It's a hard-hitting statement album that raises the bar the band set with their previous offering to an insanely higher level. The grooves seem deeper, the horns punchier and the hooks catchier. [Oct 2024, p.100]

Far from a mere collection of diffuse songs with big voices upfront, the result is a properly wrought album of dynamic contrasts, its singers fully committed to Marshall’s sense of big-rock drama. There’s darkness within, for sure, but it’s also a record that knows the value of letting the light in. [Aug 2024, p.102]

Look for signs of grief if you must, but Sparhawk's return is a dramatic adventure on any terms. [Oct 2024, p.103]

Odyssey finds the ambitious Garcia pushing herself harder, taking on the role of orchestrator as well as composer, resulting in a magnificent large canvas project where her molten saxophone melodies are framed by the lush but never syrupy strings of the Chineke! Orchestra. [Oct 2024, p.101]

If the title track is effectively Bowie's It's No Game (No 1) on steroids and Druantia has you checking the label copy for an Eno credit, there's an intensity of commitment and a density of sound to both that wrestles you into submission. Things let up on redemption ballad I Belong To. [Oct 2024, p.103]

By the time it’s [Ballad Of A Thin Man is] last played (Disc 25, Inglewood, California) it has the feel of the pivotal point in the entire set. It’s an illustration of those moments when the unavoidable repetition of songs serves a genuine purpose, where the listeners’ patience/tolerance is rewarded with a sense they’re party to something truly human; a living, breathing entity that shifts in mood or tone influenced by the size or shape of the room and the response from the people witnessing it first-hand in that particular room.

The Venezuela-born, Indiana-based Rui has plenty to say here and delivers it with a compelling, articulate set. [Oct 2024, p.101]

None of the dozen track outstay their welcome and it's nice to hear Lower putting smiles on faces again instead of pondering life's woes. [Oct 2024, p.103]

For all their upstart imitators, The Jesus Lizard return as the kings of the scene. [Oct 2024, p.101]

The music boasts a crunchy (but pleasantly sweet) production sheen that owes a debt to classic British power pop. [Oct 2024, p.103]

Woof. is almost overwhelmingly of the moment, yet destined to stick around. [Oct 2024, p.101]

Undeniably well-crafted as the hooks are, over a whole album they sound hollow and forced. [Oct 2024, p.101]

It's an album that shows, beyond any doubt, that Jon Hopkins is a singular electronic talent not bound by either his past or expectations. [Oct 2024, p.101]

Might be his best effort yet. [Oct 2024, p.102]

It's certainly a feast for the ears, and possibly the most satisfying listen since 2011 masterpiece Underneath The Pine. [Oct 2024, p.103]

If music that sounds as if it might come off the rails at any moment is your cup of tea, this album is for you. [Oct 2024, p.103]

Pom Poko follow 2021's jazz-tinged Cheater with more straightforward, earworm-y songwriting. [Oct 2024, p.103]

If Common himself has never quite made it into such rarefied company [Prince, Biggie, Maya Angelou, Martin Luther King, Jr.], the album acknowledges that dependability is a desirable asset in turbulent times. [Oct 2024, p.100]

Beabadoobee's most charming yet. [Oct 2024, p.100]

Born Horses was a slow process – Donahue compares the patient approach to recognising the “statue already inside the marble” – but it has given rich rewards; a change in focus that remains unmistakably Mercury Rev. [Oct 2024, p.98]

Their first since Ghosteen is rich in the singer’s blend of archness and romantic yearning, while his simpatico cohorts’ dynamics throb and tingle. [Oct 2024, p.100]

Against the odds, it is worth the wait. .... The 12 new songs mostly recall the commercial peaks of Mind Bomb and Dusk, and there’s a comforting, analogue hum to the proceedings. A Johnny Marr-esque lick here, and a Bernard Herrmann horn stab there: all help create the warm, dusty sound instantly recognisable as The The.

