It's not as obviously retro as, say, techno DJ Paul Woolford's recent Special request project, but there are similar flashbacks to the darker end of '90s drum 'n' bass. [Mar 2014, p.108]

While this maximalist approach might conceivably work well live, on record it often feels overblown, overwhelming and ultimately exhausting. [Mar 2014, p.108]

Throughout Grace is brave and brutally honest. [Mar 2014, p.107]

In modern jazz terms, a masterclass. [Mar 2014, p.116]

The guitar may intrude a little more but Emmaar is still built around gnarled guitar, harmonised chants, hyperspeed percussion and the sense that this music is as relentless as the Sahara sun. [Mar 2014, p.121]

Here the melodies are a forum for a lovely, charismatic voice and some artful, memorable lyrics. [Mar 2014, p.119]

Bristling with ideas, it's an album worth getting to grips with. [Mar 2014, p.115]

A lush, soulful and joyous debut that should haunt us for years to come. [Mar 2014, p.114]

so far, so arty. [Mar 2014, p.108]

The end-times have rarely sounded so sweet. [Mar 2014, p.113]

Trouble feels like a multi-faceted, compound eye of a record, picking up different sides to every story and blending them into a smooth, undeniably odd whole. [Mar 2014, p.113]

Dizzy Heights is a bold, wonderful affair. [Mar 2014, p.113]

Bombay Bicycle Club might have veered all over the track, switching between the folk lane and the electronic one, elbowing indie-pop out of the way, but they still aren't setting the pace. [Mar 2014, p.112]

The overall effect is warmly intoxicating and that the album comes so close to matching up to the records it's in thrall to means you can forgive its obvious debt to others. [Mar 2014, p.110]

What Sun Structures lacks is a bit of fire in its belly. [Mar 2014, p.109]

Vega's still small voice of calm remains where the action is,kin to early-'70s Leonard Cohen in her lyrics of enigmatic confession, tarot-casting romance and cool mystique. [Mar 2014, p.121]

Lyrically and musically, as remarkable an album as you'll hear all 2014. [Mar 2014, p.119]

[Olsen treats] heavy weather with an impressive lightness of touch. [Mar 2014, p.117]

The work of a richly creative entity still in the ascendant, those with a mind to will drink deep. [Mar 2014, p.116]

This fourth solo album is daring and hugely composed. [Mar 2014, p.115]

In short, Beck Hansen has properly re-acquired his mojo. [Mar 2014, p.106]

Atmospheric and unsettling, it's a thrilling, long dark night of the soul. [Feb 2014, p.116]

The result is another emphatic celebration of Malian musicianship. [Feb 2014, p.111]

Rogers's 63-year-old voice sounds uncannily well preserved. [Feb 2014, p.119]

This definitive 77-track anthology favours the early years, illustrating how quickly Stone and his multiracial crew evolved from a decent R&B outfit into a trailblazing psychedelic-soul gang show, [Oct 2013, p.117]

A dozen familiar tracks, minus their overdubs. [Oct 2013, p.116]

Sound System gives the full, eclectic picture. [Oct 2013, p.116]

Get cherry-picking. [Oct 2013, p.116]