Ancestral Star occasionally sounds so close to that group's 2005 Hex; Or Printing In The Infernal Method that it sometimes feels like a magnificently constructed reworking. [Nov 2010, p.64]

Lamp Lit Prose sparkles with ideas even as it gets its groove on with a more developed version of his electronic R&B album last year. Everything here should be too much but with several albums under his belt, somehow Longstreth can as easily shift from one style to another as run them both at the same time. [Aug 2018, p.65]

It works enough to be a strangely enjoyable and admirable record. [Jun 2012, p.48]

Even more than on past outings, Kirby seems drawn to a sense of disconnect, refusing to let the elements of each track interact with one another. Yet Dead Empires is also rich with experiments and surprises. [Nov 2013, p.60]

Monument Builders itself could do with some of that malfunction, some warped colour and cathode ray snow. [Dec 2016, p.69]

They [Born On A Gangster Star and Quazarz Vs The Jealous Machines] can be appreciated either together or apart from each other. [Aug 2017, p.58]

Ultimately, though, it’s a portrait of the artist on permanent vacation. [Jun 2018, p.72]

More so than her previous work, Carla dal Forno establishes a cold, dreary atmosphere as the ground for lyrics and delivery that strike a balance between doleful and cool. [Oct 2019, p.50]

Basic Volume departs from the impressionistic mixtape approach to a more solid set of songs without Gaika losing his cinematic scope. [Aug 2018, p.56]

Invite The Light is determinedly adventurous. [Dec 2015, p.46]

A lovely collection full of ethereal evocations of the past. [Feb 2016, p.60]

A pleasant if somewhat plain folk-rock record, less adventurous than either Wilco's or O'Rourke's own recent outings. [#227, p.68]

A fitting tribute to one of the greatest collectives in music history and essential for anyone who has ever had their lives changed by Parliament/ Funkadelic. [Nov 2017, p.54]

Mogwai eschew their trademark squall and fuzz for measured and clenched guitar chords, echoed piano notes and eerie arpeggios of guitar that stalk unresolved through a stark, naked soundscape. [Mar 2013, p.62]

What we have here is the hangman’s blues, the alienated piano soliloquies of classical, the wary prayers of gospel, the lustful frustration of R&B, the drugged lightning of rap. Beastmode 2 is Future at his worst, which is to say, Future at his best. [Sep 2018, p.66]

If anything, it sounds over-finessed at times, the slick mixing resisting the rawness and density that is the album's most vital quality--the duo is at their best when the few fragments of eclectic prettiness get swamped in cacophony. [May 2015, p.58]

Good Luck doesn’t betray Friday’s general aesthetic or artistic persona. On the contrary, it retains her darkly seductive, slightly edgy and risqué aura, but conveys it through a disparate medley of styles. [Apr 2023, p.53]

The result is a project dripping with atmospheric sound and real emotional weight. [May 2023, p.64]

It’s smooth and contemplative at times, punctuated by cinematic ruptures and ambient textures that trail behind El Shazly’s elastic vocal phrasing. Her voice, processed and layered with care, frequently emerges as the central narrative device and quickly slips between intimacy and distance. [Jun 2025, p.58]

Through it all, Tutti’s voice hovers above the tempo, clear, cold and mysterious like northern lights over a rave. Mantras that resonate inwardly speak also to an exterior side. 2t2 holds its structure like a living system. [Aug 2025, p.58]

Sonic Citadel is a showcase for titanic, incisive riffs, gnarly yet immediate, accessible. [Oct 2019, p.56]

Her craft comes through more strongly on For My Crimes. It therefore takes a little longer to appreciate that the song structures are just as acutely developed as on her previous two albums. Despite its lyrical themes of romantic suffocation and nostalgia, and its allusions to domestic violence, For My Crimes is steady and unwavering. [Oct 2018, p.59]

He doesn't sound very dangerous. Just glad to be out. [ Aug 2012, p.55]

If you listen to White Stuff and hear good time rock ’n’ roll then perhaps it’s time to check into the rock ’n’ roll nursing home. On the other hand if you hear avant garde brinksmanship, check your ears. It’s both, it’s neither. Does it matter? Does anything? Yes and no.

