Amalie Bruun (aka Myrkur) returns in feral form with a fresh set of frozen warnings and blackened ballads. ... On “Funeral” she teams up with Chelsea Wolfe for a duet that never quite gels and feels frustratingly half formed, while “Kætteren” confusingly slips a sliver of traditional Scandinavian folk music into the mix. Even worse is end track “Børnehjem” where demonic child whispering over Myrkur’s medieval monkish chant evokes Blair Witch memories and ultimately drags the whole album down. [Dec 2017, p.60]

As an album it’s almost entirely soporifically dull though beautifully appointed throughout (and it’s a joy to hear Beyoncé rapping) by some smart production from both main protagonists and some slick grooves from the Daptone band. [Aug 2018, p.68]

There’s a lot to wrap your ears and brain around, and it can make a strange load of sense if you allow yourself to be carried away by its relentless stream. [Nov 2021, p.52]

This is not the Wand record to spin while you do the chores, but it is, the one you might spin when you're looking for reasons to keep on living. [May 2014, p.69]

The Hard Quartet manage to create a collection of tight, fun songs that feel at once old-timey and modern. [Oct 2024, p.52]

Electric Brick Wall isn't as groove based as the previous album, but it's an even more complex, discomfiting listen in many respects. [Jun 2014, p.48]

Thanks undoubtedly to their established friendship and chemistry, With Trampled By Turtles sees Sparhawk and the band bring an effortlessness and consistency to material of varied origin, from old songs never recorded with Low, to newer compositions. [Jun 2025, p.59]

If Brian Wilson had crashed a motorcycle and holed up to recuperate at Big Pink with The Band, this is how The Basement Tapes would have sounded. [#256, p.49]

With Exai they've created a work which reveals renewed faith in their own identity and which should act as compass in years to come. [Mar 2013, p.57]

Andrew WK's lucid, luminous production delivers a sequence of music that seems to hover between states. This is a musical achievement. [Jun 2011, p.46]

It's a Mark McGuire record in the way he plunges into all his personal enthusiasms and arrives somewhere more interesting when he comes up for air. [Nov 2015, p.56]

Mandel's combination of virtuosity, shopworn aesthetics and lustful neediness is ultimately winning. [Jan 2017, p.73]

This is fierce, uncompromising music. [May 2017, p.47]

It is surprisingly polite and beautiful in places yet conjures up an air of real menace and myriad Nietzschean altitudes and climates. Fras’s voice and heavy, laden, deadpan German is perfect for Nietzsche’s portentous fragments and aphorisms. But there is a lightness here too. [Aug 2017, p.54]

Silhouettes & Statues--83 songs across five CDs--is a useful opportunity to take stock of goth’s actual achievements. It charts the genre’s emergence from post-punk, emphasises points of overlap with anarcho, industrial and even synthpop, and ends in 1986 before the arrival of Nine Inch Nails, Marilyn Manson and hordes of neo-celtic, pagan folk and cyber goth sub-groupings. [Sep 2017, p.69]

What's so delightful is how everything instantly clicks back into place for the listener who is familiar with Dab's work, how accessible and pleasurable his sound is for anyone coming to it for the first time. [Mar 2018, p.46]

His ability to manipulate sounds of urban bleakness into piss-stained musique concrète is as present as ever, from bass that booms like mourning gasometers to choking metallic smog ambience. Yet Younger’s skill lies not as yet another artist soundtracking urban decay but in enticing and confounding with sounds that straddle the uncanny valley. [Jun 2019, p.40]

Their third album Horizon is mellifluous and pretty, with a rolling, tumbling quality that feels like a downhill race. [Jul 2019, p.57]

Heavy, expressive and uncompromising, both Wrecked and Analog Fluids Of Black Holes gesture at fresh, purposeful possibilities for noise and experimental music. [Nov 2019, p.49]

Like Stanley’s film, Stetson’s score fully realises the terrible, wondrous majesty hinted at in the 1927 text. [Apr 2020, p.62]

Rose Golden Doorways sits somewhere between grindcore and raga. Created in a consecrated place – a church in Stoke Newington lends volume and reverb – it moves relentlessly forward, a continuous 38 minutes that reaches an apogee with the alien blast of “Those Among Us”. [Apr. 2020, p.59]

There is a genuine synergy here. Khruangbin have crafted oneiric Manding inflected backdrops as though they have found what they were looking for all along, and Touré settles into them like he’s just got home. [Dec 2022, p.67]

Perpetual Now has tangential relationships to house, techno, dub, ambient and psychedelic minimalism, but manages to plot a coherent and personal path between them all, with each of its four long tracks given space to breathe and expand. [Dec 2022, p.66]

