Ape In Pink Marble shows that underneath the mannered eccentricities, Banhart's chief talent has always been to write endearing songs. [Nov 2016, p.103]

His most intricately affecting music yet. [Nov 2016, p.100]

The submarine disco of Currents suggests people subject to forces they cannot control, while Lost Boys triggers a very '80s-style melancholia. [Oct 2016, p.110]

Exhaustive notations render this essential for enthusiasts. [Oct 2016, p.115]

Thanks to digital tweaking, boy does it capture them swinging and the four bonus songs are most welcome too. [Oct 2016, p.115]

More than the sum of their parts, if there's a collaborative sweet spot, this record hits it. [Oct 2016, p.111]

While the individual elements all sparkle, at times there are so many stylistic tics that the songs can get lost in the mix. [Oct 2016, p.106]

His fourth album doesn't really sound like a club set at all. [Oct 2016, p.113]

It's an immersive experience you'd need to be a right old fuddy-duddy not to plunge into. [Sep 2016, p.114]

A record you never dreamt you needed, but which leaves you craving more. [Sep 2016, p.109]

As ghostly grey as an autumn fog, it's definitely a record for when the rain's hammering on the windowpanes at home. [Sep 2016, p.102]

The alchemy lies not only in the sonic contrast of the horn and keys but also the creative tension between Redman's roots in bebop's askew interrogations of melody and Mehldau's stream of notes rippling from the wellspring of European classical romanticism. [Oct 2016, p.110]

Their electro-acoustic psych-soundworld can't disguise crisp earwormers. [Oct 2016, p.109]

These are immaculately crafted songs. [Oct 2016, p.105]

Throughout, Grace's gift of melody is only surpassed by her candid lyricism. [Oct 2016, p.105]

The spindly riffs and skiffle-y arrangements are as tightly wound as ever, while Bid's mocking lyrics have seldom been so waspish. [Oct 2016, p.109]

Femejism is every bit as exhilarating as debut Sistronix. [Oct 2016, p.107]

Esoteric but oddly compelling record. [Oct 2016, p.110]

Wild World is the right album at the right moment. [Oct 2016, p.112]

It feels like a coherent vision, even if it occasionally spills into narco-whimsy. [Oct 2016, p.107]

Braver Than We Are is the best thing either has done in decades, addressing as it does both Meat Loaf's less powerful voice and [Jim] Steinman's enormous back catalogue. [Oct 2016, p.109]

Their second album in 10 months is every bit as unvarnished as its predecessor. [Oct 2016, p.109]

She's finally rediscovered what made her so intriguing(the hooks, the sharp lyrics, the energy) in the first place. [Oct 2016, p.113]

[Dandy is] not even the best thing here, as Fingers Crossed continues Hunter's chain of excellent 21st-century albums. [Oct 2016, p.107]

Combining Koretsky's electro throb, Rourke's funky bass and O'Riordan's distinctive, albeit newly toned vocals. It particularly works on the uptempo and lush The Moon and the more hardcore Gunfight, enhancing everyone's reputation. [Oct 2016, p.107]

GLA's songs are snappy, its drums gigantic, its guitar riffs thrilling and McTrusty sings I Am Alive with the conviction of a man truly reborn. [Oct 2016, p.113]

This return proves surprisingly approachable, especially on the four tracks written with French songwriter and producer Woodkid. [Oct 2016, p.105]

Another year, another Jah Wobble album knocked out with a slew of collaborators and little interest in much, you suspect, beyond the immediate entertainment of its participants. [Sep 2016, p.114]

They appear to have tired of Love and have been listening to far more Velvet Underground. [Oct 2016, p.105]

Ultra is one for the hardcore fans. [Oct 2016, p.113]

The core subject matter remains Gedge's mordantly fatalistic view of love but the ambitious nature of the project seems to have put a spring back in his step. [Oct 2016, p.113]

When it does threaten to bud into genuinely odd forms--the title track's sinuous distortions, or a sudden swerve into pop seduction on Do Your Bones Glow At Night--it doesn't stick. [Oct 2016, p.113]

