Things go awry soon after ["Nearly Forgot My Broken Heart"], though thanks to a less-than-sparkling production from Brendan O'Brien and Cornell's overly sentimental lyrics. [Nov 2015, p.106]

Grey Tickles, Black Pressure captures everything great about Grant's past and bundles it into his most riveting album yet. [Nov 2015, p.110]

The result is confusion, of what the band really wishes to be. [Nov 2015, p.109]

Mothers marks this once unremarkable band as real contenders. [Oct 2015, p.115]

The smart-arse-ometer goes off the scale from time to time and a thin production hardly helps matters, but when Deez gets snappy on Kill Your Attitude and Melange Mining Co, he's far from a lost cause. [Oct 2015, p.104]

Caracal proves a more stealthy beast than its predecessor.... It's indeed the songs, though, which really shine. [Oct 2015, p.105]

The vocals make Savage Hills Ballroom an acquired taste, but those who enjoy a bitter pill will swallow it whole. [Oct 2015, p.117]

Still scabrous, sardonic and singular. [Jun 2015, p.109]

Shiny, but oddly inert. [Oct 2015, p.111]

A second take on [Cellar Door], hollowing out its blissful balearica to create echo-y somnambulant disco-dub. [Oct 2015, p.110]

So There seems far more a compositional exercise for Folds rather than an album for the wider public. [Oct 2015, p.108]

[An] entertaining tribute to the supreme genius if baroque music. [Oct 2015, p.108]

Worth every second of the wait. [Oct 2015, p.108]

Faith In The Future continues this rich work [of short story narrative in song], but with a new feel of quiet sobriety. [Oct 2015, p.107]

Pleasing though it is, [it] doesn't run too deep. [Sep 2015, p.112]

Stark, speedy, ferocious---all their established calling card are here. [Oct 2015, p.114]

It acts as a skilled and timely reminder of his own uniquely vulnerable vision as a songwriter. [Oct 2015, p.102]

Overall this is a record that's as thrillingly dark and overwhelming as anything they've attempted to date. [Oct 2015, p.117]

An innovative and pretty irresistible record. [Oct 2015, p.101]

This second effort duly ushers in a greater sophistication, with near Kinksian observations of the waster mindset, set to a broader musical spread, laced with monster Who-y riffs and tinges of neo-psych. [Oct 2015, p.107]

Music Complete is like good architecture: impressive in scale, the layers precisely pitched and the repetition absorbing. [Oct 2015, p.116]

Crosseyed Heart sounds fantastic and beautifully put together. [Oct 2015, p.110]

Anthems For Doomed Youth has plenty of reminders of why people fell in love with The Libertines in the first place.... For better or worse, the habit of both spinning and dwelling upon their own mythology remains too. [Oct 2015, p.112]

Their 16th LP is their most challenging to date. For all the fine musicianship and vaulting ambition, though, there are lengthy longueurs. [Oct 2015, p.111]

Dark nights of the soul rarely come with soundtracks this compelling. [Oct 2015, p.103]

Their chemistry seeped into the post-punk water table but Pere Ubu still dance alone. [Oct 2015, p.121]

Their pitch-perfect nods to Badfinger, Jimi Hendrix and Big Star come with a timeless quality. [Sep 2015, p.112]

While opener C'est La Vie's French title is as experimental as it gets, there's still plenty to savour. [Oct 2015, p.114]

The results are excellent. [Oct 2015, p.110]

Invite The Light reaffirms that Dam-Funk needn't coast on others' charisma when his music has more than enough of its own. [Oct 2015, p.104]

Core members Jonathan Donahue and Sean "Grasshopper" Mackowiak render sadness in twinkling matinee orchestrations, Central Park East or Coming Up For Air sounding pillowy, expansive, there to cushion a fall. [Oct 2015, p.111]

There's an intriguing musical intelligence operating underneath. [Oct 2015, p.113]