As Jackie Lynn, Fohr’s voice still occupies center stage, but it does so within synthesized set pieces crafted for her to inhabit. Like a hotel decked out with themed rooms, each song on Jacqueline has its own fine-tuned palette and nostalgia-tinged lighting scheme. [Apr 2020, p.49]

Good as the present iteration of The Chills is – featuring Erica Scally on guitar, keyboards, violin, Oli Wilson on keys, Callum Hampton on bass and Todd Knudson on drums – it’s Phillipps’s darkly catchy writing that dominates this seventh studio record from the band. He has a synoptic vision that takes in everything from fake news to cargo cults. An essential contemporary voice. [Jun 2021, p.48]

Too often though, and as is almost always the case with live sets, the album is cloistered and airless.... It doesn't so much scourge New York as embody the place it has become. [Nov 2014, p.71]

The neo-soul influenced beats Jenkins raps and sings over often sounding submerged in a fog of reverb effects and filtration. Jenkins lyrics, too, are dense, containing their own murky depths, but his intense intelligence and formidable talent is never less than crystal clear. [Oct 2015, p.63]

Revel in the poppy darkness of Beaches--sunset drenched “ba-ba-ba” vocals, upfront drums and twangy guitars--but also marvel as the Australian psych rockers draw out their swirling sounds into extended hypnotic workouts on this double album. [Oct 2017, p.64]

If you prefer your African music to be more dancefloor-friendly, Batida's Portuguese take on Konono has plenty going on. [Apr 2016, p.54]

Hebden is a voracious consumer and producer of ideas, although there is sometimes the feeling, amid all this glut and gusto, that they're ideas for idea's sake. [#256, p.54]

The closer “World” is the culmination of these trials, in which fragments of sound--runs of keys with the uncanny quality of speech, shadowy static, heavily abstract synthesized choirs--drift in a deeply organic and warm silence. [Feb 2018, p.58]

It's all been very 'civil,' but still no sign of that dang war. [#235, p.63]

If Richter was attempting to instill some of the haunted bleakness of Winterreise into his own music, he has certainly succeeded. [Jul 2010, p.60]

Check the weird Groundhogs/Faith No More grooves of “Cosmic Pessimism” and the Scorpions-like pomposity of “Garden Of Cyrus” – but gratifyingly is usually overwhelmed by typical ATG churning riffery and aggroladen lyrical carnage. [Aug 2021, p.65]

This EP essays six bitter flavours of magic and loss, with sentiments which might be unbearable were it not for their unalloyed beauty. [Mar 2014, p.63]

Earthgang have one foot in the now, the other turned toward the horizon and an uncertain future. [Dec 2019, p.60]

The first two tracks showcase the oddity of the album’s moods. ... The tension grows to breaking point on the two vocal numbers, “Play The Ghost” and “Canyon Walls”, in which the barest suggestion of melodic form, coalescing out of scatters of organ drone and faded, looping instruments has to provide a support for Davachi’s Grouper-like laryngeal ectoplasm.[Oct 2020, p.52]

The reason it all works is because with repetition and familiarity comes discipline and rigour--and Wire still have a lively and open relationship with both of them. [Feb 2011, p.57]

Parades succeeds in avoiding the most perilous pitfalls of simulated whimsy and fey affected vocals to achieve something gloriously endearing. [Nov 2007, p.53]

It seems likely Buzz and company have also been listening to a fair bit of Magma and Aphrodite's child, given the interludes of unaccompanied percussion, brooding Gothic keyboards and tightly complex arrangements which result in the most consistently impressive album this line-up has released to date. [Jul 2010, p.64]

The [guest] musicians have the good sense to know when to let Chesnutt's dry-leaf vocals and muted acoustic guitar carry the songs, and when to swell up and bring heightened Gothic intensity to the feelings of melancholy and dread. [Oct 2007, p.55]

These are effective dancefloor tracks that contain secret burdens o f menace or anxiety. [Dec 2012, p.68]

The Twigs sound tough and robust, ready to take on the whole world rather than cultivate one small part of it. [Feb 2013, p.45]

This is a good record. It's probably the best record by a group named after a situationist art installation you'll hear all year. But I'd be surprised if it came [on] top of any other list. [Feb 2016, p.48]

Judging by the music on And The Anonymous Nobody, their sights are set firmly on the future. [Sep 2016, p.49]

All of the six songs feel epic in structure, each gradually building from a subtle breeze into a fiery windstorm as Michael and John Gibbons's sustained guitar mantras bleed into each other. [May 2017, p.44]

The Automator sounds uncertain, pitching up between a return to boom-bap and less familiar territory. The first half of the album pitches for the former, while later cuts go for reinvention, plunging Keith into a mire of riffs. [Jun 2018, p.54]

Right at the top of “Change Of Tone” there’s a fragment of studio chuckle that underlines just how remarkably spontaneous and unfussed this genre-messing project really is. There are long, slow passages of astral funk, MC’d by Terrace Martin’s vocoder and guest vocal murmurings, but also moments of much darker jazz futurism, elements of freedom (like the bizarre guess-the-nextnote piano fill under the PM Dawn-like “Awake To You”) and further elements of verité and concrete. [Jul 2018, p.57]

There’s a brace of humble attempts to get his head round his situation, tracks like “Trauma” and “Oodles O’ Noodles Babies”, brilliantly nuanced performances where Meek wavers on the edge between uncommon restraint and a violent simmer. Jay-Z showing up on “What’s Free” to boast about tax avoidance brings everything back into perspective.

