There's nothing here likely to be adopted as a stadium chant, but in its tethered imagination, Boarding House Reach is the most surprising and eccentric record White's made. [May 2018, p.110]

The only gripe here is that the odd longueur makes Historian solid rather than spectacular. [May 2018, p.107]

It's the vocals which gives this debut its distinctive flavour. [May 2018, p.107]

Music as tense as Pink Squirrel and as Kraftwerky as Tokyo Metro comes together quite happily in the snarling Creep Show sound. [May 2018, p.107]

The results okays to their strengths. ... There's a lightness of touch here lost since An End Has A Start a decade ago. [May 2018, p.108]

The mix of therapy sessions and swooning love songs make for a slightly confused LP but not an unenjoyable one. [May 2018, p.108]

This enticingly dusky debut reveals a welcome underside to their home city of Tallinn's sometimes cloying indie-pop scene. [May 2018, p.111]

While some of it is great, much of Francis Trouble chugs amiably along without really sinking its teeth in. [May 2018, p.111]

The shine wears off before the final, 14th, song. But it's fun until then. [May 2018, p.111]

This is the sound of someone surveying a world turning to ashes. In other words, anyone looking for upbeat club songs to soundtrack adverts may be disappointed. [May 2018, p.111]

Another quixotic foray into New Age vibrations, all hazy Balearic moods and flashback to '50s exotica. [May 2018, p.112]

Despite the slight air of "tell me something I don't know" hanging over proceedings, both musically and lyrically, there is an earworming swagger here. [May 2018, p.112]

Songs swerve through ranting country, Celtic balladry and doo-wop. And you have to raise a glass to anyone who dares defile Like A Rolling Stone by redirecting its venom inwards. [May 2018, p.114]

Highlights aren't hard to find. ... But there's a fair amount of flab too, and at 78 minutes long there's the sense that Rare Birds is too sprawling for its own good. [May 2018, p.114]

He's still more lyrically adept than most peers, with a warm, lilting voice that skips across the tracks; he still get diverted by the occasional flaccid soul tune, as on the dreary No Place To Run; and he can still spark up a tune. [May 2018, p.114]

The results are largely impressive, particularly on the fragile country of Follow Me Down, but you can't help feeling that eventually Nap Eyes will need to look to more distant horizons to maintain everyone's interest. [Apr 2018, p.112]

While they haven't lost their taste for repointing American and European folk, there's a brash, stadium-rock dazzle to these songs, proving that The Decemberists, at least, aren't taking the awfulness lying down. [Apr 2018, p.108]

Tearing At The Seams more accurately captures the feel of Rateliff's stirring live performances. [Apr 2018, p.112]

It still falls to his guest vocalists to distill the album's emotive mood. [Apr 2018, p.108]

His creative fires still showing no signs of dimming, David Byrne remains as playful and brilliant as ever. [Apr 2018, p.114]

Abrasive textures win out over melody, and the odd flashes of In rainbows-era Radiohead only serve to underline the inaccessibility of the rest of the material. [Apr 2018, p.115]

Within its polished melancholy, Clean is a raw portrait of sadness. [Apr 2018, p.115]

Cocoa Sugar finds Young Fathers at a fascinating juncture: opening up, moving forward, but still existing in a sonic hall-of-mirrors world of their own. [Apr 2018, p.104]

All Nerve is less the sound of a band trying to revisit the vitality of its youth, than a collection of musicians who don't appear to have ever lost it. [Apr 2018, p.110]

A punchy, potent return from one of UK music's most distinctive voices. [Apr 2018, p.115]

Even the most flint-hearted cynic will struggle not to get caught up in his swivel-eyed lust for life. [Apr 2018, p.116]

This is menacing, magical stuff. [Apr 2018, p.116]

Lilting protest number Corruption Na Stealing comes closets to discovering a rhythm of its own. [Apr 2018, p.111]