A supremely confident collection from an artist just gearing up for greatness. [Jun 2016, p.111]

It's hard to recall specific songs once they're over and the tracks not sung in French puncture the atmosphere a bit, but overall, oil lamp projector-lit vibe is an enjoyable one. [Jun 2016, p.113]

The big indie-rock of Sleepy Hallow is beaten in the chirpy stakes only by the vaguely Afrobeat of This Little Sister while McIntyre's melancholy of old takes on Titanic proportions for the pleasing Why Do They Go So Soon. [May 2016, p.113]

Most of these versions bear only the scantest similarity to the originals. [Jun 2016, p.116]

Their most exceptional record yet. [Jun 2016, p.115]

Fever Dream's AOR and folk stylings see Watt picking over the bones of his life, ruminating on such themes of love, loss and family in a wry, wise and unsentimental manner. [Jun 2016, p.117]

The two have a great dynamic--potentially even a special one--its just not fully realised here. [Jun 2016, p.108]

It's easily five songs too long. ... But for the most part this is a nostalgic flashback to Santana's golden age. [Jun 2016, p.115]

Too many of the remaining songs sound more like sketches than fully realised songs. [May 2016, p.116]

Dark and pummelling, making it hard to digest in one sitting. [May 2016, p.116]

Fans of Real Estate in particular, will be in ecstasy. [Jun 2016, p.117]

The over-sauced, finger-wagging Naughty might take the joyful retribution to far in the panto direction but I Will Survive update Me Without You and joyful dancefloor rebirth Rare prove that Stefani has lost none of her pop spirit. [Jun 2016, p.117]

They do lean away somewhat from the buzzsaw pop-punk which made them favourites of Kurt Cobain, and toward streamlined '70s FM rock, as well as new wave power pop in the vein of The Only Ones and The Flamin' Groovies, with a few interludes of Byrds/Big Star jangle. But don't be fooled by such mellow moments. [Jun 2016, p.116]

The ambition is still there. [Jun 2016, p.114]

While Finder is as relentless as they come and Intruder punches harder than chase & Status, The Fool details life in a court during the Middle Ages interestingly enough and there's subtle beauty in Eating Hooks. [Jun 2016, p.114]

On most of Patch The Sky, Mould expresses his darkest emotions in way that make you want to shout along. [Jun 2016, p.114]

Here honing the bright and distinctively Nordic sound that enlivened 2014's International, they even flirt with becoming a pop group, albeit one wearing its '80s fixation with pride. [Jun 2016, p.113]

Five years in, they've still to learn that less can sometimes be more. [Jun 2016, p.112]

Weezer sound extremely happy in their own skin right now, and they're all the better for it. [Jun 2016, p.112]

A collection of songs of pleasing weight and completeness, their musical joints expertly dovetailed, their detailing crisply hand-carved. [Jun 2016, p.108]

Their second studio album does have a strange charm, in short doses. [Jun 2016, p.108]

There isn't a song here that isn't a low-key delight. [Jun 2016, p.111]

The result might be a different kind of journey, complete with detours and dead-ends, but its as compelling as any he's taken so far. [Jun 2016, p.111]

For all the craft she shows, for all her ability to move and for all the promise of the zinging, Indian-inflected Growing Pains, Birdy is undone by an unwillingness to change her musical pace. [Jun 2016, p.110]

The results is unusually heavy, even by FOTL standards. [May 2016, p.108]

Red Flag is both consistent and memorable. [Jun 2016, p.108]

There is nothing new here but Teleman make it sound like their own. [May 2016, p.109]

The work of a solid pro rather than gripped by genius. [May 2016, p.111]

Distortland continues Taylor's more ruminative songwriting. [May 2016, p.107]

It's a beautifully dark album. [May 2016, p.107]

Understated but always adult record, but Aves's guitar twinkles across these impossibly catchy tunes and his voice's warmth masks its sometimes barbed content. [Mar 2016, p.106]

Junk is deeply uncool, uncoolly deep, and utterly magnifique. [May 2016, p.115]

The fire dies down as the album progresses, but the infectious melodies remain. [May 2016, p.104]

Altogether, as lovely as its title suggests. [May 2016, p.104]