It’s a smart meld, digging up some real finds and gesturing towards a switched-on DJ mind. [Jan 2020, p.70]

Gane forgoes the intensifying momentum found elsewhere in his work for a more conventionally cinematic arc. [Aug 2020, p.52]

The Symbol Remains finds a band with their sardonic humour, lurid pulp fascinations and ability to jam intact. [Oct 2020, p.65]

The addition of Morgane Diet’s seraphic vocals provides an emotional access point, filtering a grand cosmic aesthetic into a relatable and human scale. [Nov 2021, p.64]

Fortunately, aside from this piece “Let Me Sleep”], the banal Clark-adjacent string spiccatos of “The Horror” and certain sections that drag on and on, this is compelling, bodymoving and occasionally inspired music. [Dec 2021, p.

A collection of grungy, haunting songs that sound and feel timeless. Led by Hersh’s velvety grunts, this is the sort of rock that borrows the best from all the music’s variations to create something familiar yet surprisingly fresh. [May 2022, p.56]

Here Dakar covers country with “Walking After Midnight” and “Love Hurts”, but the outstanding cuts are her takes on The Kinks’ “Stop Your Sobbing”, as once claimed by The Pretenders, and a remarkably affecting reggae treatment of the old Louis Armstrong chestnut “What A Wonderful World”. [Jun 2023, p.64]

Its comforting gloom draws you closer and closer, extending an invitation to lose yourself that could easily be mistaken for escapism. But this music is one of presence, not absence. [Sep 2025, p.61]

The results are overwhelmingly chirpy, but there's a frisson between his uniquely crusty voice and the shimmering digital surfaces. He sounds comfortable, but he doesn't blend in. [Dec 2025, p.63]

It's good enough, in fact, for it not to matter much that it basically peaks at the start. [May 2026, p.52]

Altogether, there is a fluid, amniotic quality to the record. Listeners may find themselves spacing out, looking out the window or staring at something, sinking into the riffs and the ASMR-like words that emerge - "We are walking in circles", "She dreams in the future", "Impossible drawing" - amid the hypnotic rise and fall of the synths. [May 2026, p.46]

The result is streamlined and raw, but still with their customary flourishes of melodic invention woven in. [Dec 2014, p.48]

She’s the type of restless innovator that doesn’t stick with the same style for too long, and FIBS is a joyful, energetic follow-up to her debut. [Nov 2019, p.56]

Oldham's rewriting of his own songs sometimes turns into a queasy compulsion.... There are some stunning revisions in this collection. [Mar 2016, p.62]

he duo of Alexander Tucker and Daniel O’Sullivan come closer than on any previous effort to reconciling the two halves of their musical personality. [Oct 2016, p.52]

One of the hardest and most consistent recent statements in US hiphop. [Oct 2016, p.48]

With none of the barking dogs found on "Son," Un Dia generally limits itself to guitars, synths, voice and percussion, a more intimate, insular palette of sounds that is sometimes too subdued to really egage. [Oct 2008, p.60]

His music is closer to an upgrade of the wigglier, more luxurious end of Megadog/ Megatripolis 90s clip-on dreadlock rave, or more recently the hallucination holiday postcards of Call Super, than to anything genuinely raw and lo-fi like Kyle Hall, Jamal Moss or Karen Gwyer. [Aug 2018, p.66]

The result is an intuitive and spacious sound. Controlled but organic and broken down into contained but naturally arcing pieces, The Gradual Progression becomes a set of sequences using long drum rolls, cloudlike synths and eventually gentle vocal noises and ascents.

