Under all the Iggy Pop mumbling, splintered ballads and warped Western themes, it seems they keep bubbling back up. [Oct 2017, p.105]

Orc is an incredibly full-on record. [Oct 2017, p.107]

Shah isn't doing anything especially new here, but she is blending 2017's concerns, with unalloyed fury and genuine musical craft. [Oct 2017, p.108]

Sleep Well Beast is undoubtedly richly textured, but it still demands the listener lean in. [Oct 2017, p.109]

A beautifully unsettling album. [Oct 2017, p.111]

Ultimately, floating voters will lament the lack of a flat-out glam and/or electro-disco belter to rival their hits. [Oct 2017, p.111]

This 147-track box (plus 92-page booklet) is thankfully packed with predominately great music. [Oct 2017, p.113]

It's a sensational return. [Sep 2017, p.115]

The pint pot-rattling To The Pub reflects on disappointment, while the spine-chilling Melting Man is a horrific account of putrefaction and dying alone. [Aug 2017, p.106]

This lush 36-track comp traces Richter's influences,meandering from vintage to post-rock to contemporary and is twinkling, Sunday-morning music in excelsis. [Aug 2017, p.115]

Echoes of early Pink Floyd, Saint Etienne and a tougher Vashti Bunyan prevail, but this is an original and haunting collection. [Sep 2017, p.109]

Lynne and Moorer are at their best on the straight country material, but their take on The Killers' My List usurps the original. Sadly, things take a turn for the worse later. [Sep 2017, p.113]

His fourth LP proves his strongest to date, a mesmerising meditation on uncertainty and unease, which bridges the gaps between urban poetry, post-rock and brooding electronica. [Sep 2017, p.117]

As ever, it's wildly inventive. [Jul 2017, p.108]

Stratton is much richer musically than lyrically but, like a fast-flowing stream, he carries you along with him regardless. [Sep 2017, p.115]

The 21-year-old's eclectic debut oozes attitude, his pithy social commentary binding together sonic excursions into breezy funk-punk, poundshop hip-hop and indie tearjerkers. [Sep 2017, p.115]

QOTSA's seventh album wisely tweaks the recipe just enough to keep things spicy. [Sep 2017, p.114]

Despite the gentle, plaintive Sticks Not Twigs and the lugubrious Dead At The Wheel, it's Albini in excelsis: a super-fast, super-loud cathartic howl, but this being The Cribs, it's leavened by their trademark way with a manly melody. [Sep 2017, p.106]

Its tight-wound electronica is perfect for anyone wanting a visual-free sensation of mounting suspense in the comfort of their own home. [Sep 2017, p.113]

Beast Epic arks a surprising loop back to the more insular feel of his earlier material. [Sep 2017, p.110]

It's not a perfect album--some songs feel too fast, almost manic in their desire to exist--but its message is clear. Kesha is surviving, yes, but thriving too. [Sep 2017, p.108]

There are no hidden depths to find here, but sugar rushes aplenty. [Sep 2017, p.106]

The 32-year-old's always-phenomenal flow is now matched by weighty content. [Sep 2017, p.112]

The results are rich in impact and surprise. [Sep 2017, p.113]

The Grocery [is] riveting. If Manchester Orchestra are guilty of being a tad too serene elsewhere, it must also be noted that sounding beautiful is a good problem to have. [Sep 2017, p.113]

Sounds more focused than ever. [Sep 2017, p.115]

It's pop opulence with the wires sticking out the back, high-end songwriting with a coat of lead paint, but those flaw and fixes give Shitty Hits a compelling outsider edge. [Sep 2017, p.116]

These dreamy but ambivalent folk and pop pieces have an incantatory quality. [Sep 2017, p.116]