The 11th studio [release] has a brooding familiarity yet is also coolly exhilarating. [Oct 2015, p.111]

It's perhaps not a career peak but it's not too far away. [Oct 2015, p.102]

Condon proves that less can be more. [Oct 2015, p.102]

The hit rate is impressive. [Oct 2015, p.109]

Despite a few missteps her and there, it's good to have them back. [Oct 2015, p.109]

The main impression is of a unique voice still raging. [Oct 2015, p.113]

The only disappointment that, at barely half-an-hour, there isn't a bit more of it. [Oct 2015, p.113]

While there is greater subtlety at play than when he was in Gallows, he still sounds at his most thrilling on the more aggressive material. [Oct 2015, p.104]

No great leap forward here. [Oct 2015, p.106]

Frontman Matt Tuck leaves no cliche unturned in his angst-ridden lyrics and the second half of the album is weighed down by the leaden balladry. [Oct 2015, p.104]

Despite a few too many sanitised, lounge-y moments, overall this is an enjoyable first effort. [Oct 2015, p.102]

Fans will appreciate Yo La Tengo reinventing their own The Ballad Of Red Buckets and Deeper Into Movies from noisy chaos to whispered, but still intense, quiet. [Oct 2015, p.117]

Woken By Noises [is] reminiscent of the third Velvet Underground record. Elsewhere, however, the songs come across as elegant but a little flat, with a noticeable dip around the middle of the album. [Oct 2015, p.116]

Star Wars feels like the work of a band remapping their space. [Oct 2015, p.115]

Uncompromising as ever, Hidden Fields is an alien transmission from a band with a singular vision. [Oct 2015, p.115]

In places, The Boombox Ballads is too shambling for its own good. [Oct 2015, p.113]

It's a step in the right direction. [Oct 2015, p.113]

It's best when he makes mood music for out-of-body states. [Oct 2015, p.114]

As an album, it's something of a revelation; the stunning sound of an artist being born again. [Oct 2015, p.113]

The tunes, for all that they whistle by breezily enough, lack the snap, crackle or pop that separates the hitters from the makeweights. [Oct 2015, p.113]

What sets Faded Gloryville apart, however, is the new bluesy, soul-filled groove she found recording in Muscle Shoals. [Oct 2015, p.113]

Eyes Wide, Tongue Tied is a leap forward. [Oct 2015, p.108]

An emerging songwriting talent with a style and sophistication all his own. [Oct 2015, p.107]

At its best she sounds like St. Vincent with finger cymbals and a kaftan, a talent blooming on her own terms. [Oct 2015, p.106]

Poison Season sounds like a restless musical intellect stretching out with new confidence. [Oct 2015, p.106]

It's a rap record for rap people. [Oct 2015, p.106]

At 10 tracks, it's a concise and perfectly paced record, veering between subtlety and stampede. [Oct 2015, p.100]

If, after a while, it just hangs there like a low mist, Noctunes is still a thing of impressive substance made by a very striking somebody. [Oct 2015, p.102]

Glynne's voice is a powerful weapon to secure audience submission, yet it quickly becomes a weak link, making Florence Welch sound like Vashti Bunyan. [Sep 2015, p.112]

Smart, knowing and the right kind of shallow, Spector have moved on to phase two in style. [Sep 2015, p.117]

A collection of B-sides, Peel Sessions, alternative takes and unreleased tracks which reveal that the Californians were undergoing a spell of prolific creativity bordering on incontinence. [Sep 2015, p.121]

It takes time to reveal its charms and does sag towards the end, but Depression Cherry is a great example of a band hanging on to their trademark sound and managing to create something fresh with it. [Sep 2015, p.111]

It's charm lies in the warm melodies Sheppard and his supporting cast coax from their mostly acoustic instruments, including marimbas and vibraphones. [Aug 2015, p.112]

This is a record that demands what's left of your time. [Aug 2015, p.107]