The focus is on the uniqueness of their music (check out the Deep Purple inspired organ solo on “Forest Dweller”) which infuses progressive song structures with foundational black metal’s penchant for folk melodies and historical narratives. [Jul 2023, p.62]

Recorded with a wilful lack of finesse, it’s nevertheless the production that gives Abyss much of its heft and intrigue. [Jun 2025, p.48]

Edging closer to the creation of a pop kingdom realised on her own terms. "1/17" is "Castles In The Sky" for the hyperpop generation, whose nostalgic weakness for Y2K club classics is well served here lyrics like "Poetry and nude selfies, love the way that you know me" hit hard. [Sep 2025, p.62]

Those accustomed to the aggro, politically charged jazz rock of Brooklyn's Sunwatchers might be taken aback by this second solo outing from their saxophonist. Tobias titles what he concocts here "anti-imperialist pop", which shows there is still a kind-hearted intent behind the music even if its bubbly beats and dreamy vocals might sound like a mad stab at the mainstream. [Oct 2025, p.62]

Rendering his [Neşet Ertas'] sparse, haunting, saz-led arrangements in Altin Gün's electrified image does require a fair bit of upholstery, but they play with delicacy and poise, transforming "Bir Nazar Eyledim" into a remarkable kosmische pop ballad. [Mar 2026, p.60]

Each track feels like an experiment in throwing footwork principles at other genres to see what might stick, but the results are uniformly excellent. [Apr 2018, p.62]

Strike a rich vein of form. ... This record lacks a stated motif, but finds the musician digging into the American primitive style (which has often been at least in the orbit of his playing) more keenly than before. “Celerity”, “Enville” and “Vellum”, deft instrumentals all, sit ably in Fahey/Basho territory. [Apr 2020, p.50]

Allegiance & Conviction is Windy & Carl’s first new album in a good long while, and it was worth the wait. [Sep 2020, p.61]

The speech modelling software used to articulate the narrative generates a somewhat grittier, odder voice than your average online speech synthesizer, but that doesn’t keep the album’s expository moments from being momentum killers. The passages where artificial voice gets fed into some typically squelchy MOM electro beats are considerably more fun to listen to. [Feb 2021, p.52]

Oddisee is a hyper-eloquent, charismatic rapper, and this album is buoyed with lyrical wit and lush instrumentation. [Jul 2015, p.57]

Everything that 30 years ago made Dinosaur Jr a lightning bolt of enervated languor is present here. [Sep 2016, p.59]

The best thing they've done since Stakes Is High. [#250, p.73]

Oozing Wound frontman Zack Weil has an unhinged screech reminiscent of Destruction's Schmier, symbolising the group's mastery of a kind of primitive thrash with no goal greater than the release of energy. [Nov 2013, p.52]

The production on Carnival OF Souls is particularly vivid. [Sep 2014, p.58]

Swagger can be infectious and the album works as a playful, blissed out hymn to the dancefloor. [Nov 2016, p.55]

Where the 1982 take was hollow and grating, the gaps and silences gradually roaring with accumulating noise, this version is euphoric and transparent. [Jun 2014, p.42]

"Feral," "Codex" and "Giving Up The Ghost" finally win me over. [Apr 2011, p.62]

Donaldson’s lyrics tend towards the observational, and are often delivered with a wry turn of phrase that can be laugh out loud funny. ... The Town That Cursed Your Name juggles pathos and bathos throughout. [Apr 2023, p.58]

Romantiq is hypnotic, curious and, at its best, genuinely fresh and beautiful. [May 2023, p.54]

There's such a freshness to Brett Sparks's music that few comparisons can be made. [#269, p.42]

Whether K Bay is progressive rock or not, White hooks you in with his big warm voice and big tunes, and then goes weird on you in such a strong way that he can’t really be asked to leave. [Aug 2021, p.55]

Indebted to various traditions of US rock, from resonant folk and blues to elegant indie pop, its understated songs are looser and more varied here than in her music with bands like Helium and Ex Hex, as if serving a different, affirming purpose. [Jun 2024, p.61]

The depths of the production reflect the depth of concept, as Morgan makes vertical connections between personal relationships and queer and Black histories. ... Water is a palpable step forward from a versatile, ambitious artist. [Dec 2021, p.52]

The album’s first half is simultaneously some of Godflesh’s most aggro material and as gleaming and chromed as a Terminator that’s been burned down to its metal skeleton. Purge isn’t a completely boom-bap orientated album, though. “Lazarus Leper” is both one of the album’s longest tracks and one of its most old school. The primitive drum machine beat sounds like something that could have come off the group’s very first EP. [Jul 2023, p.51]