This is Amy's album, wild, sometimes snarling songs that, with a twinkle in the eye, namecheck everyone from Warren Beatty to Marianne Faithfull to Hannibal Lecter. .... Very enjoyable. [Sep 2024, p.133]

It is a contemporary sounding album full of songs worth revisiting, out of love, not some old Floydian care of duty. [Sep 2024, p.130]

The storytelling is more linear and less elliptical than we might expect from Anderson, though any restraint in the storytelling services the cinematic scope of the project, where soundscapes segue with ease as vertiginous strings swoop and dive, and Anohni provides vocal interjections. [Sep 2024, p.130]

These ruminations on love form what could be described as a grownup concept album, with the Norwegian singer using all her experience and expertise wisely and reassuringly. [Sep 2024, p.133]

Highlights come thick and fast, but toe-tapping and self-referential opener Enjoy The Ride, the 70s funk of 1972 and the exquisitely expressive Let it Burn do a good job of framing this exciting release. [Sep 2024, p.130]

It's a beautiful, soothing record. [Sep 2024, p.133]

Some of their best, most expansive music yet. [Sep 2024, p.132]

Gillan isn't quite the octave-busting vocalist of old, while his lyrical subject matter often recalls the laddishness of his erstwhile self-named group. [Sep 2024, p.131]

A major talent continues to flourish. [Sep 2024, p.131]

Although troubled themes lurk in the lyrics, boogie-driven closer Daily Blues encapsulates the album’s appeal neatly: for pure retro-rock escapism, this Flight is just the ticket.

While their familiar stargazing disco again dominates, the songwriting is at its sharpest as fresh influences add bite. [Aug 2024, p.103]

File under late and inessential. [Jul 2024, p.101]

It all adds up to a stylish album that rolls back the years yet sounds right up to date without ever deviating from what Gouldman knows and does so well. We have no notes for you, Graham Gouldman. [Aug 2024, p.100]

The opening Introduction To Why I Did It is a pocket masterpiece, a lyrical meditation on lost smalltown 80s indie youth, but often this musically satisfying album feels wanting for more of the story which inspired it. [Aug 2024, p.105]

Infused with ennui and a fascination with death, with a sense of teenage mopiness hitting the listener like waves of passive aggression coming through a bedroom wall. Nevertheless, it's not without its charm. [Aug 2024, p.105]

The music on II is undoubtedly a gorgeous trip, but it's a sound which many producers have caught up with in the last decade. [Aug 2024, p.104]

It's introspection with a keen ear for accessible melodies that help sweeten the bitter pills with which he's self-medicating. [Aug 2024, p.105]

It's rock in the same way that Springsteen rocks, rollicking and without a preconceived direction. [Aug 2024, p.105]

The torch chanteuse of yore is still much in evidence, but with some pleasing detours into more varied terrain. [Aug 2024, p.105]

The results occasionally come within touching distance of essential. .... Yet more often than not it resembles a New York-flavoured spin in the retro coffee table house of Zero 7 or Lamb. [Aug 2024, p.105]

True, the stoner-rock Passengers interrupts the flow - but not for long. Ironically, it makes for Kasabian's most epic album since Empire 18 years ago. [Aug 2024, p.104]

My Light, My Destroyer is the work of a master storyteller, capable of inhabiting characters with real empathy and noticing evocative details. [Aug 2024, p.104]

Harmonics is another bold step in the world of the grown-up youth club. [Aug 2024, p.104]

X's unspools warm, rarefied variants on his meticulously maintained minimalism. [Aug 2024, p.103]

Overall, the record harks back to past glories, but it's doubtful it would have reversed his fortunes quite so dramatically as the Rubin makeover. [Aug 2024, p.103]

The intimate piano ballad Poor Symmetry, indie-pop of Sign Of A Past Life and the anthemic Wild Geese, Wild Love (think Cat Power fronting War On Drugs) emphasise her versatility. [Aug 2024, p.103]

