At their strange best, they sound like Radiohead with an ABBA obsession. A special album from a special band.

Babelsberg is ultimately a sorely-needed tonic. Mellow-sounding, but hefting weighty humanitarian concerns on its back, it boasts a you-are-here focus normally only accorded to those who are about to peg it.

One of Will Oldham’s strongest albums in recent times, if not ever. .... It’s thoughtful, beautiful fare, along with a few singalong stormers (Mama, Mama will get a crowd swaying at 30 paces) as you’d expect from Oldham, but it’s in the lyrics that he succeeds in his desire for self-reflection.

Given Low Country Blues was Grammy-nominated, stand by for the superior Southern Blood to appear in many year-end lists.

The result is where the primordial meets the cutting edge. [Jul 2025, p.105]

It's a gorgeous, reflective, surprising listen. [Sep 2025, p.105]

Hasn't sounded so confident since his 90s commercial peak. [Oct 2025, p.131]

An immediate contender of one of the best psych albums of 2026. [Apr 2026, p.101]

Ty Segall itself reveals--even more so than Emotional Mugger and Manipulator before it--a willingness to park the DIY or garage rock tag, however momentarily.

McDowall is very much in charge of proceedings, even if her confidence in the recordings has had to be bolstered by fans in the intervening years.

The sum of these parts is utterly energising.

He’s still doing his thing but goes deeper when he digs (It’s A Jungle Out There’s litany of modernity’s failings), he’s more wicked when he picks a target (white privilege on Brothers), and is still pushing the boundaries of his craft (all of it).

Shackles Gift reveals a tougher, more concise group than before; though, on the likes of opener Rigid Man and I Want You To Know, they appear to have morphed into--to these ears at least--a less interesting proposition: a relatively straightforward rock band.

MAD! is ‘just another’ adroit, bold, clever, distinctive, epigrammatic, fascinating, groundbreaking, highbrow, inventive, jocund, kaleidoscopic, lowbrow, maverick, nonconformist, observational, piquant, quizzical, ravishing, smart, tough, unconventional, versatile, witty, xenodochial, youthful, zeitgeisty Sparks album. [Jun 25, p.102]

A career high to match her attention-grabbing 2016 debut. [Oct 2025, p.133]

Manages to bridge the gap between electronic experimentation and unabashed pop. [Mar 2025, p.103]

While The Waiting Room is not Tindersticks’ greatest album, it might be the one that best signifies how this project is an ongoing one, that the sum of all the band’s work is greater than any individual passages. That they’re playing the long game; waiting.

It's best listened to in its entirety if listeners are to appreciate the fantastical story the US singer-songwriter threads through it. [Jun 2026, p.101]

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

If you’re looking for glacial Nordic chills, Arve Henriksen’s hauntingly beautiful Towards Language will do the trick.

The emotion is so directly delivered, one is jolted by the sensation that Ms Simmons is hiding in the corridor. A wonderful record.

As with previous records, this album features an array of guest musicians, including Rufus Wainwright, Mary Margaret O’Hara, Feist, Ron Sexsmith and the Pet Shop Boys’ Neil Tennant, but these songs remain Gibbs’ from start to end, and reveal his incredible ability to explore different styles while always sounding like himself.

All Together Again proves to be a warm and diverse collection of mostly unreleased pieces for a series of commissions over the last 10 years.

There’s a nervous energy throughout, as if his whole wide world might collapse at any second. Yet, at the heart of the sonic mayhem is his ever-dependable literacy, a knack for a tidy little phrase that rings with truth above the fuzz and feedback of his guitar.

Between its playful, retro-electro settings and the murky presentiments of Marling’s allusive lyrics, Animal paints outside the lines of LUMP’s debut carefully, never suffocating the intuitive strangeness at its heart.

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]

Swallow unfurls as an impressively sculpted soundtrack for dystopias real and imagined. [Jul 2025, p.105]

The four volumes of the Anthology offer an impressive overview of 12 years of work (plus the Threetles and the Twotles). [Dec 2025, p.88]