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]