It's an almost-pitch-perfect progression of eight tracks across 39 minutes. [Oct 2014, p.54]

The first half of the album presents a disparate sequence of songs, the punky “I Want To Tell You About Want I Want” mixing with a rather laboured piece about Virginia Woolf’s and Sylvia Plath’s suicides (“Virginia Woolf”). ... This second half finds Hitchcock at his most purposeful. [May 2017, p.46]

An unequivocally rocking set on which Chasny is backed by his former group Comets on Fire. [Aug 2012, p.56]

More often than not the group sound like they're going through the motions. [Jul 2012, p.57]

As the 12 minute “The Lure Of The Mine” closes out this odd and enigmatic record in typically relentless fashion, the sensation is one of standing back and watching, impressed but stubbornly, confusingly unmoved. [May 2017, p.56]

Tracks like "Steel Drummer" shade between euphoric rave and freakout energy, while "Black And Blue" has a distinct rock edge with its dark riffs and darker mood. [Sep 2013, p.63]

Legacy + is a unique intergenerational conversation on wax. Both halves are set in Afrobeat, while one sticks more to the tradition than the other, and the contrast is beautiful to hear. [Apr 2021, p.58]

For their fifth album The Witness, Montreal group Suuns pick their way through new songs that on the surface sound sparse but are actually thickets of sonic invention. [Sep 2021, p.62]

“Working The Ditch” and “Smiler” sound like they could come from the same sessions as Melvins’ 1993 major label debut Houdini. But there are atypical twists in “She’s Got Weird Arms”, whose new wave-ish verses are broken up by cascades of bug-eyed dissonance and “Allergic To Food”, which reminds this listener of “Forkboy” by Al Jourgensen and Jello Biafra’s side-project Lard with the tempo lowered to mid. [May 2024, p.50]

The Invisible Way has Wilco's Jeff Tweedy behind the faders, and he superbly captures the concentrated simplicity of Low's aesthetic. But sometimes the restricted palettes can be a little cloying,[Mar 2013, p.56]

The result is a kind of lo-fi dream music, sea-changed and composite, with whisper-core mbalax drifting in and out focus between vaporous synth washes, low-key beat programming, spoken teachings and lilting song. [Feb 2021, p.61]

The entirely instrumental Deep Fried Grandeur is too cohesive to be a mere jam, and even though Walker’s bandmates – drummer Frank Rosaly, bassist Andrew Scott Young, and guitarist Brian Sulpizio – are skilled improvisors, the performance remains centred by rock pulses throughout. [Mar 2021, p.60]

This might not have the more overtly radical studio tricks and militant attitudes that make, say, Moodymann more acceptable to experimental music fans, but as a narrative joining fusion to ghetto house to microhouse to churchy soul to beachlounging Balearica, it’s a deeply involving piece of work. [Jun 2018, p.56]

The long germination period of the project is an indication of the duo’s perfectionism, which unfortunately results in songs that are overworked to the point of blandness. [Aug 2022, p.57]

They sound for good or ill like they’ve beamed in from psychedelic hard rock’s boom period too. ... Face Stabber is 80 minutes long, with two songs accounting for 35 of those minutes, and betrays mild hubris as regards their ability to jam interestingly. [Sep 2019, p.60]

Songs like "Brainfreeze" and "The Red Wing" plod more than march, piling on so many competing keyboard layers that the melody blots itself out. Others seem oddly unfinished. Only the two closing ten minute tracks evoke the classic Fuck Buttons widescreen neon pomp. [Jul 2013, p.56]

Rising Down's most immediate qualities are the raw aesthetic and the burning importance of its message. [July 2008, p.66]

There’s a heavy Eddie Henderson vibe here, propulsive, warm and engaging, and by the time the album closes on the jagged street vignette of its title track, it’s evident that BBNG have gone back to find a new future, a new lease of life. [Nov 2021, p.48]

At heart they're still most comfortable plying scruffy barstool romanticism woven from the same plaid as contemporaries The Replacements and Dinosaur Jr. [Aug 2015, p.58]

Colonial patterns makes your ears feel like magnetised tape heads, the music dulled, pockmarked, riven with fissures of noise and age. [Oct 2013, p.58]

Broken Knowz sounds cleaner, more restrained and organic than his previous material. [Dec 2016, p.56]

Abomination mostly tweaks the speedy punkoid templates minted by early Wire and Black Flag. It's a challenge to find novelty within this terrain, and one wishes Dwyer had tempered the yobbish bellowing. But "Sneaker" succeeds thanks to Hellman's exhilaratingly woozy bassline and Dwyer's florid synth solo, and after launching in a "Mr Suit"-like blur "Fight Simulator" shifts into a Can-like mantra with sped-up "Vitamin C" beats, guitar scree and warped synth. [Oct 2025, p.59]