The high proportion of psychedelic plods make this record feel like a missed opportunity--elegantly wasted, but wasted all the same. [May 2016, p.104]

The No. 1ers' frenzied, hypnotic soundwhirl of old is leavened by the addition of precision-tooled beats and a shiny top-coat production. It works magnificently on the propulsive Yambadi Mama, yet less so when the motorik thumb pianos are left virtually unaccompanied. [May 2016, p.111]

That you are compelled to stay listening to see what it might be is proof of this record's eerie power. [May 2016, p.111]

Parquet Courts have delivered a fifth full-length album that ticks every box on the application form [for an uber-cool New York band of the Velvet Underground/Sonic Youth lineage]. [May 2016, p.114]

It's defiantly idiosyncratic and at times genuinely bonkers, yet despite that, Crab Day never once feels willfully obtuse or--that dreadful work--"kooky." [May 2016, p.105]

It's a mess, but it's never less than an absorbing one. [May 2016, p.107]

All told, the grand old men of post-rock still rock. [May 2016, p.108]

An inescapable sense of conviction makes it transcend nostalgia. [May 2016, p.106]

The end result is a heavyweight tour de force, and Polly Harvey's most fully-realised album to date. [May 2016, p.102]

The fierce intensity of Ote's digital blurts, Mudafossil's amorphous throb and To Many's fractal melodies show Kooshanejad mapping fascinating new dimensions of his own. [May 2016, p.111]

Bang Zoom Crazy... Hello is their best version this century. [May 2016, p.107]

Amen & Goodbye is an all-on-black attempt to rediscover their mojo. By and large, it's successful... The only minor caveat is that in the search for sonic and lyric transcendence, the band give off the slight air of Christina rock project. [May 2016, p.104]

Here are songs that only the Pet Shop Boys could record. [May 2016, p.113]

It's complex music but with enough of a melodic charm to hook you in, easy to appreciate but hard to fully grasp. [May 2016, p.104]

If they're undone by anything, it's their puppy-like, kids-in-a-sweet-shop enthusiasm for their prowess. [May 2016, p.104]

This outing's a little harder to love than its predecessor, but the highlights are definitely worth the wait. [May 2016, p.106]

Purists may bristle at his irreverent modifications, but consider these old songs' community spirit well served. [May 2016, p.112]

While Hinton's selections vary wildly in style, the production is both fluid and empathic. [May 2016, p.114]

Blues of Desperation rarely deviates from the burnished hard-rock-meets-raw-blues template last explored on 2014's Different Shades Of Blue. But everything comes spiced with clever melodic tics. [May 2016, p.106]

Ultimately, this is a fun record by a fun band. Not a bad thing by any means, but a little more salt in the soup would have been welcome. [May 2016, p.117]

There are only so many ways to do deep, woozy bass overlaid with gentle harmonies and a clipped beat, and Haelos exhaust them around track seven. [May 2016, p.109]

Distractions aside, this is a fine record. [May 2016, p.114]

It can all be a bit hazy and formless, but when sweeping the sky for sounds on the ominous prog-drift of Body Studies or bathing in the light cast by Loveless on Deu, Colleran shows his skill at controlling the most nebulous sounds. [May 2016, p.112]

Visceral, cerebral, utterly lovable. [May 2016, p.112]

While his left-field turn may sharply contrast with what he initially promised, he's sacrificed none of his mystery. [May 2016, p.111]

Despite the embarrassment of riches, though, there's also a lot of plain old embarrassment. [May 2016, p.110]

Eraser Stargazer will be anathema to many, but its twitchy 29 minutes carry fabulous voltage. [May 2016, p.109]

Rarely makes for easy listening.... though the album's second half is notably more harmonious. [May 2016, p.104]

So many genres collide on Aa it can feel like being trapped in a virtual karaoke machine. [Apr 2016, p.102]

Lush and lyrical, Jones makes 2013 a year to remember. [Apr 2016, p.108]

His debut is more Will Oldham than Will Young, with hints of Bon Iver, John Martyn and the Buckleys. The best of a beguiling bunch comes last. [Apr 2016, p.104]

The 11-strong-Mex ensemble's Latinised arrangements are intricate but lifeless. [Apr 2016, p.111]