This album sees the acquisition of a new twin-sticksman rhythm section, which powers Dwyer's ever-progressive tracks to new heights of psychedelic delirium. [Oct 2016, p.110]

Teenage Fanclub may just have made their best record yet. [Oct 2016, p.110]

It perfectly captures the oscillating other-worldliness of their sound. [Oct 2016, p.110]

The songs are low-key, personal tales with quiet hooks, grabbing what energy they can from the production's sudden lurches. [Oct 2016, p.109]

The hit rate's impressive. [Oct 2016, p.109]

An LP that strikes a perfect balance between desparate sides of Jamie T's personality. [Oct 2016, p.108]

When he departs from the template, Foreverland truly excels. [Oct 2016, p.107]

These are controlled, tempered, well-steered songs, capable of navigating genres. [Oct 2016, p.104]

While unpredictable in parts, there are great melodies here to pull the floating voters in. [Oct 2016, p.106]

Wildly collaborative, pan-globalistically luvvy-duvvy and heaps of fun, it just about hangs together as her best outing since 2007's Kala. [Oct 2016, p.102]

The Coldplay-leaning Some Other Arms and the flowery-welly wearing Mayflies suggest their final destination may be as soundtracks for the John Lewis catalogue or sunsets on Instagram. [Sep 2016, p.107]

A racket in the best possible way. [Sep 2016, p.108]

Cool Ghouls don't betray the influence of any music made in their own lifetime, but they have a broad enough palette to make their third album more than just a period piece. [Sep 2016, p.105]

There is a wonderful tension on Mangy Love between the pleasure of the music--lush, soulful, spinning out from Elliot Smith or Lambchop--and the often ugly, complex breaks and disturbances in the lyrics. [Sep 2016, p.103]

He's at his best on the doom-laden What's So, where guitars clang like church bells as White Broods over soul-selling and eternal damnation. [Sep 2016, p.114]

A listening experience every bit as intense and idiosyncratic as Ecks himself. [Sep. 2016, p.106]

It makes for one of the most delicious albums of the year. [Sep 2016, p.113]

What holds it all together is Henderson's blank, uninflected vocals, though the resulting ambience couldn't be more self-consciously avant-garde if the album came packaged with wrap-around shades and a copy of White Light/White Heat.[Sep 2016, p.106]

It's atmospheric and even moving, but sometimes feels like drowning slowly in a flotation tank with The Bends playing on repeat shuffle. [Sep 2016, p.111]

With Doyle's lethargic vocals sung like sighs to form sweet harmonies over upbeat guitar lines, it's an album that has a smile that doesn't quite reach the eyes. [Sep 2016, p.105]

Crazy as ever, then, but still just about in an endearing way. [Sep 2016, p.108]

Eve is, ultimately, one of those moody, chain-smoking nights in on your Jack Jones, where only the intimate anguish of a deft alt-noisenik-turned-twisted balladeer will do. [Sep 2016, p.114]

And the Anonymous Nobody delivers. [Sep 2016, p.104]

Thomas doesn't completely capture the fleet shimmer of the best pop, but his songs are too much fun not to be taken seriously. [Aug 2016, p.108]

If many tracks sound like the back-half of an extended mix, the effect is never short of mesmerising. [Sep 2016, p.106]

This is a wonderful record--involving and irresistible. [Sep 2016, p.105]

It's hard to find anything here that will break them out of the retro-rock ghetto and into the 21st century. [Sep 2016, p.102]

Fifteen years after his debut, it was about time Ed Harcourt made a career-defining record. Here it is. [Sep 2016, p.106]

At times it can feel a little lightweight. [Sep 2016, p.106]

This is ambitious, outward-looking pop unafraid to play by its own rules. [Aug 2016, p.102]

Boy King is an album that exudes confidence to try new things, to experiment, to pull things apart and pull them back together again. [Sep 2016, p.100]

The irrepressible bounce of these tracks outweigh the poignancy, though. Viola Beach have a debut their families can be proud of. [Sep 2016, p.114]

More of the same firework riffs and vexed vocals. [Sep 2016, p.102]

For the most part, though, this record is defined by its vibrancy, especially with bassist Lou Barlow's melodic vocal contributions to Love IS... and Left/Right. [Aug 2016, p.110]

