There’s not a sound out of place or misstep, just swooning narcotic allure and bad attitude throughout what will be one of the year’s major debuts.

The music is played with laidback precision, immaculately arranged and produced with a consistently warm vibe.

It makes for warm, complex but ultimately rewarding listening--the forboding swell of Songs Of The Marvels, the smartly rollicking The Angry Laughing God--and is the sound of muscles being gently but confidently flexed.

Anohni is at her very best when rawly cracking over glacial blasts of percussion.

Vocally, Williams experiments more than ever before, almost to the point of jazzy improvisation; she drawls, mutters and often leaves phrases hanging in the air, at times reminiscent of Mary Margaret O’Hara. It’s a welcome development and helps to make the album feel like her most accomplished in many years.

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]

This is a bold, powerful and brilliant reinvention. [Jan 2025, p.103]

The band lace all 14 tracks from Psychocandy with attitude, adrenaline and volume: their collective belligerence peaking during Never Understand and the relentless metallic KO of Inside Me.

There’s an easy charm about the whole project that lends it a robust confidence.

Even kids who don’t like rock’n’roll might find this infectious invitation hard to resist.

The Mirror radiates a collaborative spirit if curiosity, seeking - and finding - wonder and mystery in the everyday. [Mar 2025, p.103]

God’s Favourite Customer leaves the over-wrought and possibly over-thought days of Pure Comedy in its slipstream in return for something just that bit purer. True, the fun days of I Love You, Honeybear et al may be gone, but what a sacrifice if this is what we get in return.

Sublimely crafted, incredibly well-played, there are all the reference points, yet it never sounds like a composite of old glories. The intelligence, urgency and immediacy of his 32nd album are a most welcome surprise.

Tthis dark horse of a debut isn’t just vastly superior to most of the recycled indie landfill swilling around--it’s one of the most emotionally-charged guitar-based debuts to be unleashed over the past 12 months.

Wall Of Eyes sounds like a band going from strength to strength. [Feb 2024, p.100]

PUP’s ability to enliven a tired genre with an abundance of ideas and exuberance is a small but exceptional feat.

Futurology is a much more polished and decidedly odd record featuring some of the band’s most enjoyably gonzo work since debut Generation Terrorists, as well as their most forwardthinking music to date.

This album bristles with anger, desperation and disbelief. Hopeful resilience is occasionally brought to the fore as well, and guest backing vocalists from acts including The Magnetic Fields are on hand to help Superchunk feel less adrift and alone.

Harding’s delivery is unique, her range from the deepest velvet to the most discordant cry; her enunciation infusing every syllable with her tortured soul. ... Simply stunning.

Trixie’s bears many of the hallmarks the group would, a few years later, become celebrated for. Several hooks and melodies offer up the kind of earworms that helped establish Squeeze as one of the UK’s most dependable and radio-friendly singles bands, and there is already an astonishing maturity to Difford’s lyrics, often taking the form of poignant character studies. [Feb 2026, p.98]

Bright, nimble and eager, Someday, Now is a shape-shifting treat. [Dec 2024, p.108]

The album's experimental second half verges perilously on sketchy, but serene motorik closer Space Station Mantra offers a finely modulated sow of its maker's tastes and instincts. [Mar 2025, p.103]

A blissful, immersive listen. [Apr 2024, p.104]

[The] third album's title is a funfair metaphor for life - sometimes scary, sometimes cathartic. The record stands firm in between. [Jul 2025, p.103]

His voice remains distinctive though, and like all his records, Goths is worth hearing.

Pop music at its very brightest.

Standards, therefore, is gloriously, pertinently verbose, slurping like a horse from the wellspring of inspiration.

13 glides fluently from the Russ Ballard-ish Chew Nails to the funky Crossfyre, delicious dub-pop of standout Keep Calling Me (Baby) and Beck-ish squelch funk of That's Rap. [May 2026, p.103]