The spirit of Thom Yorke hovers over the proceedings in places, but ultimately those pining for the still missing-in-action Bon Iver should find some comfort here. [Sep 2015, p.109]

Curious, gorgeous and a little bit off its rocker. [Aug 2015, p.109]

A nice career reboot, in short, which doesn't torch everything they've achieved in 15 years together. [Sep 2015, p.114]

There's so much going on here that joining the musical dots is a lengthy journey, but on this evidence Georgia can be special. [Sep 2015, p.110]

Achilles Last Stand and Nobody's Fault But Mine notwithstanding, Presence sounds as rushed as it was. [Sep 2015, p.121]

It's aged remarkably well and All My Love is breathtakingly beautiful. [Sep 2015, p.121]

Coda mopped up odds and sods and two new discs include Page and Plant's 1972 recordings with the Bombay Orchestra. [Sep 2015, p.121]

Death Magic feels like the work of a band who have pulled themselves together, but might be more fun falling apart. [Sep 2015, p.110]

The remaining selections cover Newport appearances from all the major phases of his career. [Sep 2015, p.119]

Confrontational yet communal. It's what his fans adore the most and, more than any of his previous five studio albums, Positive Songs For Negative People has it in spades. [Sep 2015, p.115]

As the album goes on, however, Marks To Prove It becomes a heavy dose of reflection upon reflection and a similarity of pace means the songs begins to merge into one another. [Sep 2015, p.108]

[A] blistering debut. [Sep 2015, p.109]

Sticking largely to the budget yacht rock, hazy indie sounds of its predecessor, Another One finds our hero circling the plughole of heartbreak, with stop-offs into anguish, pique and confusion. [Sep 2015, p.110]

God only knows how they stay this angry, or this compelling. [Sep 2015, p.110]

Momentary Masters is a big beast with swagger in its bones and craft in its soul. [Sep 2015, p.110]

Largely they hit the sweet spot by turning these songs into tunes that could be straight off their own LPs. [Sep 2015, p.110]

Whenever the energy flags and the songs become a little so-so, she turns on the voice and dazzles again. [Sep 2015, p.113]

The psychedelic haze of second LP Kaleidoscope Dream us toned down, replaced by a quixotic take on the R&B and rock landscape that, more than anything, stakes a claim for otherness. [Sep 2015, p.113]

Opting to name your album Magnifique certainly suggests a renewed confidence and the music here largely supports that. [Sep 2015, p.115]

Not the new sound of now, perhaps, but they play with enough fury to make the ancestors proud. [Sep 2015, p.117]

Cabic is most effective when he's closer to home. [Sep 2015, p.117]

There's an unmistakable, tightly drilled quality to all his [Tony Esposito's] work. [Sep 2015, p.117]

While there's throat-shredding fervour, it becomes a crazily overextended blur of goofy anthemics. [Sep 2015, p.117]

Exuberant party-banging love songs. [Sep 2015, p.116]

Blood is all about accentuating the positives, an ambitious and assured album that refuses to move any direction but up. [Aug 2015, p.105]

With hints of Maurice Jarre on the title song and Love Reign O'er Me achieving full-chest-beating catharsis, it suits its new symphonic frame. [Aug 2015, p.114]

The world's finest rock'n'roll combo. [Jul 2015, p.119]

The melting-pot approach, amplified by Toure's raw, yearning vocals, is what makes these 10 tracks so tantalising and evocative. [Jul 2015, p.119]

If the songs on St. Catherine are remarkably pretty, there's also a lurking sense that their beauty isn't built to last forever. [Aug 2015, p.104]

Still work to be done here. [Aug 2015, p.106]

Cod-reggae and sunny R&B are the order of the day here, which as beach bar background music would no doubt suffice. But unless Stone is content with coasting she needs a serious rethink. [Aug 2015, p.112]

Entirely instrumental, it retains the band's elasticated, rhythmic approach but stretches and softens it to create something much more atmospheric and evocative. [Aug 2015, p.105]