It’s heavy but utterly lovely music, full of grave strings, piano stabs and deep synth reverberations. [Jul 2022, p.46]

[A] cunning, witty album. [Oct 2012, p.62]

The outcome is a record you could forget you're even listening to. [Nov 2016, p.66]

DJ Seinfeld’s new album is clean, crisp and emotional but irresistibly danceable. Parts of it recall Jessy Lanza, other parts Throwing Snow and Dark Sky. He became known via the lo-fi trend a few years back but Mirrors is more indicative of a welcome garage revival. [Oct 2021, p.59]

While rock fans may be disappointed by Yo La Tengo's fleeting venture into playful jazz, the group continue to produce music that's full of gesture and emotional intensity. [#231, p.73]

Will depend on how indulgent you personally feel towards the Parliamentary legacy. The smart thing to do would be to purchase tracks selectively and sequence your own version of Medicaid Fraud Dogg. In other words: be wise and sample before you buy. [Jul 2018, p.55]

Gelb’s discordant phrasing and deft wordplay weave gently throughout. At heart, it’s a romantic album about lost moments. [Apr 2019, p.65]

There are plenty of surprises on Bright New Disease, and much to admire. Joined together, the essences of each band are recognisably present, their unique flavours seemingly intensified and emboldened by the other. Enjoyably diverse and satisfyingly coherent. [Jul 2023, p.48]

From the trancelike undercurrent moving through “Bird On A Wire” and “Ghosts Of People” to the solid punk attack of “2020 Vision” and “Tout Est Meilleur”, the album is testament to Bush Tetras’ resilience. [Sep 2023, p.64]

Everything here is balanced in a way known to collectivist jazz but unknown to egotist pop, and it makes for something refreshingly human, engagingly communal and ultimately convivial. [Oct 2023, p.56]

They're at their best on tracks like "Nothing Is Ever Lost[...]," where they conjure the wheeling claustrophobia of PiL circa Metal Box. [#223, p.66]

Tomahawk – a band that have very much prided themselves on their messiness and incoherency – have made perhaps their most cogent record yet. [Apr 2021, p.64]

Celestite cannot simply be characterised as pastiche, however, as the Weaver brothers and Dunn have constructed dramatic instrumentals using the material of previous compositions, ensuring a thematic and sonic continuity with their own past. [Jul 2014, p.61]

He frequently seems bored with his own raps, rarely breaking his monotone and indifferently fluctuating between bragging about the quality of his weed and bragging about nothing. The record's saving grace comes with reemergence of producer Ski Beatz. [Sep 2010, p.68]

Wire’s newest material sounds like a figment of where Roxy Music might have gone if Eno had stuck around. This is most evident on the menacing, glamorous swagger of “Forever And A Day”. But the sound, if grounded in the past, is focused on the present. Wire still make distinctly modern, distinctly European music. [Apr 2017, p.59]

Kavain Space's freaky beats are done with a logic that maintains a crucial connection with dancers, even as it bamboozles, tests and wrongfoots them. Still, the rigor is exhausting, even alienating. [Jun 2013, p.46]

Lipstate's ability to evoke surprising antecedents strengthens her music's universality. [Jan 2015, p.67]

Nelson used to use his voice to give focus to soundscapes; now they are means to express some uneasy feelings about country and relationships in the 21st century. [Dec 2019, p.52]

The Sisypheans is a work of personal reinvention that succeeds in open-armed, accessible fashion. [Dec 2019, p.56]

Even the occasional instances of hypergloss cinematic texture and vaporwave mannerisms have their place, glueing together spikes of noise, luscious organ reverberations and feverish glitch pulses into a synthetic yet intensely human whole. [Aug 2022, p.50]

Although the rest of the songs vary in sugar content and heart rate, the most potent dose of hyper-colour twee may be "Learning To Relax," which sounds like Yacht remixing The Polyphonic Spree for an iPhone advertisement aimed at Junior High students. [Feb 2015, p.44]

It's an engaging excursion and a good aesthetic fit for the Blackest Ever Black label, but not really a definitive Prurient release, and ultimately Through The Window leaves the impression of the closing of a chapter, a passage to someplace new. [Feb 2013, p.54]

Her most powerful album to date, both vivid and serene in its uncanny way of slowing the pace of time. [Mar 2019, p.61]

A band aware of where they’ve been but also reconnected and plotting a future. [Nov 2023, p.46]

They're both adept at the refined art of turning nothing new into something memorable. [#207, p.61]

Summoning Suns is too derivative to be a major work, but it shows promise. [Mar 2015, p.46]

Black Girl Magic is Honey Dijon’s most personal work to date. Over 15 tracks, Dijon collaborates with notable guests like Josh Caffe, Hadiya George, EVE, Mike Dunn and Channel Tres. The energy here is infectious. [Dec 2022, p.64]

Whatever The Weather II showcases James’s creativity and technical mastery as much as her capacity for emotional subtlety, depth and warmth. [May 2025, p.62]

For those who appreciated the rigour of old, the new album might offer a challenge due to its lyrical sentiments and a base literalism that might be ironic. [May 2020, p.60]