The bleakness can be oppressive but as Wolfe sings of "wings on our lungs" on the hymnal Place In The Sun, her voice takes flight with commanding power. [Feb 2024, p.103]

Between fleeting romances and the railroad, the result serves robust snapshots of self-discovery in resilient motion: nodding to the climax of Titanic in closer Ogallala, The Past ... clings to life in the face of loss. [Feb 2024, p.101]

Testing her vocals as much as her songwriting, Howard emerges as one of the boldest talents around. [Feb 2024, p.101]

Loss Of Life feels more at ease with itself. Happily, though, none of this comes at the expense of the band's exploratory urges. [Feb 2024, p.102]

Wherever you listen, these are some of the loveliest examples of Lytle's wryly empathetic story-songs yet, with widescreen closer Nothin' To Lose teasing at potential future attractions. Long may his wav roll. [Feb 2024, p.101]

The rhythm guitars remain acoustic and there are country-style embellishments from piano and pedal-steel players. The overall impression, though, is that the circles in the Venn diagram of Mascis' solo and Dino works are overlapping more than ever. [Feb 2024, p.101]

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

As with his previous albums though, GRIP most impresses in its introspective moments (Spades, Lucky Me) -- perhaps next time we'll get the morning after album. [Feb 2024, p.103]

An album which is surely his most innovative and creative yet. Heavy but easily accessible. [Feb 2024, p.101]

Her evocative vocals are stunning, heard on tracks such as Strange Delights and Finding Mirrors. Just occasionally, her voice and harp are too submerged, notably on Through The Din, where the rhythmic groove feels overwhelming. However, the glorious instrumental Cloudbreath blends the album's rich components brilliantly, as do the next tracks, Garden and Into The Sun. [Feb 2024, p.101]

They're good at what they do but when songs like Double Negative kick in, those with older record collections might find their hands instinctively twitching towards their Wire LPs. [Feb 2024 p.103]

Songs here frequently unsettle, like the hypnotic Where The Bough Has Broken or the sinister Blood Orange. At times, it's a little too abstract and difficult to connect to--perhaps because of how personal this feels to Woods. Nevertheless, you'll still enjoy losing yourself in this vast, enigmatic world. [Jan 2024, p.101]

It's a hell of a noise for just three men to make with SLIFT effortlessly achieving white knuckle transcendence across eight very long tracks. [Jan 2024, p.99]

An ambitious record that highlights the impressive originality of her ever-evolving, emotionally raw songwriting talents, and which deserve boygeniusesque levels of success. [Jan 2024, p.101]

At their best when the music fires along to match Chubb's lyrical catharsis, Sprints occasionally falter when the pace drops: even Chubb sounds anonymous among Literary Mind's more considered atmospherics, while Shadow Of A Doubt promises to build to a crescendo that never quite arrives. [Jan 2024, p.101]

Not quite the music one might expect from the California coast where Segall grew up ... in fact, wildly at odds with just about anything. [Jan. 2024, p.99]

Paul Weller’s electric autumn that began with 22 Dreams effortlessly continues, and this may be the best instalment yet.

As he goes on to dig into toxic masculinity, his own ageing process and urban isolation (on the striking Safe & Well), Malcolm Middleton’s music is masterful, a combination of dense electronics and angry guitars which perfectly meet the mood of a fiercely current album.

This album is a spirited, catchy, poignant return, yet it’s also the most affecting record about grief since Nick Cave’s Skeleton Tree.

One suspects Gibbons agonised over every word and note on Lives Outgrown, but the result is an album to fall deeply in love with. If you allow them to, these songs will envelope your soul.

Most of this collection, however, offers fleeting impressions rather than signed-off, finished portraits. .... For Broadcast’s true believers, this is an essential and edifying experience, casting its own spells.

A Dream Is All We Know flows seamlessly, with no snags disrupting its mellow mood-tapestry, right up until final track Rock On (Over And Over) throws us a curveball by actually glamming out, Bolan-style, as if to say, “Here’s what you thought we were about”. Superb.

While One Deep River is unlikely to make many new converts, it will more than satisfy his loyal army of fans.

This is one of the most confident and charismatic debuts in years.

The record doesn’t break any new ground, but it walks familiar paths with confidence.

As ever, a warm and humane kind of marvel

It’s a staggering, swaggering achievement more vital than anything they’ve done in the last 35 years.

Tracks such as Psychedelic Orgasm and It’s Dark Inside embody the claustrophobic and saturnine atmosphere on what is essentially an underground hip-hop record made by an inveterate envelope-pushing postmodernist.