[A] brilliantly unsettling album. [Apr 2016, p.110]

It's a mostly dazzling performance, though on the histrionic Gone Insane, they get carried away by their own virtuosity. [Apr 2016, p.109]

He's carved out his own island. [Apr 2016, p.104]

These recordings feel more an exercise in keeping Buckley's name alive than effectively deepening his work. [Apr 2016, p.106]

It's pleasing too, this time, to hear Adams singing unadorned and less accompanied; it lets the melody run uncluttered and those brilliant lyrics step forward. [Apr 2016, p.101]

The album comes to life with the radio-friendly, dancefloor-ready banger Operator (He Doesn't Call Me), but only one track, Love Is Blind, errs on the side of the saccharine and straightforward. [Apr 2016, p.109]

There's might in their minimalism. [Mar 2016, p.111]

The quieter songs that follow are more hit-and-miss. [Apr 2016, p.101]

On this first album in 16 years, return unspoilt, showcasing Gano's helter-skelter take on familiarly rootsy targets such as Bob Dylan, Lou Reed, country and rockabilly. [Apr 2016, p.116]

Baird's pure vocals might promise a bucolic dream, but there's the seed of a nightmare mushrooming here, a tension Heron Oblivion push as far out as they can. [Apr 2016, p.107]

It's honest, uncomfortable and bonkers, but therein lies its charms. [Apr 2016, p.115]

You Can't Go Back... holds no surprises. [Apr 2016, p.114]

Dicing with chaos throughout, it could easily induce headaches. But within there is substance and odd beauty. [Apr 2016, p.109]

Barbara Barbara is an ideal way for them to restate their currency. Having lain dormant, the creature is alive once more, electrifyingly so.[Apr 2016, p.103]

His world-weary vocals are leavened by his winning way with clinging melody and an overpowering sense of impish, but committed adventure. [Apr 2016, p.108]

A characteristically warm and good-natured record, but it's also striking how adventurous and relevant they sound. [Apr 2016, p.108]

Ultimately, The Coral aren't doing anything they haven't done before, but the greatness of these songs is undeniable and the production is slyly inventive enough to to keep us hooked. [Apr 2016, p.115]

A deeply involved performance such as this demands an involved listen, but with concentration (and maybe a little bit patience) Moogmemory marks a glorious return. [Apr 2016, p.103]

As a coherent album it's flawed, then, but with more consistent songwriting one senses they could be contenders next time around. [Apr 2016, p.107]

Beyond their all-guns-blazing single, Delete, there's little in the way of mystique on these 12 trim tracks, but there is much to savour. [Apr 2016, p.104]

All told, it's a mighty tasty spread. [Apr 2016, p.117]

Polica have made another good record, but there may never be a Polica album as good as the one inside your head. [Mar 2016, p.112]

You Know Who You Are combines unpretentious lyrics of passing time, loss and the urgency of life with harmony-packed power-pop exuberance, recalling Teenage Fanclub, The dB's or, as on Believe You're Mine, Johnny Marr. [Apr 2016, p.112]

Fallon's grizzly vocals are both his strength (they ooze commitment) and weakness (he'll always sound like The Gaslight Anthem) and they're Painkiller's strength and weakness too. [Apr 2015, p.105]

For the most part, their 11th album is the sound of a band getting back to their best. [Apr 2016, p.100]

More of the same, then. [Apr 2016, p.117]

Existential fatigue and self-interrogation--these themes and more are all, somehow, transmitted by her lullaby-soft delivery without ever having their intensity muted. It's a neat trick, and one that Mothers do better than most. [Apr 2016, p.111]

Confidence is attractive, but iii is a little too composed. [Apr 2016, p.111]

Even at its most melancholy, there's a warmth and brightness to M. Ward's eighth solo album. [Apr 2016, p.110]

Pinkshinyultrablast have lifted their eyes from their laces to the skies. Superb. [Apr 2016, p.113]

As ambitious an album as you will hear from a young British group and they mostly pull it off. [Mar 2016, p.104]

There's melodrama aplenty, but it's the meaningful lyricism in both French and English--and a smart Kanye sample on Paradis Perdus--that make it really sparkle. [Apr 2016, p.102]