Gracie's at his best, however, when dialling it down for the high-end folk of When You Go or hanging out over the ragged edge for The Death Of You & I. [Jun 2018, p.114]

Glorious stuff. [Jun 2018, p.116]

Knock Knock is a visionary blend of minimal techno and armchair psychedelia, jammed with canny features. [Jun 2018, p.117]

Singularity is rich enough to let your mind wander through it. [Jun 2018, p.104]

An album that shows just how ambitious, fresh and vital-sounding guitar music can still be. [Jun 2018, p.108]

Not every song is a slow ride--True Love and Heart Killer are bluesy folk stompers--but on the likes of the luxurious Buzzing In The Light and Critical Equation they allow themselves to revel in dreaminess. [Jun 2018, p.110]

Some may scoff at the limited musical palette on tracks such as the La's-like Lazy Love, but beneath the bluff exterior beats the heart of a great pop band. [Jun 2018, p.109]

Not quite a greatest hits then, but not short of a few crowd-pleasers either. [Jun 2018, p.106]

Melodically subtler than Friedberger's past albums, Rebound still swings thanks to her innate, and often-overlooked, knack for songwriting. [Jun 2018, p.112]

For every moment of immaculate pop, there's a moment of strangeness. [Jun 2018, p.116]

He mostly enchants, squaring literary pretensions with the band's happy fate as indie-rock comfort food. [Jun 2018, p.113]

Beneath their silly-string riffs are nuanced screamers. [Jun 2018, p.114]

This follow-up goes the whole hog. ... Frank Ocean's Blonde reportedly influenced the tech-driven songwriting process, but there are echoes, too, of U2 at their more exploratory, and, on the twisty-riffed In Waves, last year's QOTSA album. Olympian. [Jun 2018, p.110]

Hedley makes no apology for his love of country's golden age, ad where naysayers might cry "pastiche," plenty more will be happy kicking up their heels on the hayride. [May 2018, p.91]

It's hugely impressive stuff, and in the midst of all the musical pyrotechnics, there's still room for standout melodies. [Jun 2018, p.114]

There are toe-curling moments. ... However, their voices are a convivial fit, most effectively on the gentle 22nd Street and the harsher, more restless Night Shift and both escape, dignity intact. [Jun 2018, p.114]

Hippo Lite is brilliantly abrasive, any prettier blips overwhelmed by Real Outside's uncanny whirl or the ESP crackle of Corner shops. ... Such insularity only means you lean in, however, as close as possible to their intriguing transmissions. [Jun 2018, p.110]

Like Leto's performance in the risible Suicide Squad, the result is unsubtle, self-important and not half as good as it thinks it is. [Jun 2018, p.106]

In its street-level politics, lucid delivery and hypnotic hooks, Novelist Guy is confirmation that this wave has a lot further to roll yet. [Jun 2018, p.107]

Confident Music for Confident People largely succeeds in maintaining the hi-NRG entertainment. ... It comes unstuck, though, when the sugary fun becomes simply irritating, as on the bratty C.O.O.L Party. [Jun 2018, p.109]

The Straight Hits! feels so unlike 2011's exquisitely miserable Last Of The Country Gentlemen. Pearson wrote the LP according to five songwriting "pillars" and the constraints, paradoxically, have freed him up. [Jun 2018, p.114]

Things calm down in the second half; You Of All People and Join are an angelic two-step, providing a welcome respite to end the album on a hopeful note. [Jun 2018, p.116]

On guard, but never defensive, The Lookout is a wonder--open-hearted, free-thinking and grown-up in all the best ways. [Jun 2018, p.116]

Admittedly, the mostly spoken Musical Theatre is indulgent twaddle and she often squawks where others sing, but there's Hole-like grit to both Life In Oink and the raised middle finger of Hate You, where cascading choruses butt against stroppy verses. [Jun 2018, p.113]

Dimensional People III is the key. Its multi-layered ambience is indicative of the record as a whole and it serves to highlight this duo's zest for reinvention. [Jun 2018, p.113]

Too often, however, these songs underwhelm. the likes of Sand and Boyfriend confusing unengaging plodding earnestness for emotional heft. [Jun 2018, p.113]

In a career already dotted with peaks, this is definitely another. [Jun 2018, p.113]

I Don't Run often feels like a post-tour comedown, meandering and forlorn, where its predecessor was uplifting and catchy. [Jun 2018, p.110]