It’s a whole lot of matter for Mind, but it acts as a fascinating documentary, as does the extensive, detailed book. What are the takeaways? It’s like finding a hidden treasure in the middle of a catalogue that is well-known but only partially adored; Out The Blue, Aisumasen (I’m Sorry) and I Know (I Know) are deeply confessional and equal to anything Lennon has ever written. [Aug 2024, p.90]

The second disc hosts material that deemed "mellower". All that means is it's slower in tempo than the earlier tracks and still heavy as fuu-ck. [Jul 24, p.105]

From the very start, the listener is made to feel as if they're in the room with the band, privy to an unfiltered outpouring of creativity. [Jul 2024, p.106]

A remarkable and imaginative album. [Jul 2024, p.106]

There’s an ethereal feel, something that transcends the boundaries of folk, a gentleness yet something more, helped by the guitar of Richard.

The odd, bleeping internal monologue My Name Is Duglas (Don't Listen To What They Say) aside, it's classic Bandit country. [May 2024, p.102]

Heady stuff that pays imaginative tribute to the duo's shared Latin American diasporic heritage. [Jul 2024, p.105]

Miracle Focus testifies to the revivifying powers of curiosity and communion with invitingly expansive, epiphanic fervour. [Jul 24, p.107]

Among the highlights are Carla's Beads, with its enveloping synth swirls and ringing percussion, and the mellow ambient jazz of Bi-Location. [Jul 2024, p.107]

There's a decent hardcore punk song, Two Fists. Elsewhere, there's too much mid-tempo chug to make this album fully adrenalised. [Jul 2024, p.105]

The guitar-laden Switch and psychedelic Submarine are familiarly winning alternative pop. Everywhere else, Templeman bounces over into muscular funk, propelled by his new startling falsetto and the kind of meaty basslines that have kept Phoenix in business for 25 years. [Jul 2024, p.105]

This album digs beneath the taut skins of White's kit, charting a mutually invigorating relationship between player and instrument, alternating from visceral frolics to pointillist sensitivity at the drop of a beat. [Jul 2024, p.107]

He's ultimately birthed another milestone. [Jul 2024, p.107]

Dessner's patronage will hopefully propel her to the Radio 2 attention such consistently insistent, early evening festival potential singalongs deserve. [Jul 2024, p.104]

There's a lot to admire about Hovvdy's quiet wonder - and a lot to skip over too. [Jul 2024, p.105]

The album bristles with tunefulness and class. [Jul 2024, p.105]

Over the course of 12 bittersweet tracks, it becomes clearer and clearer just how lucky we are to be around for any time at all. [Jul 2024, p.105]

"Time's wasting out," she sings, but Below The Waste, cultivates a bracingly resourceful mindset. [Jul 2024, p.105]

Their most ambitious to date. Presented as an old-school double album split into four thematic sides, it serves (by design or otherwise) as a thoughtful precis of the band's 20-year history. [Jul 2024, p.105]

POPtical Illusion is another engaging set that rewards repeat plays on account of the inventive electronic textures and Cale's reflective, often politically tinged lyrics. [Jul 2024, p.104]

A rich and dense record that rewards repeated, attentive listening. Yet despite the lyrical prowess on display, it's the incredibly detailed soundscape that really impresses. ... Grant is well on the way on creating a musical language all his own. [Jul 2024, p.102]

In showing the workings behind the most important transformation of his career, Rock’n’Roll Star! underscores just what a remarkable thing Bowie achieved: this is the mortal man behind the extraterrestrial dressing, and it’s no less compelling for that.