At best, the end result has an epic and ethereal sheen, though there are certainly moments where Araab succumbs to the tackier elements of his influences, like blind fist-pumping four on the floor or arpeggiated faux-bliss. [Aug 2011, p.69]

Altın Gün’s unwavering commitment to Turkish psychedelic rock receives a glossy refurbishment here. [Feb 2021, p.60]

The way Baird and Jones mix room tone with the intruding outdoors invites consideration of human impermanence, but the sweet affection that Jones's melodies impart wards off the blues. [Mar 2016, p.54]

The album feels like paten's mostly mechanically calculated and precise output to date. [Sep 2016, p.59]

Producers of Stranger Things, look no further: we have that second series soundtrack for you. [Nov 2016, p.70]

On “Pure GreyCircle” Malliagh intensifies the mixture, introducing slabs of bass tone that flex and squeeze against elusive beats. There’s some weird subject matter, too; across polished surfaces and sharp corners, tracks such as “Sylph Fossil” and “Zones U Can’t See” smuggle cosmic lyrics inside voices that whisper or glide, always diving below the mix or spinning above. [Apr 2021, p.66]

The album progresses through tastefully understated melancholy and rage to a clutch of pop songs whose assured emo posturing melts into cries for salvation so exquisite they’re undeniable. [Jun 2021, p.64]

On How The Thing Sings, Orcutt reveals a more open vision. [Oct 2011, p.58]

A cohesive album in the traditional sense, Hesaitix is an epic world-building exercise littered with simulations of natural beauty. [Dec 2017, p.55]

The narrower focus, combined with the decision to return to Seattle’s Studio Soli, raises the thought that Earth might have, at last, orbited back to the roaring wastelands of their early 1990s work. Jump into the longer cuts here, though, and you find something that sounds less like a trip on Tibetan quaaludes, more a slow chug of whisky. [Jun 2019, p.56]

Fans are unlikely to be disappointed, but if you're expecting a new direction, look somewhere else. [Nov 2010, p.52]

A hushed treasure. [Jan 2015, p.71]

The trio play it both tight and upright, locking themselves into repetitive patterns so compulsive they approach the kinetic force of rave. [Mar 2011, p.58]

It's simply clean, so the outstanding performances come over strongly. [Oct 2013, p.49]

It's delightfully ponderous. [May 2016, p.48]

Long Island may be their heaviest album--some songs introduce enough distortion to qualify as Stoner Metal in the vein of Fu Manchu or Nebula, But for the most part, they do exactly what their name says, grinding along like 1975 will never come. [Feb 2013, p.50]

A good bit stranger-sounding and more interesting in their excavation of the past. [Jul 2017, p.53]

Part of Souleyman’s thing is upsetting delicate ears with his so-called vulgarity – it’s music for taxi drivers and party crashers. Likewise these swooning synth stabs may sound kitsch to discerning ravers, but the fun is heroically nonstop. [Jan 2020, p.69]

Every gesture feels bold and assured. [Nov 2015, p.53]

With the stylistic anchor lifted, the 12 cuts sound progressively more deranged as they blossom into alien dance floor mutants from bubbles of heady synths, deliriously processed voices, absurd squiggles and reversed beats. ... It’s difficult to imagine a better debut for ex-DFA head Jonathan Galkin’s new imprint FourFour. [Nov 2021, p.48]

While several guests appear on the album – Tool’s drummer Danny Carey and bassist Justin Chancellor, among others – Krüller feels gorgeously desolate, befitting a world in a dire state. [Mar 2022, p.42]

Out of a dangerous, pitfall-laden area of song, she makes a variety of riches. [Jun 2015, p.48]

What's distinctive about Son is that it is more layered and inventive than Segundo and Tres Cosas. [#268, p.58]

The risky juxtapositions that mark his best work are critically missing. [#224, p.51]

Downhome and earthy, cut through with sensitivity and intelligence. [#229, p.58]

One of the year's best releases, remix or not. [#241, p.71]

Sometimes Liars sounds like a group whose previous sonic journeying has inspired a fresh look at the familiar. All too often, however, it's as though, having stepped outside the confines of conventional song, they can never believe in it enough to return. [Sep 2007, p.56]

Sol Invictus is a looser, more relaxed record than its predecessors, occasionally dropping into a lounge ballad mode that suits Patton's vocals. [Jun 2015, p.52]

Most of this material has a tense, enervating effect, despite the haziness of the sonic palette Field-Pickering favours. [Feb 2013, p.60]