 2020, p.114]

Ambition aplenty, but spread too thinly. [Apr 2020, p.111]

Despite the backward glances, a record very much in the moment. [Apr 2020, p. 106]

Errol makes the listener work for its pleasures, but they're worth it. [Apr 2020, p.112]

In time, as this 2LP Best Of shows, they mellowed, eventually got political, then split up, leaving behind a perfectly formed legacy. [Apr 2020, p.118]