Occasionally too impressionistic at the expense of a coherent song, Morton nonetheless races past standard traps of actors' musical diversions. [Jul 24, p.106]

An often-electrifying listen, full of surprise. Although rough and ready, Paul McCartney's ineluctable creativity shines through. [Jul 2024, p.97]

A few more typically sparse arrangement - as on What's Left To Lose, a standout that fades too early - might have leavened things. But long-time fans will not be disappointed. [Jun 2024, p.103]

Not her best, but never dull. [Jun 2024, p.103]

Veering between raw intimacy and a suffocating world-weary sigh, O'Brien mostly gets the balance right. [Jun 2024, p.103]

The album would have benefitted from a slightly wider variation in pace, with an additional up-tempo song or two. [Jun 2024, p.103]

A dynamic, bluesy set that energetically declares itself from the outset. [Jun 2024, p.103]

An album that embodies the punk energy his Tuareg band are able to marshal in a live setting. [Jun 2024, p.103]

It all hangs together with ease, making for Kings Of Leon's most fun album since the Noughties. [Jun 2024, p.102]

One of 2024's evocatively cool finest. [Jun 2024, p.102]

It's mostly what could be called ballads, although with the mesmerising pop edge of something from the late 50s, all tinkling guitar and bobbling bass. [Jun 2024, p.101]

Murky, dour and troubled, Frog In Boiling water is a beautiful warning, but a warning nonetheless. [Jun 2024, p.101]

The mix of glinting guitars and sing-song vocals can risk evaporating, but there's plenty here to beguile and charm. [Jun 2024, p.101]

Her woozy baroque pop has always walked a delicate line between Kate Bush and Enya: here, it lapses into perfume-ad whimsy. [Jun 2024, p.101]

Where sparse electronics appear, they either lend a poppy, Neu!-like sheen to the downbeat 4316 or shroud Take This Poison in menace and foreboding. [Jun 2024, p.101]

McMahon's quivering tenor is a little mannered, but as the lush Round The World stretches its apocalyptic anxieties over nine shape-shifting minutes, you can't fault his questing ambition. [Jun 2024, p.101]

This, with producer Dan Carey keeping things sharp, is another streamlined thriller, recorded in double-quick time. [Jun 2024, p.100]

Butler isn't about to spoon-feed his listeners the answers to anything, though, and ultimately the most audacious trick Good Grief pulls off is in using veiled autobiography to frame portraits of the fragility of the human soul, which speaks to everyone. [Jun 2024, p.100]

The Big Decider spins and struts with the joie de vivre of old, statements of intent provided by crunchy opener Creeping On The Dancefloor and Pauline, another groove-infused witty ode to a difficult woman, cut from the same cloth as Valerie. [May 2024, p.105]

Close your eyes and you can easily forget this fella is 84. [May 2024, p.103]

Drunk and Sick Of Dreaming carry over Surrender's sophisticated playlist-friendly infectiousness, with Never Going Home's pared-back Nashville mood still as accomplished as it is catchy. [May 2024, p.105]

As with Robed In Rareness, the music here is insular, at times verging on the claustrophobic, though Butler again looks out to his wider network, granting features on all but one of the collection's seven track. [May 2024, p.105]

Naysayers might dismiss it all as derivative, but who cares when it's despatched with such confidence and an innate understanding of pop's rich grammar. [May 2024, p.103]

It took a while, but this album is certainly worth the wait. [May 2024, p.103]

Over When It's Over flirts with the dance floor while the hushed Whatever You Want is worthy of Tapestryeta Carole King, as a driven and articulate artist confidently finds her feet again. [May 2024, p.105]

One thing which has barely changed since their Psalm 69 peak is the Ministry formula of chugging metal machine grooves, newsreel samples and stuck-pig screaming. But, when it works, they can still make the apocalypse sound fun. [May 2024, p.103]

An enthralling spiritual jazz manifesto. [May 2024, p.93]

Throughout the album, vibrant melodies and guitars come accompanied by gnawing doubts and dense, agitated settings. Even the dreamy Capricorn wears its soundscape like a shroud, while Hope's plea for release evokes The National at their most elegantly fraught. [May 2024, p.105]