California Hymn pulls something out of the hat at the end, but Anyway.... is so addled and confused it will likely be in the bin long before then. A real shocker. [Sep 2016, p.111]

It's a record delivered with real verve and attack. [Sep 2016, p.111]

Beck thrills tot he max--and Loud Hailer hits career peaks of tough, funky belligerence. [Sep 2016, p.102]

Sprawling, ambitious and politically conscious. [Sep 2016, p.102]

A solid comeback, then. [Sep 2016, p.105]

A polished album that rewards repeated listens. [Sep 2016, p.107]

Bursts of corrosive techno that have all the instrumental variety of a car alarm. [Sep 2016, p.108]

Theyesandeye articulates a positive, only slightly idealised ecosphere of the sea, birds and vegetation. [Sep 2016, p.111]

[An] absorbing, multi-layered debut. [Sep 2016, p.112]

It's annoyingly catchy. [Sep 2016, p.113]

Different is Gender's newfound falsetto, but what Throws truly brims with is a freshly cleansed palate. [Sep 2016, p.113]

We're All Somebody does at times feel like three different albums simultaneously vying for supremacy, but, in an age of dwindling rock royalty, it makes a good case for Tyler's stack-heeled versatility. [Sep 2016, p.114]

On first listen, it's sufficiently preposterous to be amusing, but over time, predictably, becomes intrusive and annoying. [Sep 2016, p.114]

The intro to the title track points more toward Foreigner, an impression that continues on the album as dull keyboards fill the spaces once plugged by more interesting acoustic arrangements. [Aug 2016, p.108]

A white guy singing "de" instead "the" might reek uncomfortably of minstrelsy for some, but if you can get past that, any fan of Tom Waits or Dr. John ought to get a kick out of Gon' Boogaloo. Cracking. [Aug 2016, p.117]

Black Bubblegum has a more amiable feel, assembling DIY jams inspired by Afrobeat and reggae, not to mention the fringes of Animal Collective's back Catalogue and Texan outlier Sun Araw. [Aug 2016, p.110]

This is one of Biffy Clyro's best records yet. [Aug 2016, p.106]

A Circle Without Having To Curve is a billowing transmission from some gigantic sullen hulk. Elsewhere texture, hiss and layered voices head into abstraction, but if you think he's afraid of revealing himself, the voice and guitar reprise Contain (Cedar Version) ends the album with a sweet re-entry to the daylight. [Aug 2016, p.110]

Still Life rarely strays out of the comfort zone. [#361, p.117]

This is a set which pushes boundaries with a gripping sense of adventure. [Aug 2016, p.108]

Was [Nothing's Real] worth the wait? At points, yes. [Aug 2016, p.117]

The whole album flows like a rainbow-hued river animated by the spirit of generosity and wonder. [Aug 2016, p.116]

Hit Reset presents Hanna in rude creative health. Only on closer Calverton does any vulnerability peek through. [Aug 2016, p.113]

You & I is the most single-minded record you'll hear all year. [Aug 2016, p.107]

"Listen to the silence" goes the repeated refrain from first single Always. Sometimes that wouldn't be a bad idea. [Aug 2016, p.112]

On Desire shows Drowners deepening and darkening the intrigue around them. [Aug 2016, p.111]

The youngsters prove themselves masters of dynamics, in The Mountain's gradually explosive ascent, and the muscular spasms of They Keep Silence. [Aug 2016, p.113]

Wild Things is as likeable as it is cutting edge. [Aug 2016, p.113]

Studio-recorded, the all-covers Blues And Ballads reels in his wilder live flights to pensive effect. [Aug 2016, p.114]

A far more considered affair, wistful, even half-regretful, yet redolent of breezing down the freeway from the Deep South to California with the Stones and Flying Burrito Brothers on the radio. [Aug 2016, p.114]

Only the closing tracks, where they grow overwhelmed by their own inertia, stands between this and something essential. [Aug 2016, p.115]

Seratones' opening salvo might be impressive but you can't help feeling their timing couldn't be worse. [Aug